Making The Case Why Randy Couture Should Fight Anderson Silva At UFC 112

I made the case all the way back in September, 2008 and a lot of people thought I was crazy for it.  Check it:

 

I know you are saying to yourself..."Couture fights at HW"...this I know. However, as you know he is the former UFC LHW champion and is a relatively small HW. Normally I would say that Silva would destroy Couture because of the difference in striking ability. However, I think Couture could possibly pose some interesting problems for Silva with his wrestling/clinch game. Silva could possibly make it interesting on the ground with his underrated BJJ game. This fight accomplishes three things:

Would be a HUGE PPV draw

Couture could fight someone that's a legitimate best P4P guy

Couture would pose an interesting challenge to Silva

To put it in perspective, Couture was seeking to prove himself as one of the best P4P fighters in the world while trying to get a fight with Fedor.  That fight was never going to happen, so the next best thing would have been Anderson Silva.  Now that Vitor Belfort has pulled out the middleweight championship fight with Anderson Silva at UFC 112, its a perfect opportunity to insert Couture into the picture.  It seems as if Sonnen will not be able to take the fight because of the damage absorbed in the Marquardt fight.  It wouldn't be right to do Marquardt/Silva after he just took that beating from Sonnen.  Demian Maia is out with an eye injury.  Yushin Okami lost to Chael Sonnen as well, plus he's not a PPV draw at all.  Quite frankly, this is the best possible solution out there.

The 3 bullet points I posted up above way back then STILL hold true now.  I've been in the midst of all the Couture isn't a top 5 light heavyweight talk.  This is a way to give Couture INSTANT credibility in regards to a title shot as a light heavyweight with a win over arguably the best fighter on the planet.  Not to mention that Silva is coming off of an absolute destruction of top ten light heavyweight Forrest Griffin at UFC 101.

Let's talk logistics.

If not injured, I'm pretty sure Chael Sonnen would have been offered this opportunity and both he and Couture just fought on the same card at UFC 109.  Couture came out of the Coleman fight at UFC 109 relatively unscathed.  The UFC 112 event will take place on April 10th, which would give Couture roughly 7 weeks of training provided he wanted to take a week off somewhere in between.  

He has been fighting often with 3 fights in the last seven months, but it's clear that he isn't getting any younger and he may never get this opportunity again.  It's being rumored that Couture could take on Rich Franklin at UFC 115in Vancouver, but if I had to choose between which fight I would want to see.  It would be no-brainer.  I think Couture has 3 fights left on his current contract.  If the UFC is serious about putting him into title contention, a win over Silva would justify it way more than a win over Rich Franklin.  Not only that the PPV would be way bigger than Couture/Franklin and Silva/Belfort could ever be in my opinion.  What say you?