Could Anderson Silva One Day Hold Three Belts At the Same Time?

The day is May 8, 2010. After a grueling two rounds of striking and counterstriking, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua catches the champion. Lyoto Machida goes down hard. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua is proclaimed winner over Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida by third round knockout.

With Bruce Buffer making it official, "And new undisputed Light Heavyweight Champion of the world ..." Seven months of controversy ends, and the Shogun era begins.

That's just one of the things that absolutely must happen if my crazy future for Anderson Silva to happen.

And I'm already hedging my bets there. I've got Machida winning that fight by knockout.

But setting that aside let's wander a little further down this hypothetical future road. If The Dragon were to lose to Shogun in extremely convincing fashion, then nobody would be clamoring for a rubber-match fight.

Meanwhile, the UFC manages to put together the superfight fans have been clamoring for: Anderson Silva vs George St Pierre.

Brimming with confidence in his consensus best pound for pound figther in the world, Dana White will want this matchup to happen at Welterweight.

According to a recent interview, Anderson Silva is very interested in testing himself at Welterweight. As the former Shooto Champion at 168 lbs, "The Spider" can certainly make it at Welterweight.

And is there any Welterweight that fans would rather see Anderson Silva face than George? Absolutely not, it's GSP or nothing!

Of course it will be up to Dana White to make this a title fight -- a move that would be very good for pay per view sales. Good for sales + Good for publicity = Dana White will be all for it.

So what happens if Anderson Silva wins a Welterweight superfight with George St Pierre? He becomes the first ever champion to hold two titles in two weight divisions at the same time in the UFC.

Now back to our other story at Light Heavyweight. With Lyoto Machida left out in the cold with no title shot in his immediate future, who is the most compelling challenger to face Shogun next? You better believe it, Anderson Silva!

It reads a lot like a good novel. With Lyoto Machida defeated and left out of the title picture for the foreseeable future, Lyoto's best friend and steps up to defend his honor. Anderson Silva challenges Mauricio "Shogun" Rua for the the Light Heavyweight Championship.

If Anderson Silva wins that fight, he claims the triple crown -- becoming the first mixed martial arts fighter to ever hold three titles consecutively in the world best MMA promotion.

Since he can't possible keep up with title defenses for all three belts, he would have to vacate from two of them. Probably Welterweight and Middleweight.

Or he could retire from the sport completely. Nothing quite like going out with a bang, right?

Not a bad way to make your mark as the best fighter in the history of MMA Mr Spider!

Roy Nelson: The Frogfish That Ate the Lionfish

Sometimes you can just tell that an athlete is going to do great things just by looking at them. It's something about the way they carry themselves or the set of their eyes. There's an undeniable spark there and you can't help but feel it.

Roy Nelson is not one of those athletes. At 6' even, he's not particularly tall for a Heavyweight. He doesn't have muscles popping out all over the place. There's such a thing as an intimidating looking fat guy, and Roy Nelson isn't an example of it.

At Ultimate Fight Night 21, "Big Country" did it again. He went in against an opponent who could easily fit on a poster captioned: "This is what an MMA fighter is supposed to look like." Despite that fact, Nelson knocked out the physically impressive looking 6'11" 248 lbs Stefan Struve in 39 seconds.

It reminds me of something that happened at a local public aquarium where my wife worked a few years ago. One of the most interesting and intimidating looking creatures they had there was a Lionfish . With poisonous spines poking out in all directions and an aggressive disposition, you simply accepted that everything was going to stay out of this thing's way. And I must say, the lionfish just looked awesome.

In the same tank, there was another fish that was about the same size. It was a fairly hideous creature that I mistook for a painted rock the first time I saw it. As my wife informed me, this was a Frogfish . I never could get over how ugly the thing was, but I figured its natural camouflaging appearance would help it stay clear of the lionfish.

One day, when I was picking my wife up for work, I noticed the lionfish was gone. My wife informed me that the frogfish had swallowed the lionfish whole!

Roy Nelson is a lot like that frogfish and both Brendan Schaub and Stefan Struve were like the lionfish. To look at them, you'd have never imagined Roy Nelson would knock out both men in the very first round!

As fans, we look at him and we have a terrible time accepting that this squat fat man is one of the deadliest fighters on the planet. We can't imagine him beating top fighters at Heavyweight.

Roy Nelson has racked up a career record of 15 wins and 4 losses. Eight of those wins were by knockout. The only loss he has ever suffered by stoppage was to former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Andrei Arlovski. In a sport where undefeated records are close to non-existant, a stoppage loss to a fighter of that caliber is no great shame at all.

Roy Nelso was the two time defending IFL champion before ever coming to the UFC.

In short, Roy Nelson proved that notwithstanding his unintimidating appearance, he was a very dangerous man.

After two fights in the UFC, Roy Nelson has racked up the same result: First round knockout. Nobody in the UFC has made it to the second round yet!

But after winning The Ultimate Fighter 10: Heavyweights and two impressive victories in the octagon, I've got to wonder this: How many times does Roy Nelson have to prove fans wrong before they'll accept him for the elite fighter that he is?

It Begins

This blog is a long time in coming. After writing and commenting on Bleacher Report's MMA section for a long time now and hanging around in other MMA communities online, I'm finally deciding to take writing about MMA a little more seriously ... or perhaps I've decided to take my obsession with MMA to the next level. Is there a difference?

After going by Ed J Pickle McNasty III for well over a year, I changed my display name to my real name. It was a lovely pen name that I never figured would go anywhere, and I didn't care. But it's hard to be taken seriously when your name is a joke, right?

So much going on in the MMA world. "The fat kid who could," Roy Nelson is turning some heads with two straight first round knockouts. Shane Carwin is back in action and knocking out "the world's biggest loudmouth" Frank Mir. UFC 112 is almost upon us with it's two, "you seriously call this guy a title contender?" title fights.

Strikeforce is about to do their second CBS broadcast. The biggest shocker in the past two years: Alistair Overeem might actually defend his SF title!! I'm believing it when I see him in the cage.

That's all I got for now.