Anderson Silva feels Chael Sonnen hasn't earned another title-shot yet

Six days after the 5th anniversary of Anderson Silva defeating Rich Franklin in magnificent fashion to win the UFC middleweight belt, Silva’s manager, interpreter and all around friend, Ed Soares discussed the current status of Chael Sonnen’s comments at UFC 136 when, during his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, Sonnen called out Silva who was at the venue. Sonnen then proceeded to request a rematch with Silva on Super Bowl Weekend, adding that if he lost he would leave the UFC forever, but if Silva lost the Brazilian champion would have to leave the middleweight division forever.

Soares recently discussed Sonnen’s slim chances of getting his rematch right away, saying in an interview with Sherdog, “Anderson just feels that he doesn’t deserve it yet. He doesn’t deserve it yet. … A lot of people are interested in the fight. It’s a big fight. Anderson’s not ducking him. Anderson, right now, is focused on recouping his shoulder, and basically he’s going through physical therapy on that just to get that back 100 percent.”

Soares then discussed his hesitance at wanting to fight Sonnen again, “I think eventually, our opinion is that we don’t think Chael should get a shot yet. There are other guys out there. … I’ve been hearing a bunch of different people. Let someone try that hasn’t fought for the belt yet. Why do we have to keep repeating these fighters? We fought Rich Franklin twice. We’ll probably end up having to fight Chael twice. We’re going to end up fighting probably Dan Henderson twice. It’s just like, it would be nice to see some new faces in there getting a crack at it.” But concerning this form my point of view, there is no-one that fits that bill right now. The only one would have been Brian Stann, but Sonnen has just beaten him and thrown him back a few steps. The only fighters that even come close would be the winner of Michael Bisping and Jason Miller, but they don’t fight each other until at least December and would need at least 2-3 months to prepare for a title shot.

Bisping Wants Silva, Also Feels Sonnen Blew It

Soares also discussed whether, if it’s made, would the fight take place in February as Sonnen had requested. The popular manager responded, “That’s really hard to say. I think we’re still — I don’t think it’s going to happen. It could happen, but we’ll just have to cross that bridge when it comes. It could happen, though. We haven’t really talked about it yet.”

When asked about how much longer we can expect his dynamic client to be fighting for, Soares was non-committal, replying, “I think we’re going to take it one day at a time. It’s really hard to say, but as of right now, he has four fights on his contract and right now he doesn’t have any interest to renew. He just wants to take one fight at a time, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it ended up being only four fights.”

It sounds like Sonnen better hope he’s one of the four bouts Silva has left on his deal rather than feel guaranteed another opportunity at winning UFC gold.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC