After a successful career globally, Silva’s UFC tenure almost ended
before it began. Upon signing with the UFC in 2019, “Blindado”
immediately failed a drug test and earned a two-year suspension.
The UFC stuck by Silva, who made up for lost time with a string of
three straight knockouts in the back half of 2021. Silva has some
skill, including on the mat, but once the fight starts, he has
little consideration for anything other than attempting to drive
his fist into his opponent’s skull as hard as possible. Wellington
Turman and Jordan
Wright each quickly felt Silva’s power and got knocked out, but
Andrew
Sanchez was able to outmaneuver and outwrestle him for a while
before tiring and suffering a third-round knockout. In Silva’s last
fight, Alex
Pereira handled things more or less everywhere and left him
without much of an effective path to victory. Silva looks to
rebound against Meerschaert, who continues on as a tough veteran
test for most of his opponents. Meerschaert was over 30 fights deep
into his career when he got the UFC call in 2016, and “GM3”
surprisingly had room for improvement upon hitting the big stage.
Once purely a grimy grinder, Meerschaert has done a solid job of
being able to hold his own on the feet whenever necessary.
Meerschaert still has a clear physical ceiling and occasionally
gets obliterated by a more explosive opponent—most recently
Khamzat
Chimaev in 2020—but he has pulled out an underdog win just as
often. Even when things look well in hand for his opponent, as they
did for Makhmud
Muradov a shade under a year ago, Meerschaert still has a
chance at victory for as long as he is in the fight. In Muradov’s
case, Meerschaert was able to hunt down a second-round submission.
Silva leaves enough openings that Meerschaert could just find a way
to grind out three rounds, but the safer bet is that the Brazilian
can find at least one opportunity to end the fight over 15 minutes,
even if it might be an adventure to get there. The pick is Silva
via third-round stoppage.
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