UFC 97 will be highlighted by the pound for pound best fighter in the world, Anderson Silva as he takes on Thales Leites. The battle for the middleweight crown will hopefully have a better finish then the unfortunate events that unfolded when Silva took on Patrick Cote back at UFC 90.

Coming into this fight Leites is riding a five fight win streak with his latest victory coming way of first round submission over Drew McFedries at UFC 90. Meanwhile, Silva is undefeated in his UFC career, going 8-0, with every fight except one being for the title.

The matchup shakes down to an interesting one, and when the name Silva is involved you just know there is going to be fireworks. Don't count out Leites though, in the world of MMA other then to hardcore fans he's not very well known and he hasn't been built up a lot by the UFC prior to this UFC 97 title fight.

There is realistically only one way that Leites can pull out the victory here and it will be tough, he's going to have to submit Silva, easier said then done.

Leites primary background comes in the form of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and even though he may not have a total advantage on the ground over Silva he will have the knowledge and skills able to submit Silva if the opportunity ever presents itself.

That is the next problem, how do you get Silva in a position to submit him? I can only ever recall Silva being in ‘trouble' one time in a fight and that was against Travis Lutter where Lutter had him in a vunerable position to do some damage and potentially win but that, as we all now know would amount to nothing (not to mention Lutter couldn't make weight for the fight).

Looking at this fight I do believe a lot of people are counting out Leites, it's been said he realistically doesn't deserve this title shot and that he will ultimately be demolished by the Middleweight King, let's be honest here, it's hard to argue those statements. Fighters have come out and said before that they seen holes in Silva's game, but how come no one has been able to exploit them?

Silva's precise and powerful punching will ultimately prove to be his biggest asset in this fight as he undoubtedly has the stand up portion of the fight in his favor. Just ask James Irvin who knows that eating an off balance jab from Silva is something that is not pleasurable.

There's not too much else to say about this fight other then that it will prove to be interesting and it does pose a lot of questions even though on paper Silva has it hands down.

How prepared is Silva coming into this fight?

No one has ever questioned the training of Silva but perhaps this time he slips and got lazy in his training expecting an easy win. It's tough to tell. Will Leites catch Silva with a random punch? We all know in every fight there's a punchers chance where if you land that one shot in the right spot, your opponent could crumble.

Is Leites even deserving of this title shot?

A lot of people say no, but if he puts in a solid performance, even if he loses, it will show that he's a contender in the middleweight division and that he can hang with any of the top guys.

It's going to be an exciting night of fights at UFC 97 in Montreal, and the UFC has done a great job of bringing a great cast of characters back to the French province.