Late last week, Ed Soares, the manager of UFC Middleweight champion Anderson Silva, got a rise out of the MMA community by bringing up San Shou stylist Cung Le as a possible next contender. Le is on a two-fight win streak with a decision over Patrick Cote and a knockout of Rich Franklin. Certainly that record is respectable, but no one but Soares would call it contender-worthy.
In fact, when it was brought up to Dana White following UFC On Fox 6, the UFC president basically laughed it off (via MMA Mania):
This is typical Anderson Silva-Ed Soares craziness. Every (expletive) time there’s a fight. He wants to fight (Demetrious) ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson, then he wants to (expletive) fight this guy and that guy. This is always the same deal, it always happens. ‘I absolutely will not fight Chael Sonnen, he doesn’t deserve the title and I’m not doing this and I’m not doing that.’ This is what we do. We’re waiting on something, we’ll see if this pans out. When we’re ready to announce it, we’ll announce it. He will defend his title; it won’t be a super fight.
Obviously, Silva won’t be facing Le in his next fight, which Dana has hinted to be coming up this spring. With Michael Bisping having been knocked off contendership by Vitor Belfort at UFC On FX 7, many are hoping the next title shot will go to Chris Weidman. Weidman is undefeated in 9 career fights with 5 in the UFC. In his last bout, he demolished top 5 fighter Mark Munoz at UFC On Fuel TV 4. He’s been campaigning for a title fight ever since.