Future Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Hall of Famer Anderson Silva is set to battle Derek Brunson at UFC 208. That isn’t stopping “The Spider” from talking about a fantasy match-up with a “Notorious” champion.
Silva caused quite a stir when he called Conor McGregor a “dwarf” and admitted he wanted to fight the current UFC lightweight title holder. During a recent media scrum (via MMAFighting.com), Silva went in-depth on wanting to fight McGregor:
“I’d like to test myself against Conor because he’s an interesting martial artist. His stand-up game is an intelligent game. Not because he’s champion now, but for the martial arts challenge. I’d like to see how these stand-up techniques, his and mine, would mix, and how that would go. But not to fight for a belt or anything like that. For the challenge, an interest, that thing about knowing how a fight like this would go.”
It’s obvious that Silva, who has fought at 185 pounds most of his career and even dabbled in light heavyweight, won’t look to challenge for the lightweight gold. While Silva wouldn’t entertain a welterweight tilt, he is willing to do a catchweight bout.
“I believe he can make 176, 178 pounds, right? That’s a weight I can get. We started this work and I got to 174, but we thought it would be better now to do these tests.”
For now, Silva will have to focus on a heavy hitting Jackson-Wink MMA bruiser. Brunson recently had his five-fight winning streak snapped by Robert Whittaker. He was TKO’d in the bout, but did earn a “Fight of the Night” bonus.
It’s no secret that Silva likes to drop his hands as a trap to lure his opponents into a counter-strike. The problem here is, Brunson often swings for the fences and has knockout power. Do not blink.
