Dana White ‘Walking Through Process’ To Book Anderson Silva vs. Luke Rockhold
Last week, it was reported that rising middleweight contender Kelvin Gastelum had been flagged by USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) for a potential anti-doping violation, forcing him to be pulled from his scheduled fight with Anderson Silva at June 3’s UFC 212 in Brazil.
Now, UFC President Dana White has been dealt with the task of finding Silva a new opponent, which may not be so easy:
“Obviously Anderson was willing to take on Kelvin Gastelum, who is a very tough and dangerous guy,” White told MMAjunkie at UFC 210’s post-event news conference. “I got to talk to Anderson. You all know, everybody in this room knows what it’s like dealing with Anderson. Not that it’s a bad thing; it’s just a process. It’s a process that I’m going to have to go through now.”
While White admitted that dealing with the former middleweight champion is a ‘process’, he also added in the fact that Silva has always stepped up and fought whoever was put in front of him.
Luckily, White may have a logical replacement, as ex-champion Luke Rockhold recently offered to take on “The Spider” in Brazil. Rockhold hasn’t competed since last June when he was shockingly knocked out by current titleholder Michael Bisping.
As far as the potential fight goes, White said that he looks forward to ‘walking through’ the process in order to make it happen:
“One of the things that I’ve always respected about Anderson – he didn’t want to fight Chael Sonnen again,” White said. “He said, ‘The guy is disrespectful, he’s a punk, and he doesn’t deserve to fight me.’ He fought him. There’s always been times where – Anderson steps up, and Anderson fights. Anderson and fought (Daniel) Cormier at (UFC) 200. He’s a stud, man. He’s the (greatest of all time), and I’m looking forward to walking through this process for the Luke Rockhold fight. We’ll see what happens.”
Is this a fight you’d be interested in seeing?
