Chuck Liddel vs Wanderlei Silva!

FORGET STRATEGY. Forget speed and agility. Nothing grabs the attention of fight fans like a good old-fashioned slugfest--especially when it’s brought to us by two great punchers who are each at the top of their profession and about to bang the living hell out of each other.

During UFC 61, UFC President Dana White called current PRIDE Middleweight Champion Wanderlei Silva (2001-present) to the octagon. The purpose? To officially announce that Silva will challenge current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell in a November 2006 title match, pending a successful title defense by Liddell at UFC 62 against Renato "Babalu" Sobral.

As far as I know, there’s no word from Sobral regarding the insinuation that the UFC big boys fully expect Liddell to still be the light heavyweight champion in November...

But the pending Liddell-Silva match is an unusual statement to say the least. For those of you new to the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) game, the UFC and PRIDE are two separate MMA leagues--the UFC is based primarily in the Americas; PRIDE is the Asia-based Mixed Martial Arts championship. For various reasons, the two usually don’t mix fighters.

By Cliff Montgomery, ExtremeProSports.com

accdg to Dirty: Ahhhh this fight…. was entertaining, the commentating was extremely biased. A fight that was six years in the making only had 3 rounds to be settled… hardly enough time. What stopped this fight from being a classic is the 3 round limit. I remember when Sakuraba got to fight Royce Gracie… it was unlimited time… the fight went on for OVER 1 HOUR!!! finally when the ref realized that Gracie wasn’t fighting to win but to survive it was stopped. If the fight had be stopped in 3 rounds it would have settled noting…. kind of like this fight, it really didn’t settle anything, just a win for Liddell which is what the UFC wanted. Too bad… specially seeing Liddell run away for the last half of the last round… too bad he was too chicken to try to finish it…. Rematch any one?