Anderson "The Spider" Silva last defended his UFC middleweight title in April 2009 at UFC 97. In the time since, he has spent a little over three minutes in the octagon; the time it took him to destroy Forrest Griffin in a lop-sided beating at UFC 101. The fight marked one of his occasional forays into the UFC's light-heavyweight division.

Silva, who has held the UFC middleweight belt since 2006 and also holds the record for consecutive wins in the octagon at 10-straight, was forced to undergo elbow surgery last year to correct a nagging injury, complicating an already confusing title defense picture. With several possible challengers being considered for a title shot, it was Vitor Belfort who emerged as the choice to face Silva after he scored an impressive first-round knockout over Rich Franklin at UFC 103. Since the announcement that Belfort would face Silva sometime early in 2010, fans have been waiting to hear news about the progress of Silva's recovery. Well, it's now official.

The Spider's back.

Silva's manager Ed Soares recently confirmed that his fighter is back on track to compete against Vitor Belfort at UFC 112 in April. The fight had been widely rumored but has not yet been officially confirmed.  

"It's going to be April, him against Vitor," Soares told MMAWeekly.com. "He's back training all the time. He's doing really well. Just rehabbing the elbow and trying to get the full range of motion and everything, but he's feeling well enough to train, and his training's been going really well."

Silva had injured the elbow some time before his surgery, and suffered from pain and the chance for further damage by bone fragments floating in the joint. Though many fans have been frustrated by the Silva's long absence, it's clear that he needed to take time off to address the issue before he returned to action.

"The elbow has been bothering him for a long time and that's part of the reason that we just had to go ahead and do it because it wasn't getting any better, and the longer that those fragments stayed there, it was other potential damage that those fragments were creating," Soares said.

Now Silva is back in training and looking forward to a showdown with one of the most dangerous strikers he has ever faced.

Belfort, a former UFC light-heavyweight champion, has demonstrated great hand speed and devastating power throughout his career, and has looked very strong recently after moving down from light-heavyweight to middleweight. However, despite Belfort's accomplishments and the fact that he believes it will be a good fight, Soares continues to express doubts about Belfort's claim to the middleweight title shot.

"I think Vitor's a very exciting fighter," Soares stated. "He's a very dangerous fighter. I think this is a fight that the world will definitely want to see. I still don't believe Vitor deserves a title shot yet at 185 pounds. That's how I felt, that's how I feel about it, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe it's going to be a great fight."

Make sure to check back with us the day of the event for free, live, round-by-round coverage of UFC 112 right here at FiveKnuckles.com! Join expert analyst Mike Williams as he takes you through the entire fight card blow-by-blow and then keep it right here for all the post-fight news and notes you can handle!