Dana White has revealed that UFC legend Anderson Silva has refused to speak to him since he told him that his time in the UFC had come to an end over five years ago.

“Anderson Silva, he was always a unique individual to deal with, but he lost like 8 or 9 or 10 in a row, something like that,” White told Rolling Stone in a new interview. “That guy won’t talk to me to this day. Because I said it’s over and he was in his 40s.

“His thing was ‘who are you to tell me that I’m done doing what I love to do?’ [I told him] it’s over. Obviously they can go fight [somewhere else] and he did. He went and fought a boxing match and he fought a bunch of other fights. He can still fight. You just can’t do it here.”

White insists that his decision to prevent Silva from competing again in the Octagon wasn’t personal, noting that other stars have been given the same treatment over the years, and sometimes with the same reaction.

“Even guys that were really good but it’s at the end,” White said. “I’m like it’s time for them to hang it up. They get mad and they get upset. Some of these guys never talk to me again.”

White went on to note that few stars ever retire while still at the top of the game, with the lure of fighting and the fame and money that comes with it being too hard for most fighters to walk away from.

“Very few actually leave the way that [Jon Jones] or Georges St-Pierre or some of the greats have,” White said. “On so many different levels. First of all the money. One more paycheck. Let me get one more paycheck.

“Then it’s imagine being at that level and walking out of the tunnel at [Madison Square Garden] with 22,000 people going crazy and you don’t know it’s over until you actually get in there and you can’t pull the trigger the way you used to and you get beat.”