(Brothers don’t shake hands. Brothers gotta hug.)

As much as Anderson Silva used to enjoy kicking the absolute dogshit out of Rich Franklin, it was clear that the Spider respected the hell out of Ace. After his UFC 82 title fight against Dan Henderson, Silva told the Columbus crowd something along the lines of "it feels good to win, but there’s only one true middleweight champion, and that’s Rich Franklin," which struck me as both incredibly humble, and kind of insulting to Dan Henderson, who was standing right next to him at the time. So I guess this recent blurb from the Dayton Daily News shouldn’t be all that surprising:

While it’s awesome that two former rivals are putting their past battles aside to help each other in the gym, Anderson’s motivations are obvious. Anderson and Wanderlei have had quite a stormy relationship that has taken them from close training partners at Chute Boxe, to mortal enemies (after Anderson left the team over a money dispute and joined forces with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira), to a brief reconciliation at UFC 79, to enemies again, with Anderson interpreting Wanderlei’s recent drop to 185 pounds as a personal challenge, and Wandy responding by declaring war on him.

Could this personal feud culminate in an actual UFC fight? Maybe, but Wanderlei would first have to defeat Rich Franklin in June, and then most likely another prominent 185′er in order to create some legitimacy as a middleweight title contender. And if that happens…well, the Axe Murderer would be a nice change of pace from Anderson’s timid, butt-flopping recent opponents. As Wanderlei says in the below video from Fighters Only, "With me, he don’t want to play. He don’t go to down his hands, and play with me because he down his hands, I beat him," which is Broken English for "You try that showboating shit with me, Anderson, and I’ll punch your head off and shit down your neck."