"Tiki's bangin Arianny? For real?"
"I know, WTF right?"
A funny little "six degrees of separation" thing just might be happening in the UFC's light-heavyweight division. Remember yesterday when we discussed how Rampage turned down an offer to replace Rashad Evans against Shogun at UFC 128? We already knew Rashad's injury wasn't going to keep him on the sidelines long, but I don't think anyone expected him to hook up with another date this fast. Rumours are flying around that Rampage's own opponent Thiago Silva may be pulling out of their fight at UFC 130, to be replaced by none other than Rashad.
Exactly WTF is happening is kinda murky at this point. Thiago has already told Tatame.com that he's not injured and it's still a go as far as he knows, and neither Rampage's nor Rashad's peeps have confirmed anything. Yet multiple sources claim they're hearing otherwise, and MMA Junkie threw out an interesting theory:
Of significant potential interest, the Nevada State Athletic Commission has yet to release the drug screens from the night of Silva's most recent fight, a UFC 125 win over Brandon Vera that took place Jan. 1 in Las Vegas.
Nevada State Athletic Commision executive director Keith Kizer confirmed with MMAjunkie.com that the commission is still investigating at least one sample from the event [UFC 125]. While Kizer could not confirm whether or not one of those samples belonged to Silva, the NSAC executive did confirm that Silva was among the UFC 125 fighters who submitted a pre-fight screen.
Wild speculation? Maybe not. Those test results are now out, and while everyone else came up clean, Silva's name is conspicuously absent from the list. The NSAC will only say they're "still processing another athlete's urine sample," and won't confirm it's Silva's lemonade that they're savoring, but the process of elimination says it is. Silva's never pissed hot before as far as I know, but his back has been effed-up for a couple years now, so a positive test for painkillers wouldn't be surprising. Here's hoping it turns out to be nothing, but this ain't looking good.
You may recall that Rampage and Rashad previously met last May at UFC 114, where Rashad basically wrestled his way to a dominant but rather disappointing unanimous decision victory. That was also the last time he fought, as he elected to sit on his ass and wait for Shogun's knee(s) to heal, while Rampage forged ahead and squeaked out his own decision win over Lyoto Machida in November. But don't think these two have buried the hatchet in the meantime, cause Rashad says Rampage recently bitch-slapped him at some club in Vegas.
Of one thing we can be reasonably sure: if "Rampage vs Rashad 2: The Electric Boogaloo" turns out to be true, it's probably a safe bet that the winner will get a shot at the winner of Shogun vs Bones. Unless both Bones and Evans win, because Rashad has already said he would rather jump weight classes than fight his teammate... which would make the Rampage rematch kinda pointless, wouldn't it? (Props to glassjawsh for the reminder.)
Source: http://www.fightlinker.com/breaking-news-rampage-rashad-2
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