Tim Sylvia vs. Jason Riley

Tim Sylvia is back at it again. The former UFC heavyweight champion is still at it, this time taking on a much lesser known fighter in Jason Riley. Sylvia hasn’t won a fight since 2007 and it shows when he steps into the cage. His most recent fight was against the old, out of shape former boxer Ray Mercer, who knocked Sylvia out in a matter of seconds with a big right hand. But apparently this brutal knockout loss wasn’t enough to tell Sylvia that he should hang up the gloves, in fact its just pushed him harder to keep on fighting and we very well may be seeing the era of Sylvia vs the nobody.

His opponent, Jason Riley, it literally unknown in the sport. Despite holding a good record of 6-1, Riley’s record maybe makes him seem a little better than he is. Despite being a good brawler with knockout power in either hand, almost all of his wins are over low/scraping the floor level fighters and as a fighter himself, if he loses this fight he will never be anything bigger than he is right now. Unfortunately Sylvia has hit the bottom of his career and is forced to fight in freak fights, such as the Mercer fight, or take on relatively unknown fighters to get by. This fight should be the final indicator to Sylvia as to whether he should continue to fight. Should he win the fight, then he’ll keep on fighting, no doubt about it. Should he lose by anything other than a decision, he should be forced to retire.

Despite being an unknown fighter, Riley could pose a lot of problems for Sylvia come the night of the fight. He might not be the most technical striker around, but if his punches land there is no doubt that they will hurt Sylvia. Sylvia just needs to use his size to the best of his ability, stay on the outside and jab the shorter man until his will is destroyed and he can finish the fight. This is truly the case of up and comer vs a fighter on his way out. If Riley can get the upset win, he should have lots of offers thrown his way and could very well project him into MMA fame. But that is a lot easier said than done, Sylvia is still a very game opponent and hopefully will put up more resistance than he did against Mercer.