Between all the craziness involving Kimbo Slice and Conor McGregor, the world of mixed martial arts has all but ignored a major fight coming up this weekend: Anderson Silva is set to make his return against Michael Bisping at UFC Fight Night 84 in London. What’s even better: the fight will air on UFC Fight Pass rather than a pay-per-view, which means it’ll only cost you a $10 membership to see it!
Silva is returning to the cage from a year-long suspension after testing positive for a laundry list of banned substances. He claims it was all the result of a mysterious sexual potency pill a friend gave him in Thailand, and if there’s a sketchier sounding excuse for failing a drug test out there, I don’t want to hear it.
But now the former pound-for-pound great is looking to put that embarrassing incident behind him and get back to fighting. And while Michael Bisping may not be the biggest name or toughest opponent the Spider could be facing, it’s worth noting that his only losses are to the best in the division, and many of those were close decision losses to fighters on testosterone replacement therapy.
Arguments have been made that Bisping would have fought for the middleweight title a couple of times in his career if he had been facing off against non-enhanced competition. Now that USDA-style testing has come to the UFC, he’ll get his chance to prove those arguments right. That’s if he can still hack it at 36 with a borderline functioning right eye.
Bisping and Silva step into the cage on February 27 and it’s the biggest fight the UFC has ever put on Fight Pass. If you like seeing high caliber matches like this in Europe and on the UFC’s streaming service, consider putting your money where your mouth is and signing up. It’s definitely a great value, especially compared to a $60 pay-per-view price tag.
If the price doesn’t convince you, perhaps some promotional hype will. UFC Brasil has put out a special Anderson Silva comic book on its Instagram account that follows his rise to fame:
It’s a little creepy, but gets the idea across: the Spider is back! What happens next is anyone’s guess.
