The UFC president addressed a rumour that the highly anticipated rematch between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen could be moved to another fight card, with complications in securing a venue and date for UFC 147 in Brazil:
“Yeah, there’s stuff going on down there in Brazil, and I’m working on it. We’re working on it still at this minute. We had the whole arena mapped out and ready to go. We were pumped and ready for that. … They came to us, and the mayor was trying to fight for us and trying to keep it. The whole thing just fell apart.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s not only the biggest fight in the UFC, I think it’s one of the biggest sporting events of the year. That fight is going to be done the right way. We’re not going to half-ass that thing and say, ‘Oh, let’s go over to this arena over here.’ It’s going to be a big fight.
If we can’t do it in Brazil and people are upset, I get it, I’m upset, too. But that’s the way it’s happening. It’s working out that way that we might not be able to do that fight there. It’s not my fault. I want to do a soccer stadium and have a big blowout, but it is what it is. It’s not like we’re sitting here going, ‘You know what? [Expletive] it.
We changed our mind. We don’t want to do Brazil in a soccer stadium. We’re going to move this fight somewhere else.’ This is what happened. This is unfortunate the way things happen sometimes. I will have all the answers. All the answers in Brazil on Tuesday.”
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