Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping Possible to Headline UFC 110 in Australia
Wanderlei Silva, who had been expected to meet Yoshihiro Akiyama in the main event of UFC 110 on February 21 in Sydney, Australia, is now likely to make his middleweight debut against Michael Bisping in the UFC 110 headliner, as Fighters Only reports that the pair have verbally agreed to the bout.
The matchup between Silva and Akiyama was first reported in October, but was put in doubt last week when UFC President Dana White revealed that the promotion was “moving things around” following a rash of injuries suffered by many of their top fighters.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira may return to the Octagon against fellow heavyweight contender Cain Velasquez in the UFC 110 co-main event, though welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre’s upcoming title defense against Dan Hardy, which White recently mentioned as a possibility for the event, is now expected to take place on a different card.
Silva (32-10-1), the former PRIDE 205-pound champion, followed up a May 2008 knockout of Keith Jardine with back-to-back losses to Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Rich Franklin, but heads to middleweight for a fresh start after dropping five of his last six fights.
Bisping (18-2), the winner of The Ultimate Fighter 3, dropped down to middleweight in 2008 and won three-straight before suffering a knockout loss to Dan Henderson in July. The bounced back earlier this month with a second-round TKO of Denis Kang at UFC 105 in his native Manchester, England.
UFC 110 is also rumored to include Dong Hyun Kim vs. Chris Lytle, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic vs. Ben Rothwell, and Stephan Bonnar vs. Krzysztof Soszynski, while a middleweight matchup between Nate Marquardt and Chael Sonnen has been shifted to UFC 109.
For the latest UFC 110 rumors and UFC news stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com
Pictured: Wanderlei Silva
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This sounds betta than the Akiyama main event, i’ll rather see this fight happen, more excting with two decently big names…
Akiyama is one of the top Middle Weights in the world and has a HUGE name world wide, much bigger than Bisping actually……
big fight for the count if he can stay away from wandis big hits he will win easy but one hit and its game over good match up tho if it happens.
Bisping is a very well rounded fighter and has heart that allows him to suprise me sometimes, when he survives tough fights. I really do not think he hasnt beat anyone who he isnt supposed to beat or is favored to beat. His best fight to date, was a loss to Rashad. He is not a powerful puncher. He’s a point fighter,and retreats a lot. He wasn’t even close to the caliber of Henderson. If he cant KO Silva and he won’t he can only win by that boring retreat kick boxing. I guarentee Silva has the center of the octagon. And Silva is far better on the ground. I think Bisping is so scared to lose that he might make it a boring fight just to win and not be fighting to finish. If Bisping fights to finish the fight he will suffer another vicious KO like the Henderson fight. But he’ll be on his bike. Ive followed Denis Kang and he is a smaller 185er and he hasnt been fighting well, so that win was big for Michael, he showed something there, but Kang has not been a great fighter anymore. Bisping should have never called out Silva, I think the elite 170 guys would give trouble to bisping.
Bisping will have to use his Leben tactic to at least make it to the second rd
Wanderlei Silva will whoop his ass. I’m thinking another harsh knockout Like Hendo got him with.
wandy better be swinging for the homerun because the count is WAY mor technical then silva..Kick is AS$ bisping and shut these haters up!…
The only thing Bisping is more technical than Wandy at is running away from his opponents. Please, Bisping has been hyped well beyond his talent or skillset.
technical but not a finisher.
I can’t see bisbing taking this one if he does I think it will be by decision because silva might gas due to the long break but if it stays standing bisbing is in real trouble here
I think we’ll see Bisping try his hand at takedowns and ground ‘n pound, like he did in his last fight.
I think so to Justin and think thats the only way Bisbing has a shot if he can keep him down for the first round and a half and see if Vandy has some ring rust and gasses
one thing going against the g’n'p theory is silvas BJJ which should be far better that bispings?
Kang’s BJJ should have been far better as well.
My favourite fighter vs the fighter I despise most. This will either be a great night or an awful night for me! lol.
This fight will end one of two ways.
