Why Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz might break your heart, and why that matters

Anderson SIlva

Make your way through the maze of slot machines and virtual roulette wheels inside MGM Grand Hotel & Casino this Saturday night – past the trendy, one-word-name nightclubs, left at the food court, through the metal detectors and down the disturbingly steep escalator to the floor section of MGM Grand Garden Arena – and chances are you’ll be treated to something so weird it almost has to be good.

If not good, then at least interesting. And if not interesting, then at least illuminating. Probably sad, one way or another. Possibly inspiring, the way movies about lost causes and historical slaughters can sometimes be.

Anderson Silva (33-6 MMA, 16-2 UFC), the man who used to be the best, the man who suffered one of the most spectacular tumbles from the throne to the orthopedic surgery ward, will take on Nick Diaz (26-9 MMA, 7-6 UFC), the man voted least likely to give a [fudge] about how [fudging] great people say you are.

One’s a middleweight legend who may or may not be past his expiration date and in possession of skills diminished by broken bones and/or too much time off. The other is a welterweight enigma who doesn’t love us, doesn’t need us, and yet still can’t quit us.

Take this fight and drop it into the MMA world of two or three years ago, and it’s a laughable mismatch. Literally, people would have and did laugh at the thought. Back then Silva was the unquestioned GOAT, not just the best middleweight but probably the best to ever strap on a pair of four-ounce gloves. Diaz? He was well on his way to a 0-2 record in UFC welterweight title fights. When he showed up at the post-fight press conference after a one-sided loss to 170-pound champ Georges St-Pierre and suggested a fight with Silva next, it felt like a punchline.

Nick Diaz

Oh, Nick. You so crazy.

It’s still a little crazy, when you think about it. Only now it’s just crazy enough to seem like something you’ve got to see. It helps that Silva’s stock has dropped since then, thanks to one knockout loss and one stomach-turning leg-break loss, both at the hands of current champ Chris Weidman. It also helps that Diaz made good on his promise to take his payday and go home after the GSP fight. Few of us thought he meant it when he said he wasn’t coming back for anything less than a big fight for big money. This is what we get for questioning the resolve of a man who seems incapable of taking a backward step in an MMA fight.

That particularly Diaz brand of stubbornness is where the potential for some small-scale tragedy lies in this one, though. Or at least, it’s one of the hiding places for it. One thing we know about Diaz is that he can and will take a beating. Even against a nearly 40-year-old Silva, he seems undersized and outgunned, but good luck convincing him of that.

The unspoken promise of a Diaz fight is that he’ll walk forward, muttering insults and absorbing punishment while gesturing for more. The beauty of a Silva fight is that he will murder anyone who does this, and he will do it with a violent, artistic elegance. Or, you know, he used to do that.

There’s the potential for mini-tragedy No. 2. If Silva still is the man he once was, he’ll probably do something horrible to Diaz, who will probably make him keep doing it until we’re all a little sickened by the sight. Diaz doesn’t get knocked out, but he can be taken apart, which is often so much harder to watch. And if Silva does win, or so the UFC claims, it’ll earn him the right to take another crack at the UFC middleweight title. As long as Weidman holds that belt, this possibility feels a little like rewarding Sisyphus with another chance to shove that rock up the hill.

But then, if Silva isn’t that man anymore – if he’s too old or too rusty, if his leg is not so much rebuilt as it is just barely salvaged – that won’t be a pleasant sight either.

That’s why the question of endings haunts this fight. Whether it’s Diaz pocketing his money and walking away, or Silva figuring out just how far past his prime he’s willing to go, we’re going to get answers about an increasingly limited future.

We don’t necessarily have to like them. But somehow, it does seem important that we confront them.

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