Wanderlei Silva interested in moving to boxing, goes off on Vitor Belfort fighting Evander Holyfield: “I don’t want to fight an old man”

Wanderlei Silva might be retired from MMA, but he’s not retired from boxing.

‘The Axe Murderer’ has been out of action since his knockout loss to Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson in September 2018. Following that defeat, Silva departed from Bellator. He promptly signed with BKFC the following year.

However, the 46-year-old never competed in the bare-knuckle ring. In fact, he hasn’t competed in anything since his last fight four years ago. Last month, Silva announced that he was done fighting in MMA.

The main reason that Wanderlei Silva retired was that he wanted to coach his son, Thor. While he might be retired from MMA, it seems that he’s not entirely done competing. In an interview on the Trocação Franca podcast, Silva stated that he wanted to box in the future.

However, if the 46-year-old boxes, he doesn’t want to face an older fighter. During his conversation, Silva blasted his longtime rival, Vitor Belfort, for boxing Evander Holyfield last year. The Brazilian knocked out the 59-year-old in round one.

Image Credit: Triller

“I would like to fight a boxer, right?” Silva said. “I always liked to do it on their game. Even when I was training, I liked to do jiu-jitsu with jiu-jitsu guys and wrestle wrestlers. I like to test myself. I would like to box one of those good guys, maybe a former world champion, something like that. That would be interesting.” (h/t MMAFighting)

Silva continued, “But I don’t want to fight an old man like our friend did, fighting someone who’s almost 70. It has to be someone younger, right? To fight an old man and beat them quickly is something other type of fighters do. I won’t do that. I wanna box someone good.”

He concluded, “It could be[a boxing match against Belfort]. Why not?. He’s been running for a long time but who knows, right? Maybe now in this moment of life we can book it and box. It would be cool to have this type of challenge. We’d make a lot of noise and help our sport grow.”

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