Ed Soares: Anderson Silva Has Never Turned Down A Fight

Quote :

“I mean, you know what? There’s a lot of things going on. I mean as far as competitors. I think all of them, I look at Anderson’s career and I just want Anderson being involved in the biggest fights possible.

Unfortunately, in the middleweight division right now, it’s kind of a little bit murky in that area because the guys who are out there earning their shots aren’t very potentially big fights. There’s just not a huge amount of fights right now. So I think we need the dust to settle a little bit, let Anderson let his body rest. He’s not a young guy anymore, he’s 37 years old and he wants to take some time between his fights.

At the end of the day whoever the UFC puts in front of us, we’ve never turned down a fight. Not only Anderson but none of our fighters have ever turned down a fight. Whoever the UFC deems is best then we’ll go ahead and take it. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”

source

From everything I have heard and read over the past several years, this is the truth.
I won't deny that Silva (or his management; whichever) has made his opinion well known on who would/would not rather fight, but trying to get the fight you want and outright turning down a fight are two completely different things.
I think all champions do the same thing.
GSP very publicly did this when he went to Dana and said he wants to fight Nick Diaz instead of Carlos Condit.
Junior dos Santos is pushing to fight Reem instead of Cain.


Regardless, its hard to argue with him that the division is very unclear right now when it comes to the top guy not named Anderson Silva. I'm in agreement with him that the best thing to do right now is let Silva take a break, and in the meantime, let's get ourselves a legit #1 contender and do that title fight later.