The war for UFC light heavyweight supremacy continues this Saturday night at UFC 98. Two undefeated fighters will be facing off for the title belt.

With a 16-0-1 record, Rashad Evans will be defending his UFC light heavyweight belt for the first time after earning it with his resounding victory over Forrest Griffin last December. He's set to face 14-0 Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida, the defensive minded Brazilian karate practitioner.

Interestingly, this will be Machida's second fight in a row where he meets an undefeated opponent. Last January at UFC 94: St. Pierre vs. Penn II, Machida faced the 13-0 Thiago Silva.

In that bout with seconds to go in the first round, Machida jumped into Silva's guard and walloped him with a diving right. Silva was out cold as the horn sounded and Machida was awarded with a rare knockout victory that was declared post-horn.

Up to that point, Machida was seen as an evasive, technical, even boring fighter who let people bring the action to him. Five out of six of his bouts going into the Thiago Silva fight were all judges' decisions. Needless to say, it was a stunner to see Machida take out Silva in such emphatic fashion.

Rashad Evans had Machida-like tendencies early in his UFC career with his first three bouts going the distance. Then he started to open up more with a more dynamic fighting style.

Sean Salmon was an early victim of this growth period of Evans. Evans knocked out the UFC newcomer in 2007 with such a ferocious head kick Salmon to this day appears on virtually every Evans highlight reel.

This new, more well-rounded Evans has knocked out the likes of Jason Lambert, Chuck Liddell and, of course, Forrest Griffin.

It's astounding that Vegas oddsmakers have Lyoto Machida as a 2 to 1 favorite over Evans. Machida's good, but it's questionable if his defensive fighting style will fare well against Evans. Evans has proven to be able to take a punch from the strongest of fighters as well as deliver game ending ones of his own.

The co-main event of UFC 98 will be the long awaited battle between

welterweights Matt Hughes and Matt Serra.

The two were opposing coaches in the fall 2007 season of The Ultimate Fighter reality show. The season was supposed to culminate to a bout between each other in December 2007, but Serra suffered a herniated disc training for the bout. Now a year and a half since the build up, the Hughes-Serra match-up has lost some of its freshness.

Fans really only have to remember one thing: The two truly don't like

each other, so much so it's the entire reason the UFC pitted the two

against each other as opposing coaches.

Expect a cautious chess match of a bout as the two are master ground

fighters of different disciplines. Hughes has the ground and pound

wrestling style and Serra has the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt skills.

UFC 98 on Memorial Day weekend will actually be kicking off a very eventful summer of MMA. UFC 99 in June will feature a main event with a story-line right out of the 1980's classic, Rocky III.

In the coolest team-up since Apollo Creed trained Rocky Balboa for his fight against Clubber Lang, Rich "Ace" Franklin has enlisted the help of an old nemesis to prepare for it. Anderson "The Spider" Silva himself, the man who obliterated Franklin twice in title bouts, will be training Franklin for his bout against Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva.

What are people predicting for this life imitates art bout? Pain. What else?

David Estrada Jr. is a Mixed Martial Arts columnist for the Port Arthur News. He can be e-mailed at DavidEstrada@DavidEstrada.com