Wanderlei Silva revealed that he is currently in negotiations with Rizin Fighting Federation.
Shortly following Wanderlei Silva’s formal UFC release, upstart Japanese promotion Rizin Fighting Federation pounced at the opportunity. Rizin founder Nobuyuki Sakakibara expressed interest in Wanderlei because of the Brazilian’s history fighting in Japan as the former PRIDE FC champion and visited the United States in February to begin negotiations with Silva about his potential future with the new promotion.
However, while most assumed that Silva would be Fedor Emelianenko’s next opponent, that is not the offer that Rizin made for his first fight with the promotion. Instead, the Japanese promotion offered Silva a two-on-two Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu exhibition match on the April 17 show in Nagoya City.
“I had a meeting with Nobuyuki Sakakibara, and he’s super interested in bringing me back to Japan, he said the Japanese are anxious to see me compete again,” Silva told Combate (h/t MMAFighting.com). “We’re also flirting with Bellator,” he said with a laugh. “They want to make a deal together so I can fight in Japan and here in the United States, and I would fight for both promotions. I’m negotiating an exhibition fight in Rizin on April 17. They offered me a jiu-jitsu match, two versus two. It would be Team Wanderlei, Andre Dida and I, against a team from Japan.
Silva plans to fight several times in 2016, all under the Rizin banner if possible.
“I’m also negotiating a tournament in Japan, in which I would fight in September and come back in December for two fights in one night. That’s the plan for 2016.”
It should be noted that Silva’s lifetime ban was changed to a three-year retroactive suspension, which means he cannot resume his professional career in the United States until May 2017.