Despite a report from this weeks UFC.com’s Ultimate Insider, UFC middleweight fighters Brian Stann and Wanderlei Silva have not been signed to meet at the upcoming UFC 130 event.
News comes via reporter Ariel Helwani at MMAFighting.com who spoke to a source from the UFC promotion who confirmed that “the fight was never signed and that Silva has informed the organization that he won’t be healthy enough to compete on the card.”
UFC 130 is set to take place on May 28 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Stann would be able to compete on the card if given an opponent. He was last in the octagon on Jan. 1st against Chris Leben having earned a first round TKO victory over “The Crippler” at UFC 125. It was his second fight at middleweight and his second straight victory.
Silva earned a unanimous decision win over Michael Bisping at UFC 110 in his last fight. “The Axe Murderer” has been sidelined since after undergoing knee surgery in July. That fight was Silva’s UFC middleweight debut.
The news that the fight is not booked also puts into question news from the same Ultimate Insider episode that bouts between Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs. Thiago Silva and Frank Mir vs. Roy “Big Country” Nelson have been made official. I guess we’ll have to wait for word from a UFC official and not one of their promotional video shows.