Photo Credit: Sherdog

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Yoshihiro Akiyama has gone on record saying that while he still wants to face Wanderlei Silva (and grab the Middleweight title while he’s at it), it looks as though the Japanese star is destined to fight the winner of this weekend’s UFC 110 Silva-Michael Bisping fight instead. Originally, the card was to have Akiyama facing Silva, but UFC made the correct decision, putting Bisping in with “The Axe Murderer” in an effort to promote the best card possible.

Like Akiyama, we’ll have to wait until the wee hours of Saturday morning to know who his next opponent will be. In that same interview with MMAJunkie, Akiyama (13-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) mentions that hopes that not only does Silva prevail, but needs him to escape the fight relatively healthy so as to allow the match-up to happen as early at UFC 115 in Vancouver.

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