One of the interesting plot twists emerging from the UFC 151 cancellation debacle was that middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva offered at the last minute to step in to headline the show in at light-heavyweight bout, and in a new interview he clarifies what happened.
“When I heard the event might be canceled, I called Dana White and said I would fight in the light heavyweight division against someone who also wasn’t training for the event,” Silva tells Rede Globo in his native Brazil.
“Besides the main fight, the event had many other fighters who depended on it. I worried about that, because I have lived through situations like this in smaller events.”
Unfortunately the offer came too late with White having already announced the decision to cancel the show and so we may possibly have missed out on an all-too-rare chance to see Silva back in the light-heavyweight division.
As much as many people would like to see him make a permanent move to 205lbs at this stage in his career, there’s also still a strong groundswell of interest in seeing him compete against Georges St.Pierre, and Silva’s so eager to test himself against the welterweight champion that he thinks the bout should happen regardless of the outcome of the Canadian’s next fight at UFC 154 in November against Carlos Condit.
“Regardless of who wins, even if St. Pierre loses, a fight with me can happen. A fight like this is above anything else,” Silva says.
UFC officials so far haven’t commented on the possibility of the fight still going down even if St.Pierre lost to Condit, but they are certainly very eager to make it happen if he does emerge victorious, with a 178lb catchweight believed to be a strong possibility to make the bout as fair as possible to each man.
