To hear UFC president Dana White tell it, we may get to see a third fight between Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva after all.
It’s a notion many consider impossible. Weidman owns two victories over Silva, after all, even though both of them weren’t exactly what White (or anyone else) considers definitive.
“Chris won the fight,” White said during a Thursday news scrum in New York City. “But none of us can deny we got robbed of a finish in the fight, you know? It was a freak accident and we got robbed of a finish.”
White is, of course, referring to the horrific fight-ending injury suffered by Silva in the main event of December’s UFC 168. Weidman checked a Silva leg kick, and the former middleweight champion’s leg snapped in half, leaving Weidman celebrating and Silva writhing on the floor while questions surrounding his future began circulating.
But White says Silva won’t just return to the Octagon. He wants the belt again.
“Guys like that, once they lose that belt…they want that belt back so bad,” he said. “I can tell he wants that belt back.”
Silva underwent surgery the morning after suffering the injury and is currently rehabilitating at his Los Angeles home. UFC doctor Steve Sanders told Bleacher Report after the surgery that he expected the former champion to be on the shelf for a total of six months before returning to training.
Despite the gruesome nature of the injury, White noted Silva was lucky to have suffered a mere broken bone instead of, say, ligament damage in the knee or ankle.
“He’s going to heal. He’s going to come back. The bone will be stronger,” White said. “If you blow your ACL, you’re out for a year and three months.
“He broke a bone. He’s going to be good.”
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