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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
With Dana White announcing plans for Anderson Silva to face Chael Sonnen next on today's edition of ESPN's Jim Rome is Burning, MMAJunkie.com now reports that the bout is in the works for an August 7 event that could be coming to Salt Lake City, Utah.
The event would mark the UFC's first trip to Utah, and may or may not be a pay-per-view card. The MMAJunkie.com report speculates it could potentially be the site and date for UFC 117, and the UFC is eying the EnergySolutions Arena, which is the home of the NBA's Utah Jazz.
Sonnen worked his way into Title contention with a three fight win streak that included dominating decision victories over Dan Miller, Yushin Okami, and most recently Nate Marquardt at UFC 109 in February.
White stated today that a repeat performance by Silva after Saturday's embarrassing five round decision over Demian Maia could result in the Middleweight Champion being cut by the organization.
Penick's Analysis: I really hope, if this is the event they're putting together, that they make it a Spike TV event. Unless they want to use this card to test out their base level of pay-per-view customers, because as I said earlier today people won't want to pay for this fight, then it's a bad idea to put it on pay-per-view. Silva right now has hurt his drawing power in these Title fights against competition that fans don't believe in, and despite Sonnen's recent wins over Okami and Marquardt, he's still nowhere near a proven draw for fans. People will get behind him with some of the entertaining trash talk he's spouted off, but I think they're definitely going to have trouble selling this if it's a pay-per-view event.
RELATED STORY: UFC NEWS: Anderson Silva to face Chael Sonnen next, Dana White threatens to cut him: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]
[Anderson Silva art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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