Reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva has stepped up on short notice to fight Stephan Bonnar at the UFC 153 pay-per-view (PPV) event, scheduled for Oct. 13, 2012 at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

As a light heavyweight.

"The Spider" took over the main event for Jose Aldo, who was booked to defend his 145-pound strap against lightweight import Frankie Edgar, until "Junior" was run down by a car and forced to withdraw. How Silva ended up facing "The American Psycho" left a lot of fans (and fighters) scratching their heads.

His manager, Ed Soares, breaks it all down for Spencer Lazara:

"I think it was just a matter of who was available at 205 and we kind of went through a process of elimination. There were only a certain number of opponents willing to take the fight and Stephan ended being the one that stuck. Stephan is a warrior. People can say what they want, does he deserve it, it's really irrelevant. We were trying to find a solution to a problem and Stephan Bonnar stepped up and took the fight. No one can underestimate what Stephan's done. The guy's constantly moving forward, he's not an easy guy to finish. It's going to be an action-packed fight, for sure."

Hear more from Soares on how the UFC 153 matchmaking came to be, after the jump.

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