LAS VEGAS — Rashad Evans will be looking for a defining win on Saturday night. He’ll also be looking for something not so tangible, something that’s been lost.

“The competitor has been brought back to life, the one who truly just loves to compete,” Evans told reporters on Thursday, two days before his UFC 156 co-main event fight against Antônio Rogério Nogueira at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. “So many times when you’re competing, you kind of fall out of love with it. It becomes like a song and dance, and you kind of get like, ‘Ah, yeah, gotta do this, gotta do that.’ To really love to compete, to really love every aspect of it, is a passion that a lot of people don’t have. I’ve found myself, within the last 11 months or so, just falling in love with competing again.”

That period coincides with a time during which the 33-year-old “Suga Rashad” has settled in with a new team of training partners, the Blackzilians in south Florida, after an acrimonious and very public departure from his longtime home, the Jackson-Winkeljohn gym in Albuquerque. And the change of camps is related, of course, to the former light heavyweight champion’s most recent fight, last April’s loss to the division’s reigning king, teammate-turned-mortal enemy Jon Jones. While this weekend’s fight could have major implications for his career — there’s talk that Rashad could be next in line to face middleweight champion Anderson Silva, and a rematch with Jones is also a possibility — the aspect that most stirs up Evans (17-2-1) is that he and Nogueira (20-5) will simply be competing against each other. Nothing more.

“I felt like last time with Jones I got too distracted by everything else that was going on, the whole back story,” said Evans, referring to the teammates’ split over one man grabbing the belt that the other wanted as well, and their departure from a shared pledge to put team first and never fight each other. “It kind of took away from the fight for me. I thought it did the same thing for him as well. I don’t think he was at his best that day, either.

“It took away what competing is about. It kind of scarred me in a way that made me mot want to compete anymore. I was like, ‘This is not about fighting.’ It’s just about a bunch of b.s. It’s not what I love about fighting. What I love about fighting is the actual fight, the feeling that I get when I walk into the cage and I see the mat and I see all the blood and all the sweat and everything else that everybody laid out. And when they say go, that feeling, that’s what I like about fighting.”

-Jeff Wagenheim

Three weeks ago, Georges St-Pierre returned from a 19-month absence and showed himself to be fully recovered from knee surgery with a gritty victory over Carlos Condit. Anderson Silva was cageside in Montreal that night to watch it all unfold … and to let it be known that he was interested in fighting the UFC welterweight champion.

Prior to that, however, when there was talk of the middleweight king taking on another belt holder, the speculation usually centered on the possibility of Silva stepping into the cage with light heavyweight champ Jon Jones.

So which superfight are we going to see?

Well, how about both?

A reliable source has told SI.com that Silva had a meeting scheduled with UFC president Dana White on Wednesday night to discuss superfights. Yes, that’s superfights, plural.

Silva’s manager, Ed Soares, confirmed that a meeting took place but would not say what was discussed. He would only reveal that “Anderson got a beautiful Bentley.”

That’s the same make of vehicle that was driven by Jones before the then-24-year-old wrecked it in a drunken crash in May.

Jones and Silva have said they would not fight, citing their friendship as well as concerns that they would be putting their legacies and endorsement deals at risk. But White has talked of staging a superfight in 100,000-seat Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas, which would make the bout a huge moneymaker for the UFC, with appropriately hefty fighter purses.

Might the gift of a Bentley be the first step in paving the way for the superfight of all superfights, with the UFC ensuring that Silva and family keep up with the Joneses?

– Jeff Wagenheim

MONTREAL — So now we all know what it’s like to be in a cage with Anderson Silva. Minus the pain, of course.

On Saturday night, we did get the confusion, a good dose of it, stemming from the UFC middleweight champion’s uncanny elusiveness. He’s right there in front of you, then in a flash he’s gone without a trace, then he’s back, acting as if he’d never left.

Silva showed up at the Bell Centre prior to the start of UFC 154 and told an assemblage of media that, despite what’s been reported over the past week, he’s gung-ho to make his next bout a superfight with Georges St-Pierre.

“I’m very excited for this fight with Georges,” he said. “Maybe here, maybe in a big stadium in Brazil.” He said this around 10 minutes into his questioning by reporters, after beginning the session by addressing a query on the possibility of a GSP superfight with “Maybe, I don’t know.”

Elusiveness. Confusion.

