UFC wanted Chris Weidman to fight Anderson Silva for third time at UFC 212

When Kelvin Gastelum went through a weird issue with a marijuana suspension that led to him being removed from his UFC 212 bout with Anderson Silva, the middleweight legend was left without an opponent. According to former 185-pound champ Chris Weidman, they wanted him to fight Silva for a third time on the Brazilian card. But it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Weidman wasn’t down with that for a variety of reasons.

He explained the situation to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour (transcribed by MMA Mania):

“The UFC was asking me if I would fight Anderson Silva. This was, I think three and a half weeks before that fight was going on. In Rio. And I’m just like ‘no’. I was still getting things checked out on my body, and going to different doctors.”

“I had just gone to Vegas, got it all checked out. I already beat the guy twice, I’m going to take a fight on short notice and head to his hometown to fight him? I’m like ‘yeah, that’s not happening. If you want me to fight Anderson again, bump it up a couple of weeks, if you want to do it in Nassau Coliseum or some other time, but I’m not going to do it on short notice.”

Due to Weidman (and others) turning down the short notice bout, Silva was ultimately pulled from the card and hasn’t been rescheduled as of yet. He has also been pretty outspoken about his frustration with the UFC in the meantime.

In an odd twist, Weidman will face Gastelum in the main event of a UFC on Fox card in Long Island later this month.