Anderson Silva will return to the UFC in February as he will take on Michael Bisping in a long-awaited middleweight matchup. The big news is that it will take place on UFC Fight Pass.
Silva-Bisping will headline an event from London. It will be over a year since Silva fought at UFC 183 and will be the first time that The Spider has not been on pay-per-view since July 2008 when he fought on a UFC Fight Night. Notably, he fought at Light Heavyweight in a demolition of James Irvin.
Bisping comes off a split decision win over Thales Leites in July. Bisping will have the hometown edge as the event will take place in London, England.
Payout Perspective:
The announcement foreshadows what may be a big step in programming for UFC Fight Pass. At UFC 194, it announced a very good fight between Joe Duffy and Dustin Poirier headlining the Fight Pass Prelims for next week’s UFC 195. Certainly, moving a Fight Night featuring Silva-Bisping reflects the progression of the UFC’s over the top network. As it adds content, the company seemingly will push to use it more of a revenue driver. Could this be the beginnings of it following the WWE model of moving its PPVs to its own network? Probably not, but you never know.
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