With the UFC making its jump to network television this weekend, the entire MMA world is eagerly anticipating the heavyweight title fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos.
With so much hype surrounding the main event, it almost feels like the UFC is at a standstill, but behind the scenes the ZUFFA machine is still moving along and they have got to be close to working on the next main event to air on FOX.
With the UFC set to have four fights on network TV next year, it seems obvious that they would do one in each quarter, and the earlier they capitalize on what is sure to be a huge event this weekend, the better.
Ideally, the next Fox event would take place in early March 2012, which leaves the UFC with two big fights that it could promote for the card.
The first is a light heavyweight battle between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans, which would be great, except that this scenario would depend on Jones defending his UFC title against Lyoto Machida at UFC 140.
The second is the most anticipated fight of 2012, Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II.
Putting Silva vs. Sonnen on FOX makes sense on so many levels, and the fact that it would be for the UFC middleweight title only strengthens the argument.
Over the past five years, no fighter has come close to dominating the sport like Anderson Silva has, taking out every fighter he has ever fought with relative ease.
The only fighter to have come close to defeating him was Sonnen.
Sonnen dominated the first fight against Silva for 23 minutes of the scheduled 25-minute fight, before “The Spider” miraculously pulled off a fight-ending triangle choke to save his championship.
While many fans have sworn that this fight just added to the legacy of the greatest fighter ever to live, Sonnen supporters (and Sonnen himself) have repeatedly stated that the win was a fluke.
Sonnen’s insistence that Anderson got lucky is really what makes this fight so interesting.
No one in MMA can hold a candle to the verbal beatings that Sonnen dishes out every time a microphone is put in front of his face, and his constant barrage of insults towards the champion has made the upcoming fight even more interesting than the first.
While an argument could be made that the UFC should save this fight for PPV, it really doesn’t make sense.
Silva has never been a huge draw as far as PPV numbers are concerned, and outside of true MMA fans, the general public hasn’t even heard of Chael Sonnen, so why not throw the best fighter in the sport up against the best talker in the sport for the world to see.
As good as FOX has been at promoting the Velasquez-Dos Santos fight, neither fighter exactly oozes charisma the way that Sonnen does.
If the UFC can convince him to tone it down just a little, he can do as much promoting with his mouth as FOX can with its commercials.
To throw any other fight on FOX early next year would be the wrong business move for the UFC, and Dana White and company are some of the best businessmen in sports.
With that said, fans shouldn’t ask, they should beg Dana White to put the rematch for the middleweight title on FOX.
The UFC always says they give fans the fights they want to see, and by putting Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II on network TV, they would give more fans a chance to do just that.
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