Soares: Silva doesn’t feel Sonnen deserves next shot

Anderson Silva’s manager Ed Soares recently sat down with Sherdog’s ‘Rewind’ radio to discuss the champion’s future plans. Who did he think was deserving of a title fight and who did he think was not? Chael Sonnen has laid down the gauntlet, but does he deserve it? And what about Michael Bisping?

Soares on whether Chael Sonnen should get the next title shot against Anderson Silva: Anderson just feels that he doesn’t deserve it yet. He doesn’t deserve it yet. … A lot of people are interested in the fight. It’s a big fight. Anderson’s not ducking him. Anderson, right now, is focused on recouping his shoulder, and basically he’s going through physical therapy on that just to get that back 100 percent.

But you know what? Whoever Dana [White] puts in front of us, for the most part, we’re always going to take the fight. [Anderson has] never dodged any fights. It’s really not up to us to determine. … I’m not saying that’s who we want or who we don’t want. People ask my opinion, and I see what Anderson’s saying. He’s fought him once. He had his opportunity, but hey, if Dana wants to put the fight on again, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.

On whether Michael Bisping would be a suitable challenger if he beats Jason Miller: I’ll be honest with you: I never even really thought of Bisping too much. Not that I didn’t respect him as a fighter — I do. It was just that it didn’t cross my mind because there’s so many things happening all the time. People talk about Chael and Brian Stann, and sometimes people are focused on the TUF show. But I think Bisping could be a good opportunity. GSP could be a good opportunity. There’s a lot of great opportunities, and I do think the Chael fight could potentially sell. It could be a big seller. I think it could be a huge pay-per-view. So I see all angles of it, but I’m just expressing what Anderson has talked to me about. That’s how he feels.

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