Mexican standoff: Silva, Hendo and the UFC

UFC president Dana White must be pulling his non-existent hair out. Middleweight champ Anderson Silva says that he wants to fight the winner of Dan Henderson and Nate Marquardt and will sit out until that happens in order to rest and recover from his recent fight with Forrest Griffin. Henderson says he won’t fight Marquardt and will only fight Silva or he’ll take his toys and go home (or up to the 205-pound division). And Marquardt, well, aw shucks, he says he’ll fight whoever the UFC puts in front of him.

Let’s think about this for a second. Silva needs to rest – from his beating of Griffin in 3:23 at UFC 101, during which Griffin only landed one strike. Right.

Henderson thinks his knockout of Michael Bisping, stunning as it was, makes him the automatic top contender. Never mind that Bisping isn’t exactly a gatekeeper on any level. Right.

And Marquardt is still happy to fight whoever the UFC puts in front of him.

Basically, what this Mexican standoff creates is a de facto tournament situation. Silva is forcing Hendo and Marquardt to fight to earn the right to challenge him. And that’s not a bad thing considering he only has three fights left on his contract and I’d hate to see two of them wasted on Hendo and Marquardt.

But if Henderson makes good on is threat what then? The answer is simple. Just line up Marquardt to face Yushin Okami, the legitimate number one contender. That would raise both of their profiles and whoever wins gets Silva. As for Hendo, pit him against Randy Couture, who has said he’s leaning toward dropping down to light heavyweight. That’s win-win if you ask me.