UFC legend Anderson Silva felt like his boss for the past 14 years disrespected him at the end of his historic run.
Silva was the UFC’s middleweight king from 2006 to 2013, in which he defended his title a then-record ten times. All good times must come to an end, and when Chris Weidman knocked him out at UFC 162, that would be the start of a steep decline. ‘The Spider’ would only win one more fight in eight years. In 2020, he was finished by Uriah Hall and then released from the UFC.
I feel no respect – use you and kick you out
In an interview with Sportsnaut, Silva said he felt disrespected on his way out of the promotion.
“When I was done in UFC, everybody — especially Dana White — said, ‘Oh, Anderson can’t fight anymore. Nobody in the same age [group] with Anderson can fight, it’s terrible,’ and blah, blah, blah. And talking a lot of sh*t about me,” Silva said. “And I feel disrespected because it doesn’t matter what happened — fight is fight. You can win, you can lose.
“When you make a success of [MMA], the one thing you need to do for your fighters is [give] respect. In that, I feel no respect. But I don’t care because when I stop fighting, I’m gonna stop fighting because I say I’m gonna stop it,” he continued. “Nobody can say for me I [should] stop. No one can say for [anybody] you need to stop now. Nobody. I’ll stop when I say I’m done.”
Silva continued by saying he was used and kicked out.
“That’s the problem for the people in this sport, especially UFC because UFC doesn’t respect the legacy that fighters have. They try to use you and kick you out,” said Silva. “And when you’re out, they try to destroy your career [so] you don’t fight anywhere. This happened [to] a lot of fighters. People don’t think about that. I had a good time in UFC, and bad times too. The bad time for me is the experience I have behind the scenes. But inside the cage, inside the fight, I do my best. It’s the only time I have control. Outside I don’t have control.” h/t Sportsnaut
Silva isn’t the first, and he won’t be the last to talk about how the UFC treated them during their losing skid. Thankfully, Silva has seamlessly transitioned to boxing, something he has wanted to do for several years but was never allowed. He defeated Julio César Chávez Jr. in his return to boxing and then knocked out former UFC champion Tito Ortiz.
Silva returns to action against Bruno Machado next week in Dubai.
