Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC
Dana White has absolutely no interest in booking Anderson Silva vs. Anthony Pettis.
Anthony Pettis and Anderson Silva have both mutually agreed to fight each other via social media but, if UFC president Dana White has anything to do with it, that bout will never come to fruition.
White, who said some fighters have nothing better to do than ‘talk sh-t every day on Twitter’, shot down any possibility of Silva-Pettis at the UFC on ESPN 10 pre-fight media scrum on Friday.
“I saw that, that they were going back and forth. Him and Pettis? Yeah no,” White said, per Adam Martin of BJPenn.com. “Guys talk s—t every day on Twitter and social media.”
Asked Dana White if he had any interest in Anthony Pettis’ offer to fight Anderson Silva. He said he’s not crazy about it. Silva wants to finish the two fights left on his contract. White admitted he doesn’t know what do to with those, but they’ll talk when Silva is healthy.
— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) June 14, 2020
Silva, 45, has just two fights left on his UFC contract and White isn’t sure what’s next for the former middleweight champion.
‘The Spider’ seemed interested in a catchweight bout with Conor McGregor, but White wasn’t interested in that matchup either.
“It’s not a fight that I’m interested in right now,” White told reporters. “Listen, everybody’s in quarantine, right? They can’t go to the gym. They can’t go to restaurants. So they sit on these stupid things all day. Conor and I have not talked about fighting.”
Silva is now the oldest fighter on the UFC roster and the Brazilian hasn’t officially won a fight since his lackluster unanimous decision win over Derek Brunson at UFC 208 in 2017. There have been many calls for Silva to retire but, to his credit, the UFC veteran did look competitive against Israel Adesanya in 2019. In his latest fight, however, Silva was stopped via first-round leg kick TKO against Jared Cannonier in the UFC 237 co-main event.
Silva is widely considered one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time.