If Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva manages to defeat Chael Sonnen at the UFC 148 pay-per-view (PPV) event on July 7, 2012 for a second time, the pickings for his next opponent will be next to slim.

Sure, Hector Lombard was brought into the promotion to stir up the 185-pound class, but he still has to get past a tank of a man in Brian Stann on Aug. 4 at UFC on Fox 4. There is always a rematch against Dan Henderson, but what would another victory over "Hendo" do for "The Spider's" legacy?

Fight fans (and pundits) have hoped that Silva would make the jump back up to light heavyweight in search of new challenges, such as taking on 205-pound division kingpin Jon Jones.

However, as he reiterates to Brazilian news outlet Tatame, that isn't going to happen, because he is simply going to let his teammates deal with "Bones" who, much like Anderson, is little-by-little cleaning out his own weight class before a potential move to heavyweight in the next few years.

Those comments after the jump.

"We have a couple of athletes on the above division, which are Rafael Feijao (Strikeforce), who's a big name in the division and Fabio Maldonado, who just fought and lost by points. We have many guys in this division. On my weight class, besides me in the UFC, there's (Ronaldo) Jacare in the Strikeforce. Our team focus on each of us and try to let us take our chances and take advantage of them, so we don't have this ambition of me going to the light heavyweight division and fight each other. I'm gonna leave it to Maldonado, Feijao or even Rogerio (Nogueira) too. They are on his weight division, so they'll deal with him."

The hopes that a Jones vs. Silva superfight would come to reality are all for naught, seeing as how Jones doesn't want any part of Silva, either. But do any of Silva's teammates, such as Fabio Maldonado, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira or Strikeforce contender Rafael Cavalcante, have a chance to dethrone Jones?

Of course, that's assuming Dan Henderson doesn't get the job done against the young champion in their "Sin City" showdown on Sept., 1, 2012.

Predictions?