Is Nick Diaz vs Anderson Silva really a "Super Fight"?

by Ben Heather @benheather

Last Night Dana White announced that Anderson Silva had signed his fight agreement and will be returning to the octagon to face Nick Diaz in Jan '15. Silva will return after over a year on the sidelines due to the horrific leg break which occured when he fought Chris Weidman at the end of 2013.

Diaz will return after retiring in the octagon after losing his title fight against GSP in March '13. The fight was announced as being the main event of the UFC 183 event on Superbowl weekend and will be at middleweight.

However, when Dana tweeted that Anderson had signed and the Diaz fight was "done" he also added #superfight which got me thinking, is this really a "Super Fight" or not?

So i asked a couple of guys on the site the same question and below you can find out whether Kingdom MMA agree with Dana or not.

Chris Houten - @mrhouts

The UFC have every right to bill Anderson Silva vs Nick Diaz as a super fight. It's a coming together of two of the most popular fighters who wouldn't normally face each other due to being in different weight classes. No doubt Silva vs Diaz will do astronomical numbers, probably do double what the UFCs best pay-per-view does this year.

So I ask myself 'is Anderson Silva vs Nick Diaz a super fight' and the one thing that keeps coming up in my mind is how this will be one of the biggest selling fights of all time. So yeah, in that respect Silva vs Diaz is a super fight, but it's not a dream fight.

In fact, I'm not even sure I see this being a close match up. Diaz is a good boxer, one of the best in MMA in fact, but he is nowhere near the striker Anderson Silva is. Diaz is also giving up a lot of size against Silva, and while he might have better BJJ  (not that Silva is a slouch) I just don't see Diaz being able to get this fight to the ground. In fact, Diaz' only hope might be his superior conditioning, but that would mean he would need to take a beating in the opening round and then surge later on, not an easy task considering his opponent has laid out big 'ol boys like Stephan Bonnar, Forrest Griffin, and James Irvin, just to name a few.

So call this fight what you want, super fight, dream fight etc. just don't be surprised if we don't end with another Mike Tyson vs Michael Spinks.

Andreas Georgiou - @AGeorgiouMMA

It's a very tricky question. There is no doubt that it's a big fight, in fact a huge fight. I've not seen this much buzz over a fight announcement since Brock Lesnar vs Randy Couture. Looking at that fight in comparison, that was a huge fight, but not a super fight. A superfight to me is when two world champions face off, so I wouldn't call this a superfight, but it's as close to that description as you can get. Silva is a decent PPV draw, and Diaz is one of the UFC's biggest stars, I expect the PPV to do at least 1m buys.

Ben Heather - @benheather

Like Dre said, this fight is huge and I am certainly excited. Not only for the fight alone, but also the build up which comes with any Nick Diaz fight. It will certainly be a PPV success for the UFC but the question remains, is it a "Super Fight" and I don't think it can be. How can a fight be billed as a "Super Fight" when both guys are coming in to the fight on 0-2 runs and neither of them are world champions. If this fight is a Super Fight as both have been world champs (Diaz in Strikeforce) in the past then the upcoming UFC 178 fight between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier should also be a Super Fight and I don't think that is either.

Anderson Silva was the key to the super fights and when Chris Weidman knocked him out he also knocked out the dream of Super Fights for now in the UFC. Silva could have challenged GSP or Jon Jones, which would have been "Super Fights" if they were all champions as was the case at the start of July '13.

For me the only "Super Fight" that could now happen in the UFC is Jon Jones vs Cain Velasquez at heavyweight. All the other champs either have a long list of contenders or have just been crowned the champ.


Thats the take of some of the writers at Kingdom MMA, let us know your thoughts on whether you think it is a super fight or not.