(The battle of the chins, ladies and gentlemen. One figurative, and the other literal. Which will reign supreme?)
It looks like Mayor McCheese has granted Roy Nelson a temporary reprieve from his Facebook sponsored drop to light heavyweight, as it is being reported that the TUF 10 winner has been booked to square off against former EliteXC heavyweight champion Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva at UFC 146 in May.
Continuing the UFC’s ongoing trend of purging Strikeforce of any remaining talent, it was rumored a couple months ago that Silva would be facing Cain Velasquez for his UFC debut, which was tentatively set for April. Rumors quickly shifted to a possible Velasquez/Frank Mir matchup, and “Bigfoot” was all but forgotten about in the mix of things. After shocking the world by handing Fedor Emelianenko his first (T)KO loss since December of 2000 at last year’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva card, “Bigfoot” would find himself on the wrong end of a slightly less shocking KO loss to Daniel Cormier in the semifinals of Strikeforce’s long running heavyweight tournament in his last contest.
This may be a must win situation for Nelson, who has dropped three of his last four fights (all by unanimous decision), most recently getting sliced and diced by Fabricio Werdum, who also holds a win over Silva, for three rounds at UFC 143. “Big Country” will again find himself with a huge size disadvantage — nearly 9 inches in reach and around 20 pounds in weight. Perhaps this is Dana White‘s way of forcing Nelson to come to the same realization as that of his own, by beating it into him.
Then again, Nelson is a BJJ black belt with a granite tungsten chin, whereas Silva is a BJJ black belt who has shown a tendency to get rocked in many of his fights despite having a jaw that would make that one prisoner from Tango & Cash green with envy. Unless Silva manages to out grapple Nelson, or somehow submit him, you have to imagine this is fight is essentially Nelson’s to lose.
UFC 146 is set to go down at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 26th, and features a heavyweight title clash between Alistair Overeem and Junior Dos Santos as its headliner. Make your picks, Potato Nation.
-J. Jones