(“Do you need a manager?”)
Anderson Silva wants Ed Soares to take his name out of his mouth — at least when talking to reporters about the career decisions of his marquee client.
Silva took exception to Soares’ recent interview with GLOBO recently during which he explained that Silva will likely retire after competing four more times in the Octagon. The usually jovial Brazilian fighter refuted Soares’ assertion and hinted that he may split with his longtime manager as a result his insolence.
“Not true. As one of my coaches, I still have many bottles to sell. I think we keep fighting for another six, seven years. Four years ago, I was a little stressed,” Silva explained in an interview with GLOBO this week. “I decided with my teacher Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira that after another year I would stop. He said he had no reason to, and then I stopped to think, I had one more fight, and then said, ‘I will postpone my retirement for some time.”
Silva also spoke during a television appearance this weekend on Tela Nitida the about the seemingly growing rift with Soares that began to form when the much maligned manager began telling the media that they weren’t interested in a fight with Chael Sonnen in spite of the fact that “The Gangster from America” is the UFC’s top contender at the moment, unless Dan Henderson decides to drop down to middleweight again. Adding to their tension was the fact that Silva took issue with the recent mocking photograph Soares posed for with Sonnen, who in recent weeks has turned up the insults targeted at “The Spider” and his wife.
“Unfortunately my manager is American, he speaks Portuguese but he is American. But I’m putting myself as a Brazilian… Whether you are in the UFC or not, when I’m outside my country i’m going to represent my country well and I think everyone has to position himself in the right way,” Silva explained. “His position was not good, was not cool, as a manager he needed to have a more professional attitude. He was not professional and I don’t know why… I think it was not cool. But everyone knows what’s best, he is a grown man and he is going to deal with the backlash of what he did. First thing is that nobody can talk for me except myself. Second is that I don’t have a contract with anybody, except with Nine9 and my sponsors, so anything can happen.”
It looks like Soares, who was dropped by Junior dos Santos a few months back is about to lose his meal ticket and there’s a pretty good chance that if he does, Silva’s training partners like Nogueira and Jose Aldo will follow suit.