I find it helpful to think of MMA in terms of paper-rock-scissors. One type of fighter may be more adept at beating one type of fighter, but do more poorly against another. For instance, Sakuraba fights well against submission-grapplers, but (if I can make this judgement based soely on the Silva fight) poorly against strikers. Belfort, on the other hand, seems to do well against other strikers. So it may not be important that Sakuraba beat Vitor, and Silva beat Sakuraba, but rather how the fighters match up against one another individually.
I have no predictions about this fight. It seems like many fighters go through highs and lows - winning streaks and then several consecutive losses, then coming back strong as a better fighter and winning again. Both Silva and Belfort are on post-loss highs, and it's too hard at this point to see just how much better they are. I'd love to see Sak against another strong striker and see whether or not his loss was a fluke.
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