We talked about Polish strongman turned MMA fighter Mariusz Pudzianowski awhile back and since then there’s been a good deal of speculation about who ‘Puddin’ would fight next.  Tossing aside challenges from retired hockey goons and the Mike Maddux of MMA, Aleksander Emelianenko, the latest word is that Pudzianowski’s next bout will be in the United States against an opponent familiar to UFC fans–none other than former heavyweight champ Tim ‘The Maine-iac’ Sylvia.

Eric ‘Butterbean’ Esch, who is one of the more reprehensible people in fight sports in addition to being a longtime sideshow act on both boxing and MMA cards, is reportedly going into the promotion business to bring Pudzianowski to the US for a fight.  He’s teaming up with another promoter, Corey Fisher, and the Korean fight promotion Mooshin to put the thing together.  The goal is to be the first MMA event in Massachusetts after the Bay State’s new regulatory oversight of the sport begins today.  The tentative plan is to have Pudzianowski face Sylvia in the main event of a fight card to be held on April 23rd at the DCU center in Worcester, Mass.

Sylvia’s fighting career has been in freefall since he was brutalized by the best heavyweight in the world, Fedor Emelianenko, at the first Affliction MMA event back in July 2008.  After that, he had the ill advised notion to go into professional boxing.  While in theory his height and insane reach could be effectively leveraged in ‘The Sweet Science’ the fact that he had little actual boxing experience was a bit of a problem.  Undeterred, he booked a fight with former world heavyweight champion ‘Merciless’ Ray Mercer.  Apparently he didn’t realize that while boxers may get older and slow down, they don’t forget how to box.  At the opening bell, Sylvia threw a lazy leg kick at his opponent who counterpunched him and knocked him out cold at the 9 second mark of the first round.

He’s since thought better of a boxing career and made a somewhat successful return to MMA, earning a TKO victory over journeyman Jason Riley last September.  Since then there have been rumors that he’d end up in Strikeforce or the Japanese MMA promotion DREAM.  He reportedly was offered a fight against US heavyweight expat Josh Barnett on a DREAM card in late March, but turned the fight down.  He tentatively had a fight signed against former ‘Ultimate Fighter’ competitor Wes Sims, but the Ohio State Athletic Commission put the kibosh on that by ruling it a ‘non competitive matchup’ and refusing to sanction it.  There are rumors afoot that he’ll eventually fight Sims this June on a fight card in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada promoted by the International Fighting Confederation.

As far as Mariusz Pudzianowski is concerned, the suitability of Sylvia as an opponent so early in his MMA career is questionable.  Sylvia is clearly not the fighter he once was, but he’s still a big and dangerous opponent who has faced a ‘who’s who’ of the sport from Frank Mir to Randy Couture to Fedor Emelianenko.  On the other hand, he could be a good litmus test for Pudzianowski–if he’s going to be a legitimate contender in MMA he needs to be able to beat ‘gatekeepers’ like Sylvia who is now little more than a journeyman in the sport.  If Sylvia aspires to revive his fighting career, he’s got to be able to beat a raw prospect like Pudzianowski who is clearly a big, powerful foe but with limited fighting experience.  In some really strange way, it all makes perfect sense.

What makes a little less sense is having the fight in the United States where Sylvia is regarded as a fighter in serious decline and Pudzianowski is known only to the most hardcore MMA fans.   He’s a big star in Eastern Europe, so that would probably be a better venue for the bout–at least from a financial standpoint.  Of course  Pudzianowski would no doubt like to make a name for himself in the US, but facing a former UFC heavyweight champion–even a flawed one like Sylvia–is a dangerous assignment in his second pro fight.   Win or lose, he’ll still be a big deal in his homeland but a loss could set his efforts to break into the US MMA market back several years.