Anderson Silva’s advisor’s have spent much of this week bemoaning the lack of big fights available for the long-time middleweight champion, but an unexpected call-out from Nick Diaz appears to have tweaked their interest.
“I think the idea of @SpiderAnderson vs @nickdiaz209 is pretty good. Let’s see what the @ufc thinks?” one of Silva’s managers Ed Soares told fans on Twitter.
Talk of the fight first emerged yesterday when Diaz’s manager Cesar Gracie released a statement declaring that Diaz has backed down from thoughts about retiring and is now looking for a fight with Silva either at a catchweight or at middleweight when he returns from a year-long marijuana suspension.
That would open up the possibility for the fight in February of 2013, though Gracie is still hopefully they can appeal the length of the suspension and perhaps have Diaz back in action before the end of the year.
So far the UFC have stayed silent on the matter, but Gracie says he’s set to meet with Dana White on Monday to discuss the matter.
Incidentally, prior to yesterday’s big news from Gracie, Soares had echoed sentiments from another of Silva’s handlers, Jorge Guimaraes, that not many of the UFC’s current middleweight contenders make sense for his client’s next fight.
Interestingly, while he too was talking up a potential fight with UFC welterweight champ Georges St.Pierre as the best option available, he also dropped Rich Franklin’s name into the mix.
“The only guy that Rich Franklin has ever lost to at 185 pounds is Anderson,” Soares pointed out to MMAJunkie. “So when you look at the 185-pound division, he’s definitely up in the mix as far as a contender. I think [Silva would] be interested in fighting Franklin again, just simply because he respects Rich a lot, and he feels that Rich was the guy that gave him the opportunity to fight for the belt.”
It’s true that Silva thinks highly of Franklin – he’s went on record before stating that ‘ace’ was the best opponent he’s fought during his title run – but it’s hard to see many fans getting excited for a third fight between them given how Silva dismantled him in their previous two encounters.
Unless Franklin were to start taking out his fellow middleweights in spectacular fashion I think most people would get behind a third fight with Chael Sonnen before this.
Realistically though, what people want is to see Silva presented with fresh challenges, and as things stand Nick Diaz would be as good a choice as any.
