Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin Official; Thiago Silva Pulls Keith Jardine

(What has two thumbs and hates to engage during title fights? Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

Judging from the comments in our last few posts, many of you already know this, but yes, the rumored light-heavyweight showdown between Anderson Silva and Forrest Griffin quickly became official last night; the fight will support the BJ Penn/Kenny Florian lightweight title fight at UFC 101, which will take place at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia on August 8th. And both fighters are pretty psyched about it. As Dana White told Yahoo!’s Kevin Iole, "Forrest loved the idea and said he’d do it right away, and Anderson told me he would fight anyone I wanted him to fight, no matter who it is." Silva’s manager Ed Soares added:

The Yahoo! article also mentions that Dana White is working on signing another middleweight that "would blow your mind," and Anderson is interested in a fight with Fedor Emelianenko.

Thiago Silva, who was originally slated to face Forrest Griffin, will now face Keith Jardine at UFC 102 (August 29th; Portland, Oregon), as first reported by MMA Junkie. Both fighters are coming off disappointing losses, with Silva taking his first-ever defeat at the hands of Lyoto Machida at UFC 94 in January, and Jardine dropping a unanimous decision to Quinton Jackson at UFC 96 in March.  Judging from Jardine’s dependable pattern of winning a fight then a losing a fight, he will likely score a victory over Silva. (Not to say that you shouldn’t show up, Thiago, but just prepare for disappointment, that’s all.) UFC 102 will be headlined by the heavyweight fight between Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.