UFC 77 Hostile Territory takes place this Saturday in Cincinnati. To go off on something here ... I don't know where they get the names for these shows. "Stacked" was more like "Shallow" and "Knockout" didn't have any. Is Cincy any more "hostile" than say, Las Vegas, or Atlantic City?
Maybe it is if your name is Anderson Silva, who won the UFC middleweight belt from Rich Franklin several months ago by kneeing his nose around the side of his face. Franklin just happens to be from Cincinnati. So, will the crowd will attack Silva on his way to the octagon, and wear him down enough so that Franklin will have a shot at winning back the belt?
Seriously, Franklin is known as a striker, but in order to win, he needs to avoid Anderson's Thai clinch at all costs. Box the guy, stick and move, make Silva miss. Then get a take-down and ground and pound out a unanimous deicison. Supposedly, Silva has an iron chin, so a KO might be out of the question. But he has been submitted before, once by flying scissor heel hook and once by a triangle choke. Franklin trains with Jorge Gurgel, who I believe, is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. This might be Anderson's Silva's Kryptonite.
So, if 2007 is the Year of the Upsets - Gonzaga over Cro Cop, Griffin over Shogun, Jardine over Liddell - than why not Franklin beating Silva?
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