Oh the tangled web the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) weaves.
A combination of injuries, timing, bad luck and fighter insurance has led to entire fight cards getting ravaged over the past year or so. Sure, any of the aforementioned issues are to be expected at some time or another but all at once?
The world's largest fight promotion is dealing with some bad juju.
That's how we went from Jose Aldo vs. Frankie Edgar for the featherweight title to a light heavyweight fight featuring the company's middleweight champion and a journeyman who was all but retired. Literally, the requirement to drag Stephan Bonnar off his comfy couch was that the opponent offered would have to have more Twitter followers than he does.
Anderson Silva, the pound-for-pound greatest fighter alive today, has the most of anyone in the UFC.
So here we are.
It's been a challenge for the UFC to promote such a mismatch, one that has a near record breaking betting line favoring "The Spider," but they've played on the Rocky theme, the potential for the biggest upset in MMA history, and just the hope that fans will tune in to watch the best in the world ply his craft.
Well, will you?