Anderson Silva Not Planning On Fighting Chris Weidman, Interested In Nick Diaz

Former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva sat atop the division with an iron grip before meeting Chris Weidman at UFC 162 last year. ‘The Spider’ looked near invincible as he ripped through all available competition with relative ease since winning the belt from Rich Franklin, back when ‘Ace’ was for real.

That all changed, though, as Silva ate the first TKO of his UFC career against ‘The All-American,’ and sat injured after breaking his leg in the rematch at UFC 168.

That was back in December of 2013, and the time since has been riddled with rumours of potential return opponents. Probably the most popular name that has come to surface is that of notorious Stockton bad boy Nick Diaz. The older of the notorious Diaz duo has sat dormant since getting dry humped by GSP at UFC 158 in March of last year, and ‘The Spider’ gives his take on the potential return fight with Diaz, as he spoke with Sportv.globo:

“It could be an interesting fight. “My left shin is stronger than the other one, way stronger than the other one,’ he said. “I’m training, and it’s helping me a lot in training. But I’m a little insecure about my movements, so I’m just kicking from the waist up.

A rematch with Chris Weidman is something that is not in my plans. He already defeated me twice, everybody saw this. Lyoto Machida has an opportunity to fight him, we also have ‘Jacare’, who’s coming and looking for his way.

Let’s root for them to get their space in the UFC and get their shot at the title, win it, become great champions and bring big wins for Brazil.”

The fight with Nick Diaz seems to be as appealing to Silva as it is to his fans, and apparently more so than a trilogy maker with Chris Weidman. After such a long time on the bench, perhaps a tune-up fight would be best for the aging ‘Spider’ at this point. It almost sounds like Silva has no title aspirations left whatsoever.

This reminds me of what Silva said immediately after losing the title to Weidman, admitting that he had been champ for long enough, and it was somebody else’s turn.

So what if Silva comes back as good or better than he was last year? Would it make sense for him to have another run at the belt, or are big-money entertainment bouts the only matches that lay ahead for ‘The Spider?’