Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz, Lower Body Injuries, and Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier
Aug 6, 2014 - 11:50:14 AM HYDEN BLOG: Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz, Lower Body Injuries, and Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

There were no major MMA events this past week, so I'll hit on several different topics here today.

First up, Anderson Silva has agreed to fight Nick Diaz in January. Both men are making their UFC return, Silva from injury and Diaz from retirement. This is an extremely exciting fight, but it's also a horrible matchup for Diaz. Silva is an incredible counter-striker, while Diaz is one of the biggest volume punchers of all-time. This sets up to be a fight where both guys stand and trade, and that favors Silva. One thing about Diaz, though, is that he has an incredible chin. If Silva is actually able to stop Diaz by strikes, that will really be something.

Silva is nearing 40, though, and he's also returning from a horrible leg break, so it's hard to say exactly what we can expect from him. However, I'm optimistic that Silva will be somewhat close to what he used to be. I think even 80% of what he used to be would still be pretty damn good, especially for an opponent who won't look to take him down. I would really like to see that, though. A ground battle between Silva and Diaz would be awesome. I'd love to see the counters and reversals and all that stuff between the two.

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Glover Teixiera vs. Phil Davis will take place at UFC 179. I would much rather see Teixiera fight Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, as I think that would be a better fight, and Johnson needs one more big win to get a title shot, in my eyes. Honestly, I'm not all that excited to see Teixiera vs. Davis. I haven't been very impressed by either guy, though Glover did show big toughness when he was being beaten all over the cage by UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones. The fact that Jones couldn't finish Teixiera speaks to how tough he is. Other than that, I think both guys have laid duds more often than not. This is true of Davis much more so than Teixiera, but neither have been all that impressive to me.

This is a nice fight, but the UFC has it slated as a co-main event for UFC 179. Let's see, it's not a title fight. It's not a No. 1 contenders fight. It's not a fight between two guys who are exceptionally popular or are former champions. Both guys are coming off losses in which they were dominated. Yep, that's a UFC pay-per view co-main event in 2014.

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Brandon Thatch recently suffered a major toe injury that will take him out of his fight with Jordan Mein. He posted a picture and it's a pretty gnarly-looking pic. Joe Riggs shot himself while cleaning his gun and has a huge hole in his leg because of it. Again, you can find the pictures if you want, it's definitely not a pretty sight. The pics are a lot more graphic than Thatch's injury, though Thatch's toe bone visible through the skin is pretty gross in its own right.

Combine that with the severe leg injury suffered by Indiana Pacer Paul George and it's been a bad week for the lower body in sports. Hopefully the rule of three holds up and we don't get any more severe leg injuries happening in the sports world. I know Thatch and Riggs aren't huge names, but it still sucks to see them lost to injury because I think their fights would have been pretty watchable, and that's not something you can say about a growing numbers of UFC fights lately.

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Last week Jon Jones posted a video to Instagram of himself getting stitched up. Jones had suffered a gash above his left eye. Jon is scheduled to fight Daniel Cormier at UFC 178. Cormier took the opportunity to say on social media that he was going to take Jones down and grind his elbow into that cut. He also told Jones that some things should stay private. That's fine, I expect such bravado from him in a case like this.

What's not fine, though, is the logical fallacy so many people in the media made when talking about this. I don't know how many times I read or heard someone say something to the effect of "Jones shouldn't have said this, it gives Cormier a bullseye to aim for."

The first logical fallacy of saying this is that they're assuming that Cormier wasn't planning on punching Jones in the face in the first place. Of course he's going to be punching Jones in the face. He might mix it up with some body shots, but the majority of his strikes are going to be to the face. It was the left eyebrow of Jones that was cut, so every right-handed punch that Cormier throws is likely to hit around that area, if it lands.

Perhaps I'm being pedantic. If we dismiss the first logical fallacy, though, we're still left with the second (and biggest) logical fallacy. Daniel Cormier has a torn LCL in his left knee and an ACL that is only about 50% there. I think that's a hell of a lot more important than some cut on an eyebrow. Cormier has even said that he'll be disappointed if Jones doesn't target his knee, obviously in an attempt at reverse psychology. As he insisted that his knee is fine, which isn't true as he was going to have surgery before accepting this fight, and even inviting Jones to target it, he put an even larger bullseye on his knee than would be there otherwise. There's no mention of that, though, just that Jones has made a critical error by revealing this eyebrow cut. Cormier's knee is a much bigger target than an eyebrow cut, and it will factor into the outcome a lot more as well.

Again, I expect Cormier to say such things. What I don't expect is for so many in the media to follow suit. This is the same type of logical fallacy that defined Chael Sonnen's career. Sonnen would make some bombastic comment and far too many would parrot it back as if it were fact. These guys are engaging in gamesmanship, it's not to be taken seriously. Cormier made his comments to Jones as a tactic in a shell game. He wanted to distract and draw attention away from his injured knee, and apparently it was extremely effective. I didn't know that Cormier was capable of such Jedi mind tricks.

I did also want to mention that I'm not going to mention that "fight" they had at their staredown the other day either. The less said about that fabricated garbage, the better. This only hurts the UFC and their reputation.

Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank