My thing is, I think AAs only weapon is his moderately good striking. I don't really feel he's beaten anyone too good though in his career, outside of Tim, and that was because Tim kinda panicked when he hit the canvas, not because he isn't a good ground fighter. If you use Cabbage as a basis for their striking ability (they both him, a guy with one of the hardest heads in MMA, essentially at the same time in Cabbage's career), I feel Tim fared a LOT better. I feel he did more damage to Cabbage than AA, who never had him in serious trouble, even when he "TKO"d him (which i felt was a bullshit call). In fact, AA actually almost at canvas at one point.

Basically, AA is a decent striker with no real ground game that we've seen. CC is the best striker in MMA today. AA has nothing to fall back on except dumb luck. At least Sylvia still has his massive reach, and a much better ground game/takedown D (in my opinion, at least, if for no other reason than his huge reach and long legs on the ground). The only way I can see AA winning is if CC falls victim to another knockout similar to his one against Randleman (his only KO loss in MMA). Sylvia, however, I can see winning a decision much more readily than AA can get his freak knockout.