UFC Middleweight Anderson Silva recently made a demand of the UFC, either let him face Yoel Romero for an interim middleweight title or he’ll retire.
Dana White, the UFC President, has said that Silva won’t be getting that title shot and he should probably retire.
“Every time for the last however many years, dealing with Anderson is always interesting,” White said to TMZ Sports. “Obviously, he wants an interim title – obviously, we’re not going to do an interim title. He’s definitely coming out publicly (with his demands). You know my philosophy on that: If you ever say the ‘R’ word, you should probably do it, anyway. If you’re considering retirement, you should probably do it.”
It should be noted that Silva has only won just one of his last five fights under the UFC banner, with that lone win coming over Derek Brunson at UFC 208. A fight against Nate Diaz was later overturned to a no contest after a failed drug test.
White also believes that Silva is mad that he isn’t fighting Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 212, but White says that it was USADA’s call, not the UFC’s.
“We will not do an interim title. No. It won’t happen,” White said. “Bisping’s ready, willing and able to fight the actual No. 1 contender, who is Yoel Romero. Anderson Silva’s ranked No. 7 right now. … Anderson’s mad. I didn’t pull Kelvin Gastelum out. Kelvin Gastelum smoked weed, and now he got busted, and we’ve done everything we could to make another fight for Anderson. So it’s nothing we did.”
Silva hasn’t responded to the comments from White, but the threat of retirement now looms over the former UFC Middleweight Champion.
