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Lyoto: Silva may be thinking retirement
Ultimate Fighting Championship

Lyoto: Silva may be thinking retirement

Published Oct. 29, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

Anderson Silva said recently that he would rather quit fighting altogether than step into the Octagon with friend and training partner Lyoto Machida.

Machida? He clearly doesn’t carry the same point of view.

When asked by Fox reporter Gareth Davies if he would fight Silva after beating Mark Munoz at UFC Fight Night on Saturday, Machida responded: “For sure.”

Now, Machida is implying that Silva might retire soon. Silva, arguably the greatest pound-for-pound MMA fighter ever, meets Chris Weidman in a UFC middleweight title rematch Dec. 28 at UFC 168 in Las Vegas.

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“Even if he wins, I don’t know for how long he will want to keep fighting,” Machida told MMAFighting.com.

Machida must have some insight into Silva’s career path that we don’t – the two share the same manager, Ed Soares, after all. Silva is 38 years old, but he did just sign a 10-fight extension with the UFC over the summer.

A bout between Machida and Silva has become a hot topic because Machida’s first-round knockout win over Mark Munoz was his middleweight debut. The victory puts the karate fighter right into the conversation for a title shot at 185 pounds. And Silva might regain that belt, the one he held for seven years, in December.

But Silva doesn’t seem to be interested at all in fighting his buddy and fellow Brazilian. He said earlier this month that he’d rather hang up the gloves.

“We have a code of honor amongst ourselves, which is we don’t fight against ourselves regardless of wins or losses, or money, fame or not,” Silva said during a UFC 168 press conference in Sao Paulo on Oct.1. “I would give up fighting if necessary if I had to fight against Lyoto.”

Has Machida’s “code of honor” changed now that he wants the middleweight gold?

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