Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin at July 19th UFC Event
Anderson Silva will make his light heavyweight debut against James Irvin at a rumored July 19th Spike TV UFC event according to MMARated.com.
Silva (21-4), the UFC’s middleweight champion, is undefeated inside the octagon, winning all six of his UFC bouts. He holds UFC victories over Chris Leben, Rich Franklin, Travis Lutter, Nate Marquardt, and Dan Henderson. He last fought in March, submitting Henderson in the second round at UFC 82.
Irvin (14-4) is just 3-3 inside the octagon but has won his last two straight UFC bouts. In April, Irvin tied the UFC record for quickest knockout with an 8-second victory over Houston Alexander at UFC Fight Night 13.
Silva will not vacate the title and, barring a loss in the main event, will fight at both 185-pounds and 205-pounds in the future according to F4WOnline.com. If Silva is victorious in his light heavyweight debut he may fight former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell in the future.
Brandon Vera and Cain Velasquez are also expected to be in action at the July 19th event, which will likely take place at The Pearl at The Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com for the latest UFC news and UFC rumors.
Tags: Anderson Silva, James Irvin
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Nice thatd be awesome..my moneys on Silva … I hope this happens
Im definitely looking forward to seeing how silva does at 205…Im sure he will kick some ass but I highly doubt he will dominate like he did at 185
true that, he won’t dominate, but i’m pretty sure irvin is gonna get pwn’d considering he couldn’t deal with stephan bonnars ground game. and silva’s way too intelligent of a striker to get ko’d like alexandar. this might be the prequel to silva vs wandy which would be awesome. i wonder how happy bisping is right now to hear that silva is lookin to move up, haha
Silva will do fine at 205. Does this mean that he will stay at 205, or will he continue to hold the best at 185? Will he be allowed to bounce back and forth? Will they give him the chance like Pride gave Hendo to hold 2 titles?
Ive heard for awhile now they were wanting him to move up to 205 since he has been beating up everyone at 185 so im sure he will stay there. Im sure he will do fine also but man those guys have a lot better chance at knocking him out then the 185 guys. Look at Irvins bad ass flying knee or his superman punch against houston lol, I hope he doesn’t land one of them on silva!
If he does expect Silva to be back at 85 real fast…
Absolutely bizarre if you ask me…why would the UFC want to waste Silva’s LHW debut on a non-PPV card? The UFC still has more than 200 fighters on contract – don’t tell me that Joe Rogan couldn’t fill the July 19th card with a bad-ass main event other than this. I will still buy the Affliction PPV and TiVo this one.
Silva will do good at 205 until he gets in there with the big people….Chuck, Rampage, Silva just to name a few
MAN I WANTED TO SEE THE ANDERSON/OKAMI FIGHT. DO YOU THINK THEY’LL STILL HAVE IT. CUZ ITS RUMORED FOR OCTOBER I THINK
YZ
I think it would depend on Silva’s health after the Irvin fight. If he gets injured or gets a better contender I could see his Okami fight being canceled and Okami getting Franklin or Hendo.
WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK OF THE OKAMI AND ANDERSON FIGHT….
BUT IM STOKED TO ANDERSON IN LHW….
That division is so deep… If he can make it to the top I think it would solidify his place in MMA for sure.
Possibly a Silva vs. Jardine once he destroys Irvin. Maybe Wand or the winner of Chuck vs. Evans.
I see lots of potential good fights out there…this one included.
This is going to be awesome. I can’t wait to see it.
I see Silva moving up and dominating. He is a f-ing beast. We will have to wait and see what happens but I really see Silva becoming the next long term LHW champ. I’m usually wrong but we’ll see.
Believe me Anderson Silva is no underdog in the Light Heavy Weight Division with his speed/timing/accurateness he’ll be blowing all the non top contenders out of the water, the best fights for him to win are Wanderlei / Jardine cause they’ll stand with him.
Wanderlei will lose cause of his reach disadvantage. Plus Wanderlei’s Hands and Kicks aren’t as Accurate
Jardine cause of his weak chin, 1 knee good night.
Challenges for him are Liddell / Rampage / Machida.
Liddell has his reach / power / timing covered, but how does he deal with the quickness of Silva. If anyone hasn’t realized Silva has a amazing chin to go along with that never been Knockout I might add.
Rampage has the Strenght and Wrestling over Silva ,but if he thinks he’ll stand with him he’ll be eatting a knee with the Muay Thai of Silva and lights out. Ground and Pound is his only chance or a lucky punch on the button.
Machida has the chest match game like Silva 1 wrong move and your paying for it, But if you makes a wrong move you probably Knockout or Submitted. With Machida 1 wrong move means he wins the round.
Not a Anderson Silva nut hugger just trying to state facts and give people my view on Silva in this Division
Silva at 205 means we’re going to see an even scarier fighter because he is a very lean fighter at 185 and would need to add considerable muscle weight to get to 205. With the added weight and strength here will be even more knockout power, so Silva should be a true force at LHW. If he can (and did) beat Hendo, who oscillates between MW and LHW and held both belts, he has more than a punchers chance at LHW. I expect him to shake up that division and continue to redefine what a top-ranked MMA fighter is like in 2008.
