These kinds of quotes tend to get blown out of proportion -- but who am I to stray from the system? Anderson Silva’s manager Ed Soares makes an appearance on HDNet’s “Inside MMA” tonight, and according to TSN.ca, he says they would welcome a fight with UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre.
Fights like these have a terminal illness from the outset: if you wait too long, they wither and wind up being poor parodies of what could have been. Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva needed to fight in 2005, not 2007; if Dream and Strikeforce can ever successfully navigate Frank Shamrock and Kazushi Sakuraba, it’ll be a record ten years past its expiration date. (Boxing fares no better: Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins are set for a rematch in the spring. Find someone who cares.)
In most of these fights, promotional obstacles crippled their chances. With Silva and St. Pierre, Zuffa has two willing pound-for-pound greats under their thumb. St. Pierre’s camp has stated fighters like Rashad Evans and Gegard Mousasi are needed to even get him sweating in training; Silva, while larger, isn’t Mr. Olympia in comparison. Why is this fight still a hypothetical?