For Anderson Silva’s next trick, a fight in which anything can happen – for real this time

LAS VEGAS – Serious question here: Is there anyone in the history of MMA who has provided us with more must-see TV moments than Anderson Silva? Is there anyone who’s been so brilliant at his best, so maddening at his worst, and at all times so impossible to predict?

I say no, which is why it feels fitting that this rematch with UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman (it’s been nearly six months, and I’m still not used to typing that) should be such a puzzle wrapped inside an enigma nestled deep within a sentient Rubik’s cube.

Admit it, you don’t know what’s going to happen in the main event at UFC 168 tonight. You might think you do, but you’re guessing. We all are, and we can’t stop. That’s what’s so great about it. It’s also what reminds us that Silva is a special fighter, and not just because he’s very, very good at fighting.

Think back to Silva’s darker days as UFC champion. Pablo Picasso had his Blue Period; Anderson Silva had his Bored Period. He toyed with opponents without putting them away. He shrugged his shoulders at our disdain. He visited just enough violence upon his foes to whet our appetites, then deliberately refused to do any more, as if he were trying to make us feel bad for having paid money to see one man hurt another. He did this so often and so obviously that UFC President Dana White even threatened to fire him.

That seems insane now, especially considering how much money Silva will make for White and the UFC in Las Vegas tonight, but it actually happened. That’s how bad it got.

But without that, we wouldn’t have this. We wouldn’t have an MMA legend so mysterious and mercurial that, even now, almost any outcome and any path to it seems plausible. Will he play around with Weidman all over again in the rematch, even though it got him knocked out the first time? I wouldn’t be surprised. Will he come straight out and try to demolish the young champion without so much as cracking a smile? That wouldn’t shock me either. Short of sitting down in his corner and weeping once the ref gives the signal to fight, there’s really not much Silva could do that would seem out of character, in part because he’s been so many different characters over the years.

It almost makes you want to believe that his whole career – the one-round destructions and five-round bizarro waltzes alike – were all preparation for this. It feels like he could do anything here, because he kind of already has.

That’s got to be part of Silva’s genius. It’s one thing to be great. Georges St-Pierre is (was?) great. So was Fedor Emelianenko, for a time. But with those guys, you pretty much knew what they were going to do. The spectacle was in watching them do it to other people who also knew what they were going to do, yet couldn’t stop it.

With Silva it’s different. It’s like he’s a performance artist who, having exhausted all other options, figured he had to get knocked out just to give himself a new challenge.

Against Weidman, he’s got it. And us? We’ve got a fight where it actually feels like anything could happen, which is something we say a lot in this sport but rarely believe. Seems appropriate that it should be Silva who’s responsible for it. Even after all his years in the spotlight, it still feels like the only thing we really know about him is that while we have no clue what he’ll do next, we don’t want to miss it.

For more on UFC 168, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.