I think we will have to see what Silva looks like at 205. Definate potential to dominate, but I think his problems would be with someone who tries (and can) man handle him…
Silva is the clear #1 P4P right now, but I think he seriously threatens that status by moving up to 205. He should get past Irvin without that much trouble, but if he faces a guy like Chuck or Rampage and gets KO’d, he loses all his mystique when he drops back down to 185. Then someone like Marquardt will have a much better shot at beating him.
He’s so good, you can’t not want to see him fight the top guys in the next weight class, but I think his era of dominance will be shortened by moving up.
6 months to a year from now, BJ Penn will be fighting GSP for the number 1 P4P.
Boring news. Who cares about Silva. Let me predict his next fight. Silva will punch, then kick, then knee his opponents face. Good, I just saved you $39.99!
dana white is a freakin genius. we get to watch silva, the #1 p4p fighter fight for free! i can’t believe people are complaining about this, not true fans if u ask me. y wouldn’t anyone want to watch him fight? this is the beginning of many awesome fights to come with him competing at 205 now. i still can’t wait to see him whup bisping though.
This is a DANERGOUS fight for The Spider man! Irvin has a killer punch! This shoudl be a stand up war. However, the one thing that I believe Silva has to his advangtage is he’s still faster, and he’s more well rounded. He can come up with more ways to win than Irvin can. Silva has submissions and everything. However, I believe that it will stay standing and if it does, it’s going to be interesting to see who drops first. Both of these guys have SICK punching power. I wonder how effect Silva’s clinch will be at 205 where guys are much stonger and will be able to defend against that better. This is a TREMENDOUS opportuinty for Irvin to make a HUGE splash in the MMA world.
I have a feeling of an upset in this match.
Irvin has seriously dangerous power in his fists and the weight issue is a big deal nomatter how good you are.
silva will have speed with his hands yes, but someone said “how will chuck deal with that ” well, do you have to remind yourself how fast he KO’d tito to the ground?
CHuck is STILL a very dangerous and FAST striker. Anderson Silva vs Chuck Liddell could be beter than liddell vs Wandi.
Anderson could do VERY well at 205, but, I have to agree with some others, that he has a much higher chance of getting beat in this division.
Forrest Griffin has got some damn good moves, he demolished Shogun in style, I think he could give Anderson Silva a match and a half.
There are just soooooo many good fighters in the 205 range, which outnumber the amount of good contenders at 185.
All I say is, bring back Big John McCarthy so if these killer match up fights go ahead, that Mirgliotta won’t be stopping them asap.
ha ha
Silva in 2. Easy peasy.
Silva is a good fighter…but moving up to 205? I think this is a bad idea…I mean who really dominates this weight class?? I would say no one, theres just too many good fighters in that weight class..chuck, rampage, forest, wandi, machida, jardine, evans…you get the point, plus at 205, guys can get caught and KO’d real quick, not sayin that doesn’t happen at 185 but you see it alot more in the lhw division example: chuck vs rampage…but Im excited to see how he does..
I think he realizes that 205 is where the great paychecks will come to him. Its a balls out move though anyone(top 20) at that weight can be dangerous.
In response to the people who wonder how people could complain about this… I just wish they would have announced it sooner, for the people (like me) who are using UFC 86 as an opportunity to take a nice vacation to Vegas… as of now I’m scheduled to come home TWO DAYS before this new event. If they would have said something a month or three ago, I could have stayed the extra few days and bought a cheap ticket to this one (since it will be in a small venue, and all the seats should be good). So THAT’S why I’m mad: because this fight is happening, and I don’t get to see it LIVE, when I very easily could have. Gah.
The reasons of why silva dominated the 185 pound division is his superior striking and great ground game.That means no one did best than him in those areas.In the 205 pound division these factors are absent ,we have a lot of guy with great jits , a lot of guys with great punching power and technique ,and silva has been prone to get taken down , which is really dangerous for him in this division ,cuz it has some of the best wrestlers , and those guys are not going to submit silva but ground and pound him , for example rashad evans can put silva on his back in no time. he did with tito , which is better wrestler than silva.
So , i think that silva dominated the other division because no one can match up with his striking and submissions , but in these divisions they gap gets closed.
What doo you guy”s think about Forest vs Anderson Silva? I think it would be a great fight!!! I think many peapole forget that anderson also gonna be lot bigger at 205, but if his movment are 90% of his in the middelewhigt i think he moving better than Forest and hit harder and gonna TKO on Forest. Dont forget that Anderson have belive it or not more knockout power in 205… I Only see Forest Win a close decison, he can not win on anderson on a nother way. And i think after Anderson beat Irvin with a TKO in first round he shuold get the match with Forest, he is the best FIghter in the world and it would be silly if he must fight more fights before he meets Irvin. But you never get too now, let Rampage meet Wanderlei agian:)