

Anderson "Spider" Silva never loses. Or, at least, very few mixed martial arts fans remember him losing.



He's never lost in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a record 16-consecutive victories. He's never lost as UFC middleweight champion, a record 10 title defenses. Other than a disqualification for an illegal kick in 2006 while fighting in a different promotion, he hasn't been defeated by anyone since a journeyman named Ryo Chonan submitted him with a flying scissor heel hook back in 2004.

Go ahead and raise your hand if you happened to watch that Pride card live from Saitama, Japan.

For the rest of the MMA fans in the world – 99 percent of us – Anderson Silva (33-4) just never loses. That's why it was a bombshell Monday when he declared that should he step up in weight and take on UFC light heavyweight champion Jon "Bones" Jones in a much begged-for superfight, he thinks he'll lose.

"If I fight Jon Jones," Silva said at a press lunch, "I don't think I'm going to win."

It might have been the first time in fighting history that reverse trash talk excited the public.

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On Saturday, Silva fights a guy who could actually beat him in Chris Weidman. It's the headline bout of UFC 162 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas. Weidman is tough, powerful and may possess the kind of wrestling skills that have made "Spider" look mortal in the past. This fight is no joke.

Of course Silva is still a better than two-to-one favorite in the sportsbooks and most of the pay-per-view audience will tune in mostly to see how he wins, not whether he wins.

Again, the guy never loses. There is only moderate buzz about the fight in the mainstream media despite the exhaustive campaign by the UFC. Silva's comments about Jones, not Weidman, are what sent the sport into a tizzy Monday – and they'll continue to be a storyline the rest of the week, complete with, we're sure, people asking Weidman if he feels disrespected or wondering whether Silva is taking him too lightly.

Answers: Weidman shouldn't and we doubt it.

[Related: Dana White says Anderson Silva will get immediate title shot if he loses]

Silva is 38 now and sometimes talks about his legacy. A guy on a seven-year win streak is obviously still in his prime, but the inevitable end keeps getting closer. Fair or not, victories at the 185-pound middleweight division only add so much to his legend. His dominance in that class is carved in stone.

Stepping up to face 205-pound champ Jones – or even down to a catch-weight against 170-pound champ Georges St. Pierre – is worth more than running that UFC win streak deep into the 20s. And based on his humility when predicting how a match-up with Jones would go, he likely knows it.

Silva has said plenty of things in his career. Sometimes there is confusion through translation. Sometimes he's just playing games. And there is no question this could simply be the beginning of playing head games with a 25 year old that might fall for it.

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