Adding to the mystification was the fact that St-Pierre first had to take care of business in his welterweight title defense against Carlos Condit later in the evening in the main event.

But “The Spider” had that one all figured out. “My opinion, Georges wins tonight,” he said matter of factly.

So, assuming he was right, when might a Silva vs. St-Pierre superfight take place? Perhaps in May, when UFC president Dana White has suggested? “I need to check my schedule,” said Silva, drawing laughter from the assembled media.

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Anderson Silva plays with people.

The UFC middleweight champion has done it for years inside the octagon, most recently a month ago in Rio de Janeiro. He languished against the cage early in the main event that night as if lazing about on a street corner, arms at his side except to rev up the crowd of adoring countrymen by broadly gesturing for his opponent to hit him. No, to try to hit him. Then, after dodging every punch with nothing but a fluid rhythm of head and upper torso movement that would make a matador blush and a contortionist blanch, Silva apparently decided that he’d toyed enough with the musclebound man standing in front of him slinging hopeless leather. And with a single well-placed knee, he knocked the juice out of Stephan Bonnar. Show’s over, folks.

Outside the cage, Silva plays with all of us.

You were expecting “The Spider” to walk into the octagon Saturday night in Montreal, if Georges St-Pierre wins the UFC 154 main event, and publicly challenge the welterweight champion to a superfight, right? He’s going to be at the Bell Centre, we know. And UFC president Dana White is on record as saying, “He wants [GSP] to win this fight, and he wants to fight him after.” Asked directly if Silva will challenge St-Pierre in the octagon post-fight, the UFC president answered, “I would say yes.”

But Silva says no. “Not in my character to stand up and challenge anyone,” he told Tatame in a story posted Monday on the Brazilian magazine’s website. “I think that this will not happen.” He laughed and added, “I think not, I’m sure.” (Translation from Portuguese is from online sources.)

We might be inclined to chalk up this about-face letdown to the fight promoter with the mostest. During his conference call with MMA media last week, White made it sound like the octagon challenge was a fait accompli. But does he really need to use a phony Silva call-out to help sell the first St-Pierre fight in more than a year and a half? No, he doesn’t. It might well be that Dana simply knew that Silva was going to be in the building and put two and two together.

Well, here’s another set of numbers for White’s abacus: two zero one three.

Silva revealed in the same Brazilian interview that he does not intend to fight again until the end of 2013. White had been expecting to be able to put Silva back in the cage much sooner than that — perhaps against GSP in Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas.

“I think it’s time for me to leave my life in order, because this thing of always being worried and having work, I just leave my personal life aside,” Silva told Tatame. “I have my projects, my personal plans and will keep them moving forward.”

While grinding the middleweight division to a halt?

Or maybe just putting Dana White through the grinder. Silva knows what Dana told the media and understands how much a superfight with St-Pierre would mean to the UFC. Perhaps this is simply his dramatic way of letting it be known that he won’t come cheap.

We know Silva likes to play with people. Maybe he plays them, too.

—Jeff Wagenheim

“We missed him,” said Dana White, the words spoken with a hint of longing. “It’s good to have him back.”

The UFC president was speaking of his company’s most lucrative pay-per-view draw, welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, who is indeed back after 20 months away from the octagon because of knee surgery and the rehab that followed. White was so thrilled that GSP is ready to fight again, in fact, that he assembled MMA reporters on Wednesday afternoon to hype the superfight between St-Pierre and middleweight champ Anderson Silva.

No, wait, the media conference call was actually about Georges’ bout against interim champion Carlos Condit a week from Saturday in the main event of UFC 154 in Montreal. At least that’s what the press release said the call was going to be about.

As things turned out, though, the session came as close to being an announcement of GSP vs. Silva as the fight promotion could muster without issuing an official poster.

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Remember that fake UFC championship belt a mischievous Chael Sonnen used to sling over his shoulder for press conferences and television appearances in the contentious leadup to his July rematch with Anderson Silva? You know, the one that he impishly told an interviewer on ESPN was proof that he was the real middleweight champion?

Well, let’s pull it out of the closet and dust it off. That plastic-and-pleather strap is the one that rightfully ought to be put up for grabs next April 27 when Sonnen challenges once again for the UFC championship. This time at light heavyweight, though.

Seriously?

