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White defends Silva, offers hope to Marquardt

Dana White has rubbished Chael Sonnen's claims that Anderson Silva is faking injury, and the UFC president appears to have left the door open to a possible return for Nate Marquardt.

Sonnen has been on Silva's case for months after the Brazilian showed little willing to rematch the American, who lost their first fight via submission. On Thursday Sonnen claimed Silva had become so irrelevant that he may as well retire, while Dan Henderson has also accused the middleweight champion of ducking fights.

White has defended the Spider though, insisting it is impossible to fake injury in the UFC. He also confirmed that Silva would definitely meet the winner of Sonnen's fight with Michael Bisping.

"Anderson Silva was injured and is recovering from his shoulder injury. It's 100 per cent true, 100 per cent legit," White told the Bleacher Report. "Nobody fakes an injury in the UFC. If you call and say you're injured, we fly you to Las Vegas.

"You see our doctors and we find out what's wrong with you and then we go from there. So it's not true, nobody has faked an injury in our UFC over the last 10 years, meaning the Zuffa era."

White was also asked about the futures of Anthony Johnson and Marquardt, the former of whom was axed for a third failed weight cut, while the latter delivered a high testosterone level 24 hours prior to a main event with Rick Story. Surprisingly, White gave a warm answer to Marquardt's plight, despite being visibly angry at the time of the incident.

"I don't dislike Nate. I like Nate very much. We'll see what happens," White said to MMA Fighting.

"[Johnson] needs to go fight somewhere else, get some wins, come in on weight. He needs to prove to me that he can be a professional, show up on weight and do the things he needs to do. If he does, we can talk."

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