UFC middleweight world champion Anderson "The Spider" Silva

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You'll remember I posted up that Lesnar/Carwin had been moved to UFC 108 since Lesnar had to pull out of the scheduled UFC 106 fight against Shane Carwin.  UFC 108 was expected to feature Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort, and the much anticipated re-match between Shogun Rua and Lyoto Machida.  Well, neither of the two latter fights will be happening at UFC 108 according to MMAJunkie as they spoke with Silva's manager Ed Soares:

"The latest is he's not fighting Jan. 2," Soares said. "That's not going to happen. He won't be ready.  Anderson's recovery is going really, really well," Soares said. "He's coming back, and his recovery is doing really good. His physical therapy is going really well. He's getting better range of motion. He'll be back 100 percent for sure."

Of course Ed Soares changes what he says as much as the wind blowing changes direction.  Most people thought the surgery was a cover to get on a big ppv event that would earn Silva more money.  However, with Lesnar/Carwin now taking place at UFC 108, Silva would surely jump on that card if that was the case. 

Now according to Soares, Lyoto Machida has already had surgery on his left hand and will be out of action for a couple of weeks.  Which put the re-match with Shogun Rua in jeopardy of happening at UFC 108:

"Lyoto can't punch for at least six weeks, but most likely it will be about eight-to-ten weeks before he can start punching 100 percent. Most likely, he'll be able to start training by mid-January."

Soares also said that the injury happened a while back before the Shogun fight.  Machida basically just had bone spurs removed from his hand.  However, they indicated that they still wanted the re-match with Rua and that it would happen.  So now the UFC 108 fight card looks like this for now:

-Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin

-Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva

-Junior dos Santos vs. Gabriel Gonzaga

-Martin Kampmann vs. Rory Markham

-Carlos Condit vs. Paul Daley

-Tyson Griffin vs. Jim Miller

-Joe Lauzon vs. Sam Stout

-Dan Lauzon vs. Cole Miller

-Mark Munoz vs. Ryan Jensen