UFC President Dana White is planning to meet with former UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva in the near future.
Silva has publically shown his dissatisfaction with the UFC in the past few weeks.
Silva was originally scheduled to fight Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 212 on June 3. After testing positive for marijuana use, Gastelum was taken off the card.
Silva then said he wanted to fight Yoel Romero for an interim title at the event. However, instead of getting the fight, he was taken off the card altogether.
“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 on Jim Rome’s show. “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.
“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 Silva and the UFC not seeing eye-to-eye, White says Silva is still a nice guy and he will fly to meet with him soon.
“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.”
