‘Spider’ Silva’s Career Outlook

For a fighter, there’s real danger in marking a calendar years in advance: you just don’t know when injury, illness, age, or fresher talent will rip it to shreds. This hasn’t dissuaded Anderson Silva’s manager Ed Soares from telling MMAWeekly that Silva has “eight or nine” bouts left “for sure,” and “maybe more.”

If it pans, some of those fights are going to have to be exhibitions: if Silva can get past Vitor Belfort and a deserving Nate Marquardt, the 185-pound division is tumbleweeds. If friend Lyoto Machida remains champion, he can’t be picking off contenders at 205 pounds. The UFC has already vetoed Silva’s intent to fight at heavyweight. New faces will continue to pop up, but if the day comes that Silva is defending a belt against the middleweight equivalent of Dan Hardy, he’d be better off fighting traffic back home in Curitiba.