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Did Anderson Silva Call Dana White and Ask for Jon Jones Following UFC 159?

Anderson Silva and Jon Jones Nominated for Best Fighter ESPY; Can Either Beat Floyd Mayweather?

To the mixed martial arts fans across the globe that have been watching, waiting and wondering about the possibility some combination of a Georges St-Pierre/Anderson Silva/Jon Jones superfight, the picture has become a bit clearer.

Well, sort of… if you read between the not so blurry lines.

At the UFC 159 post-fight press conference at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on Saturday night, a battered and bruised Chael Sonnen sounded off on a potential superfight between his recent conqueror, Jon Jones, and his former nemesis, Anderson Silva.

“If you’re gonna go fight a guy, go fight a guy. It drives me crazy, man. People are out talking about Anderson and Jon – these guys, right now, should be begging (Dana White) to fight each other,” proclaimed a heated Sonnen.

“But it’s not gonna go that way. You got these two guys, and they’re great, but they’re a couple of chickens. They should be calling each other out.

“They should be grabbing the mic and saying, ‘Hey, I want to fight that guy! I don’t want the debate. I want this figured out. Dana, give me a date. I want this figured out. Give me the fight.’

“But it won’t happen that way. Dana’s gonna have to call these guys, and they’re gonna have to dangle a carrot. And then they’re gonna want to negotiate. We’re in the fight business, if you don’t want to fight, then don’t raise your hand.”

And that’s when UFC president Dana White dropped a bomb.

“It actually did happen tonight. Anderson called and he wants the fight tonight.”

Wait, what?

“It did happen. Anderson called and he wants the fight, and I’m not going to tell you which one it is, but I’m going to get to work on it as soon as possible.”

In typical Dana White fashion, he left out whom “The Spider” asked for, but any astute MMA fan could deduce that it may be more than just common coincidence that Silva was calling his boss on a night when the consensus rival “GOAT” was fighting in the main event.

Earlier this week, UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre all but nixed any possibility of a superfight – at least in the near term – leaving the door wide open for discussion of a Jones vs. Silva super showdown.

Jones and Silva are often referenced as the two greatest fighters ever. Silva has built an enduring legacy with his matrix-esque fighting style and undefeated reign as the UFC middleweight champion. Jones, meanwhile, is the UFC’s youngest champion in company history. He has a terrifying blend of new-breed skills that has left a litany of past champions laying in his wake.

It’s easy to make a substantial argument for either fighter as the mythical pound-for-pound greatest.

But should Anderson Silva defeat Chris Weidman at UFC 162 in July, it’s also easy to see a superfight between Silva and Jones coming together rather quickly. And there is little question that Silva vs. Jones would be the biggest fight in mixed martial arts’ 20-year history.

(Follow @RyanMcKinnell on Twitter)

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