Yep, this is not another Chael media ploy. The UFC actually announced on Tuesday that Sonnen, who has competed in the fight promotion’s 205-pound weight class exactly one time — and that was seven years ago and he lost — will challenge Jon Jones after the two serve as coaches on the 17^th season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Jones need not bother to bring along the shiny brass-and-leather belt that he’s been proudly wearing for the last 19 months, the one he acquired by knocking out a champion and in the time since has defended against four former titlists. That belt signifies something earned, something extraordinary, something real. So “Bones” should leave it home in the trophy case. When he steps into the octagon next spring to take on a middleweight fighter with a heavyweight mouth, the fake plastic belt will suffice for the fake title defense.

That is not to deny that the next several months will be a lot of laughs. Chael is at this very moment locked in a windowless room with a team of joke writers brainstorming a Top 10 list for Letterman and five minutes of couch chatter for Leno.

And there’s no doubt that Dana White and Co. will benefit from this arrangement, which first was reported by The Los Angeles Times and later was confirmed by the UFC. The Ultimate Fighter will get a much-needed boost in ratings, and that springtime pay-per-view, featuring two of the organization’s top draws, is sure to do big numbers.

Maybe that’s good enough for the UFC: a financial boon generated by a dud of a fight.

Yes, a dud.

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SI.com analysts Dave Doyle, Loretta Hunt, Jeff Wagenheim and Jon Wertheim provide their predictions for UFC 153 on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro.

Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar

DOYLE: I’m tempted to go with Bonnar simply because this would fit right into the UFC’s 2012 “whatever can go wrong, will” theme. But a Bonnar victory is a bridge too far. Silva by KO.

HUNT: Knowing my colleagues will cover the bases, I’ll cut to the chase: it’s a mismatch. Silva by TKO.

WAGENHEIM: Bonnar is going to shock the world … by surviving the first round. He’s rugged and resilient, having never been knocked out. And Silva will not be done putting on a show for his countrymen by the end of one act. But eventually … Silva by KO.

WERTHEIM: We can debate whether Silva is the G.O.A.T., but Bonnar is not going to change the discussion. Just two completely different tiers of fighter. Admire Bonnar’s sensibilities, his heart, his role in growing the UFC brand by virtue of that TUF finale. But in no universe does he win this fight. Silva by TKO.

Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Dave Herman

DOYLE: The veteran Nogueira’s UFC fights have followed a familiar pattern: Losses to the elite and wins over the guys just a cut below. Herman falls into the latter camp. Nogueira by TKO.

HUNT: Big Nog has this one in the bag as long as it goes to the canvas, which is likely. Nogueira by submission.

WAGENHEIM: How’s the arm, Big Nog? We’ll find out if there are any lingering issues when the ref raises the rehabbed wing after Nogueira taps out Pee-Wee. Nogueira by submission.

WERTHEIM: When we last saw Big Nog, Frank Mir was nearly divorcing his arm from the rest of his body, his third loss in five fights. The UFC threw him a bone, pitting him against Herman, a beatable fighter. On a two-fight losing streak. In Rio. Nogueira by submission.
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When Cowboys Stadium opened three years ago, Jerry Jones envisioned it as a grand showcase for champions. That’s a promise still unfulfilled by his NFL team, which has but one wild-card win in the $1.3 billion facility and missed the playoffs the last two seasons. But the domed stadium in Arlington, Texas, might very well soon have championships on display. Two of them.

Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre, the UFC champs at middleweight and welterweight, respectively, appear headed on a collision course deep in the heart of Texas.

Nothing is official, and nothing will be until after St-Pierre makes his return from knee surgery and fights Carlos Condit at UFC 154 on Nov. 17 in Montreal. But UFC president Dana White acknowledged on Tuesday night that if GSP handles business against Condit, a superfight with Silva likely would be next.

“These guys want to fight each other now,” White said during an extended interview on the Fuel TV show UFC Tonight. “If you’re a fighter and you’ve dominated as long as Anderson has, and you’ve been great as long as Georges has, you finally want to say, ‘I want to test myself. I think I can beat this guy.’”

Though Silva vs. St-Pierre is hypothetical at this point, White has given the matter enough thought to specify that the champions of his 185- and 170-pound weight classes would meet somewhere in the middle, likely at 180 pounds, and that the fight would take place at Cowboys Stadium. The facility seats 80,000 for football but has a capacity of 110,000, including standing room. A 2010 boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey drew 51,000.

