Anderson Silva is the greatest champion in the history of the UFC. He has won 15 straight fights, and has had ten straight title defenses. He is undoubtedly the greatest fighter in MMA history.
In his most recent fight, he defeated Chael Sonnen by a second round TKO, after saying for months that he had no interest in fighting Sonnen and that he didn’t think he deserved a title shot.
The fight eventually happened, but Silva didn’t want to fight the man who had given him the most trouble in his UFC career.
Now, Ed Soares has been shooting down names left and right that he feels don’t deserve a shot at Silva.
He said that Silva has no interest in fighting the current light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones. Turning down that fight is understandable, as no fighter can be forced to move up in weight—unless your name is Anthony Johnson.
But when he starts shrugging off top contenders at middleweight, such as Chris Weidman, it is clear that he is avoiding the threats to Silva’s reign as greatest ever.
When asked about Weidman fighting Silva, Soares said, “I mean, because he had an impressive win over Mark Munoz and [Demian] Maia?” Soares paused and rolled his eyes before adding “Sure.”
Then, in the same interview, Soares spoke about Nick Diaz, saying, “Sure, we’ll consider anyone the UFC puts in front of us, I don’t have a choice. Nick Diaz is a good opponent possibly, I mean, he’s a smaller guy, but he’s a guy who comes out and fights every time, he’s going to put on a good fight.”
So, Silva will fight a guy who fights at 170, would be coming off of a year-long suspension and also coming off of a loss, but he doesn’t want to fight a guy his own size, who is 9-0 with two impressive top ten wins.
Anderson Silva is scared, homie.
Tim McTiernan is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. For the latest news on everything MMA, follow him on Twitter @TimMcTiernan.
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