(Artist’s rendition of Big Nog and Silva one year from now.)

It’s starting to look like Florida is the place to be if you’re trying to learn how to do the MMA. First you had American Top Team in Coconut Creek, and now Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Anderson Silva are starting their own gym in Miami. At this rate, the combined Brazilian and Cuban population down there could result in dangerous levels of upbeat dance music and thong bikinis.

The “Nogueira and Silva Mixed Martial Arts Academy” – yes, that’s seriously what they’re calling it, according to the Sun-Sentinel – isn’t the best name I could think of for a gym operated by two of the best fighters in the world. Hopefully they haven’t already had a bunch of t-shirts made up.

The gym is 15,000 square feet, and will apparently be located inside an existing sports complex. As for Nogueira, he sounds as excited as he ever gets about the whole venture:

“The sport is growing here now and is a hotbed for mixed martial arts. … Big things are growing here,” Nogueira said. “This has been a dream to open an academy together here.

“This is a good area and the weather is very good. In Miami, you can walk in the street and see people. It’s like Brazil. This is the right time and right place. This is the biggest time right now, in America, for this sport.”

That’s true about Brazil. You can walk in the street and see people. Happens all the time.

So, how long before ATT and the Nogueira-Silva crew are engaged in a bitter South Florida turf war? Six months?