Now Anderson Silva is 'very upset' with the UFC: 'I don't get people's due respect'

Add former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva to the list of Brazilian fighters upset with the promotion.

In an interview with UOL Esporte, Silva (33-7 MMA, 16-3 UFC) vented about the UFC’s treatment of him after his loss to champ Daniel Cormier (18-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) at UFC 200, saying a return to the octagon is “complicated” after he wasn’t given his proper due for stepping up on short notice to save Cormier’s spot on the fight card. (Hear Silva discuss that short-notice booking above.)

“I haven’t even received a ‘thank you’ from Dana (White), or Lorenzo (Fertitta) after the last fight,” Silva told UOL. “Of course, I was the one who wanted to fight, who took the bout, but I know my worth, my importance.

“I was very disappointed with the lack of respect that the UFC has been treating the Brazilian athletes with. I’m an athlete who took the sport to another level. I don’t get, or have got, people’s due respect. This has made me very upset, sad, and disappointed with the UFC.”

While Silva didn’t explicitly reference the situation, he’s likely referring to an impasse between former featherweight champ Jose Aldo and the UFC. Aldo (26-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC) has asked for his release from the promotion after being denied a title unifier against champ Conor McGregor (20-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC), who is now set to meet lightweight titleholder Eddie Alvarez (28-4 MMA, 3-1 UFC) at UFC 205.

Silva and Aldo are friends after fighting under the same promotional umbrella for a half-decade. Moreover, Silva is a vocal advocate for Brazilian MMA and its fighters, many of whom undoubtedly have earned more career opportunities as the result of his massive success as a UFC champion.

Still the record holder for consecutive title defenses at 10, Silva is a little raw because of how things were left after his fight with Cormier.

“I didn’t talk to them or anyone else,” he said of UFC executives. “They even offered me to be on standby in case something happened to (Michael) Bisping or (Dan) Henderson (before Saturday’s UFC 204 in England). But the most absurd thing is how it got to me. They didn’t even talk to me – my representatives passed it along.

“I’m not a message guy. After everything I’ve done, I have to be on standby for a fight I won? I thought it was a little unpleasant.”

Silva’s loss to Cormier, which served on the pay-per-view main card of UFC 200 on July 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, marked his fourth loss in the octagon in five appearances. A decision over Nick Diaz after gruesomely breaking his leg in a title rematch with now ex-champ Chris Weidman was changed to a no-contest when he tested positive for multiple performance enhancers and was later suspended for one year. The former champ, who this year turned 41, hasn’t won since a second-round TKO of Stephan Bonnar four years ago at UFC 153. Once a lock at No. 1 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA middleweight rankings, he’s now an honorable mention.

It’s unclear what Silva plans to do with the rest of his career. But as upset as he is, he believes his status as an all-time great remains unchanged.

“I will say it again: I’m very disappointed with the way they’ve been treating me, I’m very saddened by all of this,” he said. “I wasn’t the one who said I was the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, Dana White said it. Maybe he said it to promote his event, or because he really felt that way. We’ll never know the truth.

“Fact is that everything I’ve done, no one else was able to do again. I don’t mean to be conceited, arrogant, think I’m the best, but what I set out to do this entire time was to show I was different than the others. And this is not my opinion, it’s everyone’s.”

For more on UFC 200, check out the UFC Events section of MMAjunkie.