Boxing great and possible future matchup for Anderson “The Spider” Silva will be in attendance at UFC 101.

The eight time champion Jones Jr. will be taking a day off from his intense training as he prepares to take on Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy in Bolixi Mississippi on August 15th.

A match against Jones Jr is something that Anderson Silva has wanted for a long time now and has not been able to do because of his UFC contract. Silva recently declared that he would be hanging his 5 ounce gloves for boxing gloves once his UFC run comes to an end, mainly to fulfil his ambition of fighting Roy Jones Jr.

James “The Sandman” Irvin has had to withdraw from his scheduled fight against Wilson Gouveia at UFC 102 due to a “massive” knee injury. The injury is the second time in a row that Irvin has had to withdraw from a fight following his loss to Middleweight champ Anderson Silva. Irvin was suspended after the fight for testing positive for banned painkillers and after that had to withdraw from a fight against heavy handed Drew McFedries in May.

This is not a new thing for Irvin who has had to battle with several injuries throughout his career which has seen him drop down from heavyweight to middleweight. There has been no announcement as to who will be brought in as a replacement against Gouveia.

Props to Carmichael Dave from the Carmichael Dave Radio show for breaking the news.

Sensei SporTV, a show on the Brazilian cable channel SporTV interviewed UFC Middleweight champion Anderson Silva recently. The feature will air on September 27th, but the editors released an incredible excerpt from the interview.

“I’ll retire next year, I already gave my all and don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Within a year, I will put my gloves aside.” – said Silva.

Silva, who is at the peak of his career and is undefeated in his UFC career is considered one of the top fighters of all time, featuring in almost all pound-for-pound lists. This is a shocking revelation seeing as how the future seems to be cross-weight class superfights for the champion, including fights against greats like Chuck Liddel.

Silva or his camp have received quiet throughout.

image courtesy: sun.co.uk

One of the clearer choices is of course, Michael Bisping for the coach of Team UK. Bisping also mentioned recently in a newspaper that he would be more than happy to be the coach, if approached for the role. I am fairly sure that this would be a done deal once Bisping finishes with his current assignment – a much anticipated fight against Chris Leben on the UFC 89 card in October.

Rumours are also circulating regarding Dan Henderson being roped in to coach Team USA. This makes a lot of sense as Hendo and Bisping, along with Nate Marquardt are the three fighters in the UFC middleweight division who can be looked on as contenders for Anderson Silva’s title. TUF9 will prove to be a great platform to see who out of Hendo and Bisping can be called the No.1 contender for the belt.

Henderson, a long time coach and co-founder of Team Quest is also going to be Michael Bisping’s biggest match in the UFC to date, should this match happen.

Tryouts for TUF 9 begin October 20th.

“The depression is over and now is just happiness, I’m ready for the war.”

Filho also touched upon a lot of topics such as his training with Andre Galvao, mentioning that this was a very important part of his training as Galvao and he traded experience and technique in Jiu Jitsu and MMA. Filho mentioned that there is a lot of weight that he needs to cut – him being at 93 kgs right now.

Paulo also spoke about his contract with the WEC mentioning that he has two fights left on his contract. On being asked about a potential match up against fellow Brazilian Anderson Silva for the UFC crown, Filho says that he will never fight Silva because he does not want to fight a countryman and a really close friend in Silva.

As far as Anderson’s fight against Patrick Cote goes, Filho predicts a quick and easy victory for the Brazilian superstar, saying

“Anderson will win, and I know it’ll be easy and fast. Cote isn’t fight for Anderson Silva, he’s a level above.”

He also predicted that “Toquinho” Rousimar Palhares will win the fight against Dan Henderson in the first round and that too via a leg lock.

When asked about his own fight in the WEC – the rematch against Chael Sonnen on September 10, Paulo had this to say:

I think he doesn’t wanna fight me again, lose another arm. There’s no strategy, is just fight and be ready to protect and attack.

Click here to view the embedded video.