Even if Anderson Silva left things a little up in the air regarding his future after Saturday nights victory over Nick Diaz, his longtime friend and manager Ed Soares doesn’t think we’ve seen the last of the consensus greatest of all time.
Soares appeared on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, and said that not only does he believe the 39-year-old Silva will fight again, but that he’ll fight again at some point in 2015.
“Yeah, I do,” he told Ariel Helwani. “Right now they’re already starting to film [The Ultimate Fighter] Brazil [4], beginning [Monday], so he’s got a pretty tight schedule. He’ll probably be filming TUF until the first week of March, and then I think he’ll take some time off and sit there and see what’s next. But I could definitely see him fighting again in the second half of this year.”
After spending the last 13 months rehabilitating a broken leg and getting back into fight shape, Silva made a triumphant return to the Octagon at UFC 183 in Las Vegas, scoring a unanimous decision over Nick Diaz. Afterwards, an emotional Silva said that his family had pleaded with him to stop fighting, though he didn’t elaborate on whether or not this might be his swan song.
In the aftermath, many fans and media opined that this was a chance for Silva to go out with a victory, having now put away the bad memories of the broken leg he suffered in his title rematch with Chris Weidman at UFC 168.
Soares isn’t one of them. And, with the Diaz fight having been novelty of sorts — Diaz returned from a semi-retirement and moving up a weight class from his usual welterweight — he believes there’s a bigger “superfight” that can be made.
“I think that GSP fight would be an incredible fight,” he said, referring to longtime welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. “I definitely think that that would be the fight where if I could be the ultimate matchmaker and say, which fight would I like to see, I’d like to see GSP vs. Anderson Silva. I think as they’re going towards the tail end of their careers, they’re two of the greatest that have ever stepped foot in the Octagon, and neither one of them has a title right now, so this would pretty much be the superfight.
“It would be the biggest fight in UFC history. It would be bigger than UFC 100 with Georges St-Pierre and Anderson.”
While both held titles, the UFC had long talked about doing a St-Pierre-Silva superfight. Silva even showed up to UFC 154 in Montreal and sat cageside when St-Pierre defended his title against Carlos Condit. Yet, St-Pierre was reluctant to mess around with jumping weight classes at the time, and ultimately ceded his belt for a “break” after defeating Johny Hendricks at UFC 167. St-Pierre, now 33, remains inactive in early 2015, though UFC president Dana White is confident he’ll come back to fight again at some point.
After rewriting the record books for title defenses, Silva lost his belt to Weidman at UFC 162. With neither St-Pierre or Silva holding up their respective weight classes as titleholders, Soares thinks the timing is right to make the fight — though he’s not sure what the odds are of it actually materializing.
“I have no idea what the chances are, I mean, that’s a question for Dana, and maybe that’s a question you’d have to ask George St-Pierre,” he said. “I know that Anderson has all the respect in the world for Georges St-Pierre, but I know that that’s a fight that from a fan’s perspective and from a business perspective, it’s a fight that makes sense for everyone involved.
“I know that Anderson and Georges would make a lot of money, and so would the UFC, so it’s a win-win for everyone. Everyone would make a lot of money, and there will be a lot of hype around that.”
Asked if he would pitch the fight to the UFC for when Silva was done filming TUF and ready to go, Soares said that probably wouldn’t be necessary.
“I don’t think I need to pitch it to the UFC, man,” he said. “I think the UFC would want that [fight] just as much or worse than us. I think that if the UFC could be that fight together, they would try to put that fight together.”