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The world of MMA is getting closer by the week to seeing the biggest fight in UFC history. UFC champions Anderson Silva and Jon Jones once both staunchly opposed to fighting one another have both come around with Jones being the latest to open the door on the matchup.

I don’t think that the UFC will see another opportunity for a fight the magnitude of Jones vs. Silva for years to come. Rarely does a fight come along like this and unlike boxing which has been unable to pull the trigger on its megafight, Dana White appears to be getting closer to pulling his off.

Anderson Silva was the first to open up a door he had tightly shut for the last year on a possible fight. Silva recently told media that he was open to the possibility but only at a catch weight. With one down it didn’t take long for the media to corner Jones on his thoughts about a possible superfight. For the first time since the question was asked, Jones is on board with the fight.

“I respect [Silva] a lot,” Jones said. “As I said several times, I do not want to be the guy who beat Anderson, and do not want to be the guy who lost to him. Anderson is a great champion, I’m a great champion. … I’m not saying that the fight will not happen. It can happen. But it’s not something I’m chasing.”

This is a huge development, quite frankly one of the biggest in MMA. Just the idea that these two UFC champions are now even open to the fight is a big leap forward in the process. Silva and Jones both softening their stances on the fight is arguably one of the top five stories in MMA of 2012.

I’ll give full credit to UFC president Dana White. White said after UFC 153 that he would throw millions of dollars towards Silva to get the fight done.

“I know [Silva] says ‘no, no, no’ to Jon Jones, but the amount of money that will be offered for that fight, he will say ‘yes, yes, yes,’” White said

As great as this news is, unfortunately the fight will have to wait. Jones is already signed to fight Chael Sonnen in April and has said that he would like to fight Dan Henderson after that fight. That would likely tie Jones up for the year. Silva doesn’t have anything on the docket, although he is holding out for a Georges St-Pierre fight. If that doesn’t happen Silva will probably fight on the big UFC show in July. I’d say that the earliest this fight could happen would be the final show of 2012 with the first quarter of 2013 being more likely.

Both fighters saying yes is a huge leap forward. Now it’s up to the UFC president to get the deal done.

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