All signs point to Anderson Silva making his final walk to the octagon on Halloween.
Silva (34-10 MMA, 17-6 UFC) will face Uriah Hall in a the main event of UFC’s Oct. 31 fight card, which is expected to take place at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.
It’ll have been 17 months since the former longtime UFC middleweight champion competed by the time he enters the octagon for what he projects could be his swan song from the sport. UFC president Dana White his expressed multiple times that “The Spider” will retire after this fight, win or lose.
Silva would not 100 percent commit, but at 45, he’s aware this could be the last one.
“Maybe this is my last fight,” Silva told ESPN. “That’s why I’m training hard everyday and do my best in my training. My whole team came to help me and everybody stayed in quarantine to start training, and I’m very excited because I think this is my last performance inside the cage for my fans, and we’ll see.”
Although Silva says a fairytale ending would be for him to recapture the 185-pound title that he once defended 10 consecutive times, he knows that won’t be the case. But in Hall (15-9 MMA, 8-7 UFC), he sees the perfect dancing partner that has him motivated to potentially cap off his storied career in special fashion.
“The good story is Anderson Silva fights again for the belt and win and done, but that’s in the script,” Silva said. “You can’t do this in real life, and I’m excited to continue working, continue doing something special and this fight helped me to create something huge inside my mind, for my fans, for legacy. Especially because I have a story with the UFC. I have a great story inside the cage, in the UFC too.”
