POUND FOR POUND: Silva vs. Griffin

The Anderson Silva saga continues.

Faced with a middleweight champion who’s looked increasingly indifferent to the competition in his natural weight class in his last two outings, UFC President Dana White made good this week on his threat to book Silva into another fight at 205-pounds, this time against former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin at UFC 101 in August.

It’s the right move for a promotion trying desperately to goose Silva out of his current malaise. After giving every indication that he’s outgrown the UFC’s middleweight division while turning in nonchalant performances in back-to-back wins over Patrick Cote and Thales Leites, Silva needs a challenge.

This could be just what the witch doctor ordered. If the most dominant 185-pound champion in UFC history can’t return to form for a scrap with the always scrappy Griffin it’ll be a good indication that his MMA career is headed for, well, the scrap heap.

Silva’s previous foray into the light heavyweight division was an astonishingly swift and brutal KO of James Irvin at a free TV “Fight Night” event in July. For his second trip to the 205-pound realm, the always-cunning White has given him a far more difficult test.

Silva can’t expect to steamroll Griffin with the same ease as Irvin, nor will he have the option of wasting time trying to craft a “perfect fight,” as he alleges he has in his last two bouts against Cote and Leites. This is great news for fans who’ve quickly grown tired of watching Silva toy with overmatched opponents.

Griffin is the perfect foe to try to coax the best out of Silva in his second trip to light heavyweight. The Xtreme Couture product might well be an underdog here, but he could certainly take home the victory if “The Spider” doesn’t take him seriously.

On the feet, Griffin will be willing and able to chase Silva down and push the pace in a way that none of his last three challengers could muster. He’s also far from one dimensional, possessing the ability to take Silva down and avoid submissions while grinding out a lead on the scorecards.

It goes without saying that this is a great opportunity for Griffin. A victory would be a feather in his cap even larger and more lustrous than the one he got by defeating Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in September of 2007, back when Rua was the No.1-ranked fighter in the world.

Besting Silva would also immediately vault him back into contention for the 205-pound title he lost to Rashad Evans at UFC 92, especially if Silva teammate Lyoto Machida manages to take the title away from Evans when they clash at UFC 89 next month. Besting Silva would be the perfect set-up to a Griffin-Machida title fight.

For Silva, prospects are more mixed.

Certainly the UFC is starting to feel fed up with his recent antics. A fight with Griffin is a dangerous one for him, but also doesn’t live up to the kind of “superfight” that would result from a match-up with “Rampage” Jackson, Rua or even the recently retired Chuck Liddell.

It’s also another co-main event fight in another relatively small fight market (Philadelphia) and so questions persist about how the UFC feels about the middleweight champion’s drawing power. But at least this bout represents the step-up in competition he’s been hungering for.

In recent successful outings, Griffin has refined his brawling style into a more calculated attack. Still, he’s more than capable of turning this into a bar fight if Silva tries to get cute. The middleweight champ shouldn’t waste time dancing and goofing like he did against Cote and Leites. He should go right at Griffin, impose the kind of controlled ferocity he displayed during his first seven UFC fights and see how the slightly larger man responds.

If Silva wins, it’ll cement the UFC’s claim that he’s the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and mean he can be considered amongst the light heavyweight Top 10 as well.

In fact, if “The Spider” can be Griffin convincingly, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t consider a full-time move to 205-pounds, where there are more competitive fights and bigger pay days for a guy who’s already brought the middleweight class to its knees.

Chad Dundas edits the blog www.mma-america.com and writes a weekly column for Crave Online. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.