Following last night’s UFC 153 event in Rio, Dana White spoke to the assembled media about a number of the big talking points in the UFC at this moment in time.
Read our keynotes from the conversation below and scroll down to watch the video for yourselves courtesy of MMAfighting.
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– Dana can only stand back and marvel at Anderson Silva, saying that we might never see something like this again in our lifetimes. He points to the way he moved aside to avoid Stephan Bonnar’s spinning back kick, the fact he let him punch him in the face a few times, and the fact that when he’d decided he’d had enough he finished Bonnar almost instantly.
“It’s unbelievable, nobody does that.”
– He can’t see an argument for anybody but Silva being the best fighter in the sport, and he even goes as far as to say he’s the best in combat sports as a whole.
– The UFC president believes that Silva is playing games with him when he says he won’t fight Jon Jones. Despite his humble persona White believes he knows how Silva operates and that he has a desire to “show everyone who the man is” before retiring. In White’s mind that means he needs to fight Jon Jones.
– White praises Jon Fitch as being a good fighter, and feels that despite people complaining about his style that it’s up to his opponent to deal with his grinding style.
As for Erick Silva, he feels he tired in the third round which cost him the fight and that we’ll now see what he’s really made of in how he bounces back from this defeat, liking it to when GSP was beaten by Matt Hughes.
– Dana won’t talk about Strikeforce, telling reporters that he doesn’t run that company and they should speak to the guy who does instead.
– He isn’t sure who’ll get the next 185lb title shot against Anderson Silva. He feels a few guys might have to fight first to decide who gets the chance. In the mean time he stresses that there’s no guarantee Silva will fight GSP next, so it’s certainly possible that the champions next fight will be a title defense.
– White believes Silva is breaking records in the UFC that won’t be touched for 50 years. Having accomplished so much he feels the only thing left is to attempt to take out the two other top p4p fighters GSP and Jon Jones.
– He emphasizes how special it is that Silva can perform like he does in the Octagon despite being 37 years old – older than Stephan Bonnar. He thinks that people are going to miss him more than they realize when he’s gone. He likens him to Michael Jordan in that even when he was playing in less meaningful games he was still doing special things and was “the guy you wanna watch.”
– Dana confirms that the plan is to host an Ultimate Fighter show in India next year plus the live finale, and then another live event after that.
– Dana say that given all the money he’s making Jose Aldo needs to buy a car instead of riding around in a motorcycle risking injury. He then reveals the wing mirror in the car he was driving in today was hit by a bike and jokes that it was probably Aldo to did it.
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