Anderson Silva has offered a new interpretation of his well known rule of not fight his friends. The “Spider” said to Globo what he would do if he receive the offer to fight Lyoto Machida or Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza for the UFC middleweight belt.
That is something that I have always said, about not fighting a training partner, but it isn’t reciprocal. Inside Team Nogueira we follow this but Lyoto isn’t from Team Nogueira and neither is Jacare then it’s a vague situation. In all their interviews they said clearly that they would fight me so I can’t think differently. I don’t want to fight a friend, mainly Lyoto, but if I in the future I have credentials to fight for the belt and we have to fight, we will fight.
These thoughts are different from what he said last September in a Q&A placed in Rio de Janeiro to promote the UFC 168.
I’m a honorable man, I would never fight against “Jacare” or Lyoto, whether they are in my division or not. Lyoto is a close friend, a great athlete, we train together. The same thing with “Jaca”. So, if we had to do this, I would give up from my belt.
Anderson lost the UFC 185-pound belt after being knocked out by Chris Weidman in UFC 162 in last July. After beating “Spider” for the second time, at UFC 168, Weidman will have his second title defense at UFC 173 on May 23 against Lyoto Machida.