While the MMA world learned earlier this week that former UFC 185-pound king Anderson Silva will be making his long-awaited return to the Octagon for the first time since his UFC 183 fight with Nick Diaz at the O2 Arena in London, as he faces England’s own Michael Bisping. However, the MMA world is just now learning that “The Spider” has plans — with a win over Bisping, of course — to go back after the UFC Middleweight Title that he held for nearly seven straight years.
Silva told UFC.com the following regarding his hope to recapture the UFC 185-pound title as he nears passing the 40 years-of-age mark. (Silva, who returns to the Octagon on February 27th, turns 41 on April 14th.)
“I would love this fight to be in Brazil, but it’s going to be a pleasure to come back and face Michael Bisping at the sold out O2 Arena in London,” Silva told the official UFC website. “It’s been a while since I fought in London for the last time, and I’m really excited to be back. I believe this is going to be a big test so I can come back and go after a title shot.”
An interesting note heading into the Silva-Bisping fight, which is scheduled to air as the main event on an all-exclusive UFC Fight Pass card from London’s O2 Arena on 2/27, is that neither man has ever lost a fight in London. “The Spider” amassed a 4-0 record in London from 2004-2006 as the Cage Rage Middleweight Champion, while “The Count,” a former Cage Rage Light Heavyweight Champion, has gone 5-0 in London. In Bisping’s case, two of his five wins in the city also came from his pre-UFC stint in Cage Rage and his other three wins in London took place inside the world-famous Octagon.
It’s also worth pointing out that Silva was pulled from the official rankings by the UFC back in August after he was suspended by the Nevada Athletic Commission for one year for testing positive for banned substances in his January bout in Las Vegas against Nick Diaz. Additionally, Silva’s decision victory over Diaz at UFC 183 was overturned by the NAC, and is now officially considered a “No Contest.” Add that to the fact that prior to the Diaz fight, Silva sat on the shelf for six months after losing back-to-back fights to former champion Chris Weidman. To make matters worse, Silva fought Light Heavyweight star Stephan Bonnar prior to the Weidman bouts, meaning his last win against a ranked UFC 185-pound contender came against Chael Sonnen in their second fight at UFC 148 in July of 2012.
Currently, Bisping is ranked number seven in the UFC Middleweight division, so one would assume Silva would need more than one victory to immediately warrant another shot at the title he held for so many years. “The Count” is currently on a 2-0 win streak, with victories over Thales Leites on July 18th and C.B. Dollaway on April 25th. Prior to that, Bisping went on the worst run thus far in his storied professional MMA career, putting together a 3-4 record in his previous seven fights, with his most recent fight before the aforementioned two victories being a loss to current UFC Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold in November of 2014.
If UFC forces Silva to defeat one or more top-ranked UFC Middleweight contenders to earn another UFC 185-pound title shot, there’s a good chance “The Spider” will have to break an old rule of his, as he has made it quite clear in the past that he doesn’t like to fight fellow Brazilian fighters, specifically naming Lyoto Machida and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, the current fifth and third-ranked UFC Middleweight contenders, respectively. Currently, along with Machida and Jacare, the top five-ranked contenders in UFC’s Middleweight division feature four Brazilian fighters — the aforementioned Machida (5) and Jacare (3), as well as Vitor Belfort (4) and Yoel Romero (2). The only top-five contender that isn’t a Brazilian fighter is former champion Chris Weidman, who many feel “has Silva’s number” after beating him twice in their previous two meetings inside the Octagon, despite the fact that Silva lost by unusual, albeit violent, circumstances in both cases.
Anderson Silva stated the following back in January before his fight with Diaz, as both Machida and Jacare were publicly claiming they would fight Silva if the UFC requested it of them, as UFC President Dana White was talking about giving Silva another 185-pound title shot with a win over Diaz.
Below are Silva’s comments, which are from the pre-UFC 183 media conference call held on January 29, 2015, that featured both Silva and Diaz delivering the final hype just two days before their showdown inside the Octagon. (You can check out the entire, unedited pre-UFC 183 media call to hear Silva say the comments listed below, by clicking here).
“Jacare is my friend, Lyoto is my friend. But all the time, [those] guys don’t talk the same as me,” Silva said on a Thursday conference call. “When I go to talk to people for media, I say, ‘I no go fight Lyoto because he’s my friend, I no go fight Jacare because he’s my friend.’ But when those guys go and talk to the media, Lyoto says, ‘I go fight Anderson because I go fight.’ Jacare says, ‘I go fight because I go fight, because I’m a fighter.’ But my opinion, I don’t like the positions that Lyoto and Jacare (are taking), because I don’t go fight these guys. Because I’m training with Lyoto for a long time, sometimes I train with Jacare.
“When I go train with guys, I go to help you. … I put 50-percent of my energy into helping the guys. When the guys talk like this, I’m very, very, very disappointed.”
Silva went on to elaborate with some more details later in the UFC 183 media call in January, finishing by outright stating that he “doesn’t like to fight Brazilian guys.”
“I think I need to talk (about) this with the guys, because I talk all the time for the media,” Silva said. “When you guys give me this question, I talk the same. Lyoto is my friend, Jacare trained together with me. And I don’t like to fight Brazilian guys. I don’t like it. This is my opinion. I understand this is a sport, the guys stay in the UFC for fights, but I don’t like to fight Brazilian guys.”
“I work for UFC, so I’m part of the UFC family. So, if Dana decides that I go and fight, I go home and prepare for a fight. If Dana gives me the chance for the belt, I go fight for the belt. But I don’t like to fight Brazilian guys.”
Long before this past January’s UFC 183 pay-per-view, as he was preparing to fight fellow Brazilian Vitor Belfort, who as noted is coincidentally enough one of the four Brazilian fighters ranked in the current top-five in the official UFC rankings, “The Spider” made it clear back then that he didn’t like to fight his fellow countrymen.
Silva stated the following to the at-the-time host of the FUEL TV original series “UFC: From All Angles,” Karyn Bryant, referencing what ended up being one of the most legendary finishes of his MMA career against fellow Brazilian star Vitor “The Phenom” Belfort at UFC 126 in February of 2011. Silva made these comments back in May of 2013 as he was heading into his first fight with Weidman, which took place at UFC 162 on July 6, 2013.
“I no like to fight the Brazilian guys, because it’s different for me. I fight with Vitor [Belfort] but I no like him because I train with Vitor together for a long time and one day Vitor talk, ‘Hey I go fight in the UFC, I fight at 185.’ What? Me and Rodrigo [Nogueira], ‘Feijao’ [Cavalcante], Rogerio [Nogueira], my team — right, fight is the fight, but family, you don’t fight family. But it’s normal, it’s business.”
For the trivia buffs out there, Anderson Silva has only fought two other Brazilian fighters not named Vitor Belfort since joining the UFC ranks — Thales Leites at UFC 97 in April of 2009 and Demian Maia at UFC 112 in April of 2010. Interestingly enough, the Maia fight is to date one of the most heavily criticized performances of Silva’s MMA career due to his consistent showboating, and in the Leites fight, there was talk that Silva purposely refused to finish him, instead doing enough to win and batter him up in the process for as long as possible.
So, yeah, Silva definitely has some issues fighting his fellow countrymen. The question is — is his talk of wanting to regain the UFC title as serious as we as fans hope it is? If we see Silva matched up against any of the four aforementioned Brazilian 185-pound top-five ranked contenders in the fight after the Bisping bout in February, we’ll certainly know he’s at least giving it his best shot!
UFC Fight Night 83: Silva vs. Bisping is scheduled to air live, exclusively on UFC Fight Pass from the O2 Arena in London, England on February 27, 2016.
