Dana White planning to have meeting with Anderson Silva

Former UFC middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva, and the UFC brass are currently engaged in a rather public dispute regarding Silva’s next fight.

After snapping a two fight skid that saw ‘The Spider’ lose a controversial decision to Michael Bisping, before then dropping a unanimous decision to Daniel Cormier on just 48 hours notice, Silva demanded the UFC create an interim middleweight title for he and Yoel Romero to fight for while Michael Bisping and Georges St-Pierre fought for the undisputed belt.

UFC President Dana White refuted the possibility of an interim middleweight title, which prompted Silva to threaten to retire if his demands were not met.

Now, in an interview with The Jim Rome Show, UFC President Dana White spoke about the situation, saying:

“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 said. “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.”

“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.”

Stay tuned for updates as they become available.

on 5/12/2017.