"Lyoto is the champ, and I don't have intention of fighting him or fighting for [the light-heavyweight] title. I already said it. For those who follow me, I'm Lyoto's friend. I like him a lot and I think it's going to be hard for anyone to beat him. This is Karate's era, not the normal Karate but Machida Karate. It's like when we had the Gracie jiu-jitsu era..."

-UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva tells Sherdog.com that he has no intention of facing fellow Brazilian and undefeated UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida. The two men have trained together extensively in the past and are considered good friends. UFC President Dana White has insisted, however, that if the fight makes sense then he'd be able to get the two inside a cage, a feat that could take upwords of one million dollars for each fighter according to mutual manager Ed Soars.

If his goal is to avoid Machida, Silva could make things difficult for himself by defeating former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin at UFC 101. Griffin is considered among the top five fighters in the weight and a win over him would certainly place pressure on the UFC to make a superfight between the two champions, especially considering the lack of exciting challengers for Silva at middleweight.