At the moment of impact — that horrific instant when bone met bone in a gruesome collision — everything suddenly stopped. A fight. A career. Perhaps even the future.
Anderson Silva lay on the Octagon canvas grimacing in pain. That was 13 months ago. Certainly, to those who witnessed it, it seemed like the end.
Silva, his left leg broken, couldn’t stand on his own two feet, but he still could have walked away. He could have retired from the UFC, his legacy intact, his imprint on the sport untouchable. Who could have blamed him?
But it would have been anticlimactic. The greatest fighter in MMA history doesn’t go out on his back. Silva’s career is poetic, lyrical; anything less than a triumphant return wouldn’t have worked.
And so everything points toward Saturday night and UFC 183, his rebirth of sorts, a comeback fight against Nick Diaz at MGM Grand in Las Vegas that Silva is treating like his debut. In a way, it is.
“For me, this is my first fight in UFC,” he says.
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Photo via Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports Images
