With UFC 168 right around the corner, MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes and resident fighter-turned-writer Danny Downes can think of little else besides the rematch between UFC middleweight champ Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva. In this edition of Trading Shots, the guys try to figure out how the past will inform the future, and what we’ll make of it once the story is finally written.

Fowlkes: OK Danny, with Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva getting ready to do it again (brother) on Saturday night in Vegas, I’m interested in your take on the psychology of this particular rematch. Silva gets knocked out in the middle of miming a knockout (LOL, BTW), then gets a chance to right his wrongs. Do you think he fights completely differently the second time? Or does he have to double-down on that strategy, just to prove he can make it work? What goes through a fighter’s mind after he’s seen, unequivocally, that his plan A didn’t go over so well?

Downes: After a loss, most fighters wind up blaming the execution of the gameplan instead of the plan itself. In Silva’s case, I don’t know how many adjustments you can make to the, “don’t drop your hands and get punched” gameplan. Dropping his hands and taunting is a part of his style. By taunting his opponent, he makes them engage on his terms. He forces an action and it gives him an advantage to counter. Sure it’s flashy, but there is some utility to the approach (I bet you thought all those Diaz middle fingers weren’t calculated). That trick didn’t work for him the first time, but he’ll go right back to that well again.

Weidman’s KO power or his own personal hubris should be the least of Silva’s worries in the rematch, though. The greater concern in this fight is takedown defense. Weidman came out right away and put him on his back in the first fight. The only reason they returned to the feet and the KO happened is because Weidman tried to go for a leg lock. What’s your take, Ben? Are you and me in agreement? Is this fight Silva’s to lose?

Fowlkes: First of all, I see what youuuuuuuu did there with the link, and it makes meeeeeeee blind with rage. Second, so you’re saying Silva can’t stop Weidman’s takedowns, must bait him into attacking in the hopes of being able to counter, and has no clear answer for Weidman’s punching power once he does attack? Because that paints a pretty bleak picture for Silva. Far from making it seem like his fight to lose, it sounds like it’s Weidman’s fight to win at his leisure.

I get that the whole hands down, come-at-me-bro thing is a strategy. I just think it’s a horrible strategy against a guy like Weidman, who seems physically incapable of stopping to think about it long enough for it to work. What’s more, I think one reason it worked so well for Silva before was the mystique he’d built up as this Jedi-like striking master. He’d clown around and make guys think, “Well, I can’t let him mock me like this on TV.” But even as they came at him (bro), it was as if some part of them knew it was a bad idea because, come on, this is Anderson freaking Silva you’re lunging at here.

Weidman won’t have that problem. He’s definitely not in awe of Silva at this point, and he knows he can knock him out. The big question for me is, say Silva does get KO’d again. What does he do then?

Downes: When it comes to Silva, I’m not sure if we ever really know what’s going on upstairs. If he does lose again, I think we could have another awkward/cryptic retirement announcement like we heard from Georges St-Pierre. Besides getting all that sweet pay-per-view money, why continue fighting? Fighters in general always have a hard time hanging up the gloves, but when you’re the champion for so long, I think it’s a different type of calculus.

How do you go from being the “untouchable” champion to just another guy in the middleweight division? It’s similar to guys who get cut from larger promotions and have to go back to the regional circuit. Once you compete at a certain level, it’s hard to come back down. Every moment you’re not in the UFC is a constant reminder of a past failure. You think about what you used to be. You can call it pride or arrogance, but those feelings of being a “has-been” are amplified when you’re a champion.

Win or lose, how do you think Weidman has affected the Silva legacy? Yes, he’s the “greatest of all time,” (until the next GOAT comes along), but he’s not exactly beloved, at least among Americans. If he were to walk away, would he create the same sense of loss that GSP’s departure has?

Fowlkes: Before we throw dirt on his grave, let’s imagine the scenario where Silva wins the rematch. Maybe he comes out and makes clear right away that he’s not messing around this time. Or maybe he totally messes around and it totally works. Regardless, he wins this and he’s the greatest of all time, no question. End the debate, carve it into stone. Or, perhaps more appropriately, carve it into the walls of the MGM Grand Garden Arena (as soon as one of those ushers in the green blazers isn’t looking). “Here stood Anderson Silva, the best who ever did it.”

But OK, say he loses again, and say he really does retire afterward. I get what you’re saying about him not exactly being beloved by American fans, but those same people would start to miss him as soon as he was gone. That’s a curious thing about sports fans, maybe even fight fans in particular. A lot of fighters get better in our memories after they’ve quit fighting. We love to tell those stories about where we were and what we were thinking the night Silva beat Rich Franklin for the second time, or when Silva triangle’d Chael Sonnen in the waning seconds of a fight he was losing. It’s part of our collective lore and history, but we don’t always realize it until it’s put away firmly in the past.

Silva will be remembered fondly, and probably beloved far more in his absence from the UFC than he ever was during his tenure there. If he loses this one and goes away for good, we won’t say Silva sucked. We’ll say he was the best and then he got old, as even the best must.

Downes: True, before we start working on those obituaries for Silva’s career, there is that whole fight thing. I think you’re right about the feelings on Silva. We’ve all heard the saying, “The older I get, the better I was,” and that applies to fans’ collective memories. This isn’t about pushing Silva out the door; it’s about trying to place his first fight against Weidman in a larger context. Whether it was a tactical miscalculation or the result of a champion who got bored with winning so much, it’s still one of the stranger moments in the sport’s history.

I think that’s one of the problems with the results of Weidman/Silva I, it was just weird. Besides deciding the future of the middleweight division, UFC 168 will give us closure. Chris Weidman knocked out Anderson Silva. It’s impossible to debate that fact. Everything else surrounding that moment…that’s a different story. However this fight ends, let’s just hope we have an ending on which we all can agree.