Since making his debut in the Octagon, UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva has never hand picked an opponent. He has never turned down a fight. He even moved up a weight class to be a part of a main event for a special live televised event. And after facing Patrick Cote at UFC 90 in Chicago, Silva is looking for the biggest fights possible.
Being considered among the best pound for pound fighters on the planet always puts Silva’s name in the hat when fans and journalists alike start matchmaking the dream fights, pitting the Brazilian against everyone from Georges St. Pierre to Chuck Liddell.
His manager, Ed Soares, spoke to MMAWeekly Radio recently and feels that Anderson Silva will be a part of many of the biggest fights fans will ever see.
“I think he wants to fight those big mega fights because that’s the kind of fight we want to be involved with right now,” he said about Silva’s future fights. “I think it’s a combination of seeing what the potential opponent is and also seeing what the UFC wants to do. At the end of the day, this is a business, and they need to sell fights. They need to sell a lot of pay-per-views, and they need to sell tickets. So, we want to be involved with those types of fights.”
One name in particular that has been rumored for months is former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell, who is arguably the most well known fighter in the sport today. While Silva’s focus is solely on Patrick Cote, a fight with Liddell is one he would accept.
“We’re not looking past Patrick Cote, but I think we’ll take one step at a time and see what happens. But yeah, if a Chuck Liddell fight came up, we’d take it,” stated Soares. “Whoever the UFC wants to put in front of us, he wants to fight the best, and whoever that may be at the time, that’s who he wants to fight.”
The timing for a year-end super fight involving Silva may work out as well. As Soares explained, he was originally going to fight Yushin Okami at UFC 88 in Atlanta, but an injury forced the Japanese fighter off the card.
This latest match-up with Cote will take place towards the end of October, but barring any injuries, the “Spider” won’t close the door for the possibility of another fight in 2008.
“If the right fight was to come up for the New Year’s fight, maybe we would take it,” said Soares. “Right now it’s really hard to say, we’re pretty much just focused with Anderson on the Oct. 25 fight.”
Anderson Vs Liddell would be a cool match. Looping punches Vs precision punching.
Hell, even Anderson Vs Wandy would be good since they have legit bad blood after the chute boxe split.