1) Wanderlei Silva by way of knockout (round 1)
or
2) Michael Bisping by Decision
Michael Bisping will either have the game plan of running from Wandy for 3 entire rounds and trying to pick him apart with counters and speed like he did Chris Leben or as mentioned by Justin above, he may try his luck with some take downs and ground and pound. Wandy’s jitz skills haven’t been tested in some time, but let’s not forget, the man is a BJJ black-belt.
On the other hand, I think it’s safe to say the count has a fairly week chin, if you can hit him. Hendo knocked him out and Kang had him rocked. Well, Wandy hits equally as hard as Henderson and harder than Kang…. So if he can land one of his wild, looping, over hand bombs or even get his clinch game working again, it will be lights out and Bisping will be down for the count.
I hope to god Wand Fight team properly prepares Wanderlei for this fight. He has had ZERO strategy going into his first 4 UFC fights. It’s pissing me off, his coaching and his training methods. I’m wishing he never left Chute Box….
Its silly to say Bisping has a weak chin, Kang caught him perfect on the temple and Hendo got him clean on the chin, anyone would have dropped from them. He recovered well from the Kang shot but to say he has a weak chin is not accurate.
I don’t think that Bisping has a “weak” chin but honestly if Silva hits him with power it will interesting to see how Bisping handles it, Kang dropped him and I’m rather sure that Wanderlei hits harder than Kang, and Wanderlei will go for the kill if he drops Bisping…. This is a good test for both, with it being Wanderlei’s first cut to MW and Bisping has wanted to fight him sooo, also if Rampage wishes to train with Bisping that will be interesting little add to the equasion..
Kang is also a BJJ black belt, we see how that worked out for him, but I do think that Wanderlei is much better than Kang.
Yeah agree, also i think anyone who gets hit with Hendos right hand will go down.
I really want to see silva get a decent win in the ufc so hope he pulls through.
Not everyone falls to Hendo’s right hand but I get what you are saying
well anyone who walks into it! ;o0
But a lot have, and know one falls to bispings right hand.
So much for the fights being signed to draw Japanese fans down under.
And I’m STILL not sure why Nate Marquardt is fighting Chael Sonnen, instead of either Bisping or Wand…
Because Dana, Joe and the rest of the UFC know damn well that Nate the Great will tear through any of those 3. Therefor by pitting him against Sonnen now, he can still fight the winner of Bisping/Wand just three months down the line for a chance to get another title shot at The Spider, sometime come summer or fall 2010. More fights means more money.
This will allow Anderson to defend against Belfort, take a 6 month break, fight at light-heavy again, then come back down and defend his middle-weight title, when he feels like it, a year from now.
Everyone knows damn well Nate and Hendo both deserved a second title shot already. It’s a shame Dana makes false promises to his fighters and let’s his reigning champs determine when and who they want to defend their title against.
My 2 cents.
Who did hendo beat to deserve a rematch? Or did he somehow get better without me knowing?
Good call!
I think Joe Silva should pull the old switch-a-roo, Marquardt vs Wandy, Sonnen vs Bisping.
And I think Wandy did a little fighting in Japan, enough to get at least a few fans to fly down
Thats what I’m talking about, el diablo.
I would think that a Marquardt-Wand fight would do big business pretty much anywhere, but so close to Japan?
Please.
A PRIDE legend and multi-time King of Pancrase?
They would need 2 calculators to count all of the money coming in off of that fight.
And in terms of the 185 ranks, Sonnen-Bisping, 2 guys coming off of impressive wins against respectable opponents, makes He11a more sense than they way this thing looks right now.
Maybe Joe Silva is hanging out too much with Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo…
Sonnen will give a good challenge to Nate.
While Sonnen fighting Marquardt is a bit questionable, I believe it’s only cause Chael just dominated a guy in Okami witch a lot of people thought to be in the top two or three in the MW division. After Sonnen’s last performance I think he in fact does deserve a fight with Marquardt,a lot more than Bisping or Wandi. We all know that Okami isn’t no punk he looked pretty bad in his last fight although.