Marcelo Alonso/Sherdog.com
Anderson "The Spider" Silva
Drawing scorn for his lackluster April title defense against
Thales Leites, Silva was clearly in need of an interesting challenge. Now Silva, who has taken out elite welterweights and middleweights in his career, will have the chance to take out an elite light heavyweight at UFC 101 on Aug. 8 when he meets former 205-pound king
Forrest Griffin.
Yushin Okami is becoming more and more familiar with ill-timed injuries. After a hand injury lost him a potential shot against
Anderson Silva late last year, a knee injury and training removed him from his bout at UFC 98 against
Dan Miller.
Nate Marquardt is keen to rematch divisional ace Anderson Silva, who iced him in July 2007. In order to get another chance at "The Spider" and the UFC middleweight title, Marquardt will need to take out his biggest challenge since his bout with Silva in undefeated BJJ king
Demian Maia at UFC 102 on Aug. 29.
EliteXC’s one-time middleweight champion will look to pick up where he left off when his former employer closed up shop. “Ruthless” takes on fellow former EliteXC welterweight champion
Jake Shields in the headliner of Strikeforce’s June 6 bill on Showtime.
It was not without a bit of a brouhaha, but Henderson earned a split decision over
Rich Franklin at UFC 93 in Dublin, Ireland, on Jan. 17. Now, the former two-division Pride Fighting Championships titleholder has earned a lengthy promotional vehicle coaching against
Michael Bisping on the ninth season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” The season’s larger payoff will be a marquee bout against
Michael Bisping at UFC 100 in July.
Few fighters if any have been as impressive as
Demian Maia over the last 14 months. The road to a shot at the UFC middleweight title for Maia now runs through Nathan Marquardt at UFC 102 on Aug. 29.
In the first defense of his Sengoku middleweight title,
Jorge Santiago will be in for a rematch regardless, as
Kazuhiro Nakamura and
Kazuo Misaki square off on Aug. 2 in a title eliminator. It was Nakamura who Santiago bested to win Sengoku's middleweight tournament last November. Santiago followed that up by pulling out the fifth-round submission over Misaki in January to win the promotion's title.
No doubt wanting to erase the memories of his April title challenge against Anderson Silva, Leites has quickly accepted a bout with Italian striker
Alessio Sakara at UFC 101 on Aug. 8.
Early indications were that the new-look, middleweight Belfort would meet divisional stalwart
Gegard Mousasi under the Affliction banner in August. However, with Mousasi adamant on not cutting down to middleweight again, it looks like Belfort will be in for another opponent.
You'd be hard-pressed to find too many people who think of
Chael Sonnen as an elite middleweight. Fortunately for the Team Quester, results are what count, and with a dominant display over top-15 opposition in
Dan Miller, and
Gegard Mousasi's exit from the division, Sonnen re-enters these rankings.
Other contenders: Yoshihiro Akiyama, Michael Bisping Patrick Cote, Dan Miller, Frank Trigg.
*Having announced his departure from the division, formerly No. 3 ranked
Gegard Mousasi exits the middleweight rankings.
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