Anderson Silva, Ed Soares excited about "old-school" matchup in new UFC 112 title fig

For at least one day, one of the world's top pound-for-pound fighters was just like every MMA fan in the world: He was wondering who the UFC would pick for him to fight next.

UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva (25-4 MMA, 10-0 UFC) found out on Thursday, along with pretty much the rest of the MMA world, that title challenger Vitor Belfort had been forced to withdraw from a planned UFC 112 bout on April 10 in Abu Dhabi due to a shoulder injury.

Then on Friday, Silva found out just hours before the UFC made its official announcement that Demian Maia (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) had agreed to fill in. "The Spider" smiled, and his mind was immediately brought back to the early days of the UFC.

"I think it's a very interesting matchup," Silva told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) for The Dallas Morning News through his manager, Ed Soares. "I think it's MMA's best striker against MMA's best grappler. I think it kind of brings back the old-school UFC of standup fighter vs. grappler."

The UFC brass agrees with the assessment, and Friday's official announcement of the fight noted precicesly the same observation.

"Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia will be a matchup between MMA's best striker and MMA's best grappler," UFC president Dana White stated in the release.

While White is an occasional source of hyperbole, it's hard to argue with him on this point.

Silva owns 15 of his 25 career wins by knockout or TKO, and many of them have come in devastating fashion (as Rich Franklin, Forrest Griffin, James Irvin, Chris Leben and Nate Marquardt can attest). Meanwhile, in addition to his extensive credentials in the grappling world, Maia has put those talents to work in the cage, as well, claiming four "Submission of the Night" bonuses in his seven UFC appearances.

"Anderson was very motivated to fight Vitor," Soares said. "He was taking that camp very seriously, and now he's going to be taking the Demian Maia camp very seriously.

"I think Demian is a professional. He's a great person. He's a very humble guy, and he's a very talented guy. This is the classic, old-school MMA fight where it's the world's best grappler against the world's best striker. It's got that old-school feel."