Former UFC Middleweight champion Anderson Silva suffered his first ever defeat in the Octagon after 16b consecutive victories in his promotional career. The loss came via a second round knockout at the hands of current champion Chris Weidman who’d cleanly taken the first round of the fight.
Silva is scheduled to face off against Weidman again on Saturday at UFC 168 in an effort to reclaim his crown. Following today’s pre-fight press conference for the event, MMA Fighting caught up with “The Spider” to get his thoughts heading into the rematch. First, Ariel Helwani asked him about how he feels heading into a fight without the gold around his waist:
No, it’s normal. The UFC has the new champion. For Saturday, I change.
Helwani followed up with a questioning regarding Silva talking about retirement after the UFC 162 loss:
We’re always close to stopping. We’re always close to calling it quits.
But, the most interesting quote came when Ariel asked if there was any truth to the rumors about Anderson retiring after the fight on Saturday, December 28:
I don’t know. I have a great, great chance for stopping the fight[ing].
Regardless of the outcome of the UFC 168 main event, losing Silva to retirment would be a huge blow to the UFC. Just two weeks ago, they lost another huge star in Welterweight king Georges St-Pierre. The lack of another big PPV draw would cause serious damage to their PPV based business model.
Weidman and Silva will headline the UFC 168 event out of the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV.