Dana White: Anderson Silva, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira stepping up for UFC 153 is "old school UFC"

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

After losing their top two fights for UFC 153 on Tuesday, the UFC went into scramble mode in an attempt to salvage the Oct. 13 event. They had a third fight to replace as well after Vitor Belfort was pulled to face Jon Jones next weekend at UFC 152, and they managed to add three new fights to the card in short order on Wednesday.

Anderson Silva now meets Stephan Bonnar in the night's main event, Glover Teixeira gets a new opponent in Fabio Maldonado, and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira returns for the first time in ten months to take on Dave "PeeWee" Herman.

"We're back on track," UFC President Dana White said in an interview with MMAJunkie.com. "Anderson Silva wasn't scheduled to fight at all. I called him today, and he's shooting a commercial in Brazil. Anderson Silva steps up, and Stephan Bonnar wants to fight him. The Teixeira vs. Maldonado fight comes together, and then Nogueira was standing right there with Anderson shooting the commercial with him, and he said he wanted to fight, too."

"This is old-school UFC. A card is in jeopardy, but guys that are world champions and superstars stepped up and jumped in and saved the card. This is why the fans love this sport and why we went on a 12-year run without canceling an event."

Penick's Analysis: There has already been some backlash to the bouts that have come together, which just doesn't make sense to me. With very little time to work with, the UFC just got one of the best fighters on the planet to try to save a card a day after they lost the main and co-main events for UFC 153. Yes, it's likely to be a slaughter, but you get to see the best in the world do his thing on short notice. For those complaining about the fact that it's not at middleweight and it's not a title fight, it's not fair to ask any Champ to put their title on the line with no time to prepare against a world-class opponent. Silva's offer was to step up against someone who wasn't in camp. This wasn't about taking on the best opponent possible, it was about taking on someone with the same prep as he'd have to simply save an event. That's what this accomplishes, and good on Silva for stepping up, and Bonnar for getting one last chance to face a big name opponent in his career.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_14357.shtml

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