FanHouse Travis Lutter

The Ultimate Fighter 4 winner Travis Lutter won two out of three rounds to win the unanimous decision over hometown favorite Jason MacDonald at MFC 22 Friday night at the River Cree Resort and Casino in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Lutter, arguably most discussed for presenting UFC champion Anderson Silva his toughest challenge in the UFC, spent the majority of the first two rounds on top of MacDonald. But besides choke attempts, Lutter hesitated in striking MacDonald on the ground.

Thales Leites, the most recent UFC middleweight title challenger, has found a new home in the Maximum Fighting Championship in Canada.

DALLAS -- In the early stages of planning for UFC 103, Dana White and matchmaker Joe Silva envisioned a Rich Franklin vs. Dan Henderson main event, but after hearing immediate backlash from fans who had little interest in a rematch so soon, an audible was called and the returning Vitor Belfort took Henderson's place.

At 31 years old, Belfort is no longer the young stud that captivated audiences with his firepower and earned the nickname "The Phenom," but a matured fighter who is looking to prove that he's harnessed all of his considerable gifts and found the consistency that's eluded him at times.

So how will Belfort-Franklin go down? Let's take a closer look at the matchup.

The UFC has probably done more to market itself on YouTube than any other sports organization, and since it's a slow news day, I thought it would be fun to take a stroll back through memory lane to January 26, 2007, when the UFC first launched its YouTube channel. Above is the preview video posted that day for UFC 67, with a main event of Anderson Silva vs. Travis Lutter, and below are a couple videos promoting the UFC debuts of Rampage Jackson and Mirko Cro Cop, both of whom were making their Octagon debuts at UFC 67.

When I talked to Frank Mir a couple of weeks ago, we discussed the concept of top pound-for-pound fighters, what the whole "pound for pound" idea really means, and who Mir chooses as his No. 1.

In Mir's opinion, World Extreme Cagefighting bantamweight champion Miguel Torres is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and since I've heard from a couple of readers who think I have Torres too high in my own MMA pound-for-pound Top 10, I figured now would be a good time to pass along what Mir told me.

For starters, although Mir said he believes Fedor Emelianenko is the best heavyweight in the world, Mir doesn't think any heavyweight in MMA has a complete enough set of skills to justify being considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

So if it's not Fedor, why is it Torres?

The single most impressive thing anyone did in the Octagon at UFC 83 last night was the way Rich Franklin spun out of a Travis Lutter arm bar. Franklin looked for a moment like he was going to have to tap out, but he worked his way out of it and had an excellent performance. He talked about beating Lutter in this video, but he also said something else that's interesting:

Franklin is possibly the second-best middleweight in UFC, but he gave a very frank, candid assessment of whether he deserves a shot at the best middleweight, champion Anderson Silva.

"I'm sure they're not going to put me in another title fight," Franklin said. "At this point, Silva's beaten me twice. So would I fight him again? Yeah. Do I see a point in it? I don't know."

That's especially refreshing considering the way Lutter disparaged Silva last week. It's nice to hear Franklin acknowledge that right now, there's Silva and there's everyone else.

Of course, that raises an interesting dilemma for UFC: What do you do when you have a fighter who's that much better than everyone else? I'd like to see Silva fight Georges St-Pierre at 180 pounds, but if that doesn't happen, Silva could be so dominant that he makes the UFC middleweight division boring.

It's hard to find anyone in the mixed martial arts world who will say anything negative about UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Widely recognized as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, people usually talk about Silva with awe in their voices.

But not Travis Lutter. Silva submitted Lutter at UFC 67 last year, but Lutter came away convinced that he'd beat Silva if they fought again. He tells Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports:

"I still think I could beat him," Lutter said of Silva, who submitted him with strikes in the second round of what became a non-title bout. "We match up wrong for each other. I don't think he's the best 185-pounder in the world other than me. Other guys would give him big problems. Matt Lindland, I think, kills him. Anderson is an incredible standup fighter. He looks like Superman on his feet. But his takedown defense is not that good and ... "

When Lutter says he and Silva "match up wrong for each other," well, that's just dumb. A more accurate assessment would be that Lutter matches up wrong for Silva. There's no reason at all that UFC would give Lutter another chance at Silva because there's no reason to believe the result would be different.