Silva (32-4) is coming off a July TKO win over Chael Sonnen, his 16th straight victory and 10th title defense. St-Pierre (22-2) has won nine straight and defended his belt six times, but has not fought since an April 2011 unanimous decision over Jake Shields. He was training for a Condit fight when he injured his knee last December, requiring surgery.

So GSP is going from sitting on the shelf to jumping into perhaps the biggest fight in UFC history? Said White, “I think we’re pretty close.”

–Jeff Wagenheim

So we’re finally going to see Anderson Silva going against Jon Jones.

No, the UFC middleweight and light heavyweight champions, the No. 1 and No. 2 fighters in every mixed martial arts pound-for-pound ranking outside of Georges St-Pierre’s parents’ house, have not agreed to square off inside the octagon. They doused the rising fan groundswell for a superfight a couple of months ago by basically walking arm-in-arm singing “You’ve Got a Friend” in two-part harmony.

But while “Bones” is too close of a friend for Silva to fight, Jon is apparently not so tight of an amigo that “The Spider” refuses to root against the guy. Amigo is “friend” in Portuguese, which is the language of Brazil, where Silva is from. And where Jones’ next opponent, Vitor Belfort, is from.

“As a Brazilian, I’ll be rooting for the Brazilian, even though I have a very good friendship with Jon Jones,” Silva said when asked about the UFC 152 title fight during an appearance on the Brazilian television show Bem, Amigos! (there’s that “friend” word again) earlier this week. “Whenever I’m with [Jones], I ask him to conduct his career in a different way, because he is very young and is always asking me something. But I’ll be rooting for Brazil, yes. May the best man win, but I’m rooting for Brazil.”

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Nice 1-2 punch by Chris Weidman.

The “1” was not actually a punch but an elbow, which connected to the head of Mark Muñoz and crumbled him in the main event of UFC on Fuel TV 4 on Wednesday night in San Jose, Calif. What a knockout blow. It knocked Muñoz out of the fight (at 1:37 of the second round, after Weidman had followed his fallen opponent to the mat and unleashed a finishing flurry that really wasn’t needed), out of the No. 1 contender position in the middleweight division and out of a presumed matchup with champion Anderson Silva.

That brings us to the “2,” which also was not a punch. It was a verbal challenge. “I want Anderson Silva,” Weidman (9-0) said afterward in the cage. “Every single time I’ve had a full training camp, I’ve gotten a finish. Give me a full training camp, and I’d love a shot at the man.”

Talk about seizing the moment. Weidman seized Muñoz’s — Mark was expected to be next in line for Silva, since he had been slated for a No. 1 contender’s showdown with Chael Sonnen back in January before injuring an elbow — and then the unbeaten New Yorker seized his own with the respectful but no-nonsense challenge.

It wasn’t merely the victory that allowed Weidman to step to the front of the line. It was the way he won. He came into this fight as an underdog — although no one with any sense was counting him out because, well, we’d never seen him lose. But the thinking was that the title shot was Muñoz’s for the taking, and if he didn’t snatch it up, then guys like Michael Bisping and Alan Belcher would lay claim to it. But Bisping is coming off a loss and Belcher is no more high-profile a fighter than Weidman, and he doesn’t have the kind of signature win that Weidman authored on Wednesday night.

How’d it happen? Once again, we were taught the enduring lesson of the octagon: Wrestling is different from MMA wrestling. Weidman was an All-American at Hofstra but his singlet credentials don’t measure up to those of Muñoz, who was the 2001 NCAA Division I champion at 197 pounds. On those wrestling mats, however, you can go for a takedown without worrying about a punch, knee or kick to the face. And it was within that context that Weidman seized control, getting a takedown in the bout’s first minute, then threatening Muñoz with submissions and punishing him with fists while the fighters were on the ground. Weidman also began the second round with a quick takedown. And when Muñoz got the fight back to standing and tried to change the momentum with a looping overhand right, Weidman was quicker to the punch. I mean, the elbow.

It was Weidman’s moment to shine. And to think about the shiny brass-and-leather belt that’s long been in the possession of Anderson Silva. “My takedowns are pretty good,” he said. “I’ll get him down, and I think, I really do believe, that I can submit him.”

That’s the kind of confidence you can pull off convincingly when you’ve never lost.

–Jeff Wagenheim