This Saturday Anderson Silva will once again step into the octagon. He will face one of the men that helped catapult the UFC into the quasi-mainstream several years ago — Stephan Bonnar.
On April 9th, 2005 Bonnar faced Forrest Griffin in the TUF Finale on Spike TV. Bonnar lost that slugfest. However, since that night, Bonnar has gone 8-5 in the octagon. It’s not bad. But it’s not great either. It’s almost like Dana White has kept Bonnar relevant as a massive “thank you’ gift. Based on record alone, Bonnar is basically the Pete Caroll of the UFC. He’s just hanging on, but just like Carroll, his plus attitude gives him an extra boost.
The man everyone really wants put in front of Anderson Silva is Jon Jones. Even Dana has talked about the potential of such a super fight publicly. He’s in. However, Silva and Jones are not.
“Anderson and Jones are saying, ‘hey, we’re buddies,’ or ‘we don’t want to fight’ or whatever the deal is,” White said in September. “But [Jones] didn’t want to fight Rashad either, and that happened.”
