Anderson Silva has nothing to prove, no reason to rush back to UFC

It seems like every day a new one comes out.

Anderson Silva lifting weights. Anderson Silva hitting pads. Anderson Silva rolling. Anderson Silva going to the bathroom.

OK, maybe not the last one. But you get the point.

Silva's "comeback" has gotten a significant amount of fanfare and it's mostly of his own doing. Of course, people are going to rubberneck for stuff like this. It's just hard to understand why he feels the need to hurry back so soon after breaking his leg in rather grisly fashion almost exactly two months ago against Chris Weidman.

I'm no doctor. Maybe Silva's bones do have some kind of crazy healing power, like UFC president Dana White said he was told two weeks ago. Maybe Silva is the UFC's answer to Wolverine from the X-Men.

My question is this: What's the rush? It's obviously a different injury, but ask Dominick Cruz about trying to come back too quickly. And he's a decade younger than the 38-year-old Silva.

There's no one in UFC history who has less to prove than Silva. He's done everything. Basically every record that exists in the UFC, he has broken. Silva is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame and people don't call him the greatest MMA fighter of all time because his affability with the media.

It wasn't just what Silva did, either. It wasn't just 16 straight wins in the UFC and 10 consecutive title defenses. It wasn't just seven years with the UFC middleweight title around his waist. Silva didn't just dominate, he dominated with style. He made grown men -- elite fighters -- look like chumps on multiple occasions. Just ask Forrest Griffin or Rich Franklin or Stephan Bonnar what it's like to be in the Octagon with him. Silva was special and there may not be anyone like him again.

Silva's zest for being a showman is likely behind his desire to post videos of his recovery. He's building himself up as this superhuman, who can shrug off an injury of major magnitude with the ease in which he used to slip punches.

Again, let's give Silva the benefit of the doubt and say he is healing at an accelerated rate. There's no reason to put it all out there like this and heighten expectations. Silva isn't getting back into the Octagon before December and that's at the absolute earliest.

Dr. Robert Klapper, UFC Tonight's sports medicine expert and an orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, was as optimistic as anyone about Silva's recovery. He's operated on Silva before and has first-hand knowledge of the man's body and fitness. But even Klapper told me in January that Silva -- and anyone who breaks a leg in such a way -- will have pain for up to a year, at least until the screws are removed from the repaired bone.

Silva had a steel rod implanted inside his tibia to repair the break. The rod is held in by screws on either side, so it doesn't twist or come loose. Until those screws come out, Silva is going to be hurting. Will he take a fight in December with the screws still in? It's hard to say.

And that's just it. We don't know. It has only been two months since the injury. So many things can happen in his rehab. There could be setbacks. All we see is what we're spoon-fed by videos online and by quotes from second-hand sources.

Silva is clearly motivated to fight again -- maybe more motivated than he was last year before the injury. It's nice to see that desire, that spirit. But really, there's no need for urgency, no need to feel like you have to be in the Octagon before the year is up.

No one wants to see Silva at anything less than his best. And if that means taking your time to come back from a horrific injury, that's preferable. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone to argue that point.