(“Bones is like a brother to me — dangerous brother with crazy elbows and knees.”)
In a recent interview with the Brazilian website esportes.r7, “The Spider” said that he wouldn’t fight Jones and all but refuted the recent claim by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira that Silva would likely jump up to 205 after his fight with Yushin Okami in Rio in August.
“No way. [Jones] is in another weight class,” Silva explained. “We’re friends and we will not face each other.”
Silva did say that a potential superfight with UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre could go down if both fighters get past their next respective opponents.
“There’s a chance [a fight with GSP] might happen, yes. It depends on the results of our next bouts. It depends on if he wins at UFC 129 and if I win in August in Rio. If we do, there is a good chance this fight will happen.”
It sounds like the fight has been discussed and that it might happen before the end of 2011, perhaps as part of the UFC’s year-end show since Anderson is explaining the stipulations like they’ve already been set out. I’m not sure why they both have to retain their respective titles unless GSP is planning on fighting at 185 to try to unify the belts, though. I guess we’ll have to wait until August to find out.
Silva also touched briefly on few other topics and fighters in the interview.
Here’s what he had to say about:
“I’ll face Okami, but I’m not going out for revenge, I’m going there to do my job. It is a great opportunity because the UFC is going back to Brazil. The fight is very important for me and for him.”
“Jose Aldo is a phenomenon and certainly has all of the skills to keep this belt for many, many, many years.”