Anderson Silva Cancels UFC Contract, Signs New 15-Fight Deal

When legendary UFC champion Anderson Silva suffered a broken leg at UFC 168, it looked like he would never fight in the octagon.

But Silva is far from done fighting. He’s scheduled to face the also-returning Nick Diaz in the main event of January 31, 2015’s UFC 183 from Las Vegas.

And today (Mon., October 27, 2014), it appears that we’re going to see a whole lot more of “The Spider” than we thought. Speaking with Combate after a weekend where he made a surprise appearance at UFC 179 in Rio, Silva said that he spoke with UFC executives Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta last week to get a new (and bigger) contract in place:

“I had seven fights on my contract (after the Diaz fight). I met Lorenzo and Dana on Thursday and that contract was canceled. We signed for another 15 fights.

To make Dana crazy, I signed for 15 more fights. And to make my family crazy, too.”

Now we’ve seen and heard Silva say things and do the exact opposite many times before, and it’s hard to imagine a 39-year-old fighter fulfilling a massive contract of 15 fights in the UFC.

After all, he’s only fought about twice a year before he was injured, and that would mean he’d be fighting until he was over 45 years old. Sure, it can be done; just take a look at Randy “The Natural” Couture.

But it simply seems unlikely.

After reporting that his rivalry with Chris Weidman was over, Silva turned back on his statement and said that he won’t stop fighting until he regains his long-held middleweight title, no matter who has it.

If he keeps fighting as much as he says he is going to, he should have several tries. It’s clear that he’s a far cry from the dominant force than ran roughshod over the 185-pound arena for years, but Silva may still have the most fluid striking in the UFC.

Will that be enough to outlast his now-momentous contract, or is it just another bit of magical hype from “The Spider?”

Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea for USA TODAY Sports