Anderson Silva is fuming with Dana White and the UFC at the moment after they failed to agree on a suitable fight for UFC 212 in Brazil next month, and the UFC president is now hoping to smooth things over by meeting the legendary fighter face-to-face.
Silva had originally been scheduled to fight Kelvin Gastelum at the event, but when that fell through talks stalled on a suitable replacement.
Eventually an exasperated Silva lost his cool and started calling out the UFC, believing that the promotion weren’t respecting his legacy, then claimed that he would retire if they didn’t give him an interim title fight with No.1 middleweight contender Yoel Romero at UFC 212.
White then called his bluff by dismissing that fight as a possibility, while suggesting that perhaps Silva should be retiring if that’s the way he felt. The fighter has since confirmed that he’s now officially off the UFC 212 card, and it’s unclear whether he willl go through with his decision to hang up his gloves.
“I have to deal with tons of different personalities and egos and lots of different things with all of the athletes that I deal with,” White told Jime Rome yesterday. “Anderson Silva has always been one of those guys that’s been unique to deal with – (but) never at this level. I didn’t make Kelvin Gastelum test positive for marijuana and pull out of the fight, and we tried to make other fights and get other opponents for him.
“You can’t demand a title fight or (threaten), ‘I’m going to retire.’ Especially when you know that my philosophy is this: If you even mention the word ‘retirement,’ you should probably retire. I know he’s not thrilled and happy with me. He and I need to sit down and do a face-to-face.”
Despite their relationship appearing to have soured, White indicated that he doesn’t hold any ill-will towards Silva and appears eager to get back on better terms with the former champion.
“At the end of the day, despite Anderson Silva going crazy on Instagram and saying all these things right now, he’s actually a really nice guy,” White said. “He’s angry right now and we need to sit down. Everything is better face-to-face, so I probably need to fly out to California and sit down to talk with him – and soon, very soon.”
