Efter att representanter för den atletiska kommissionen i Nevada (NSAC) träffat både Anderson Silva och Chael Sonnen utifrån Silvas fysiska angrepp på Sonnen vid invägningarna inför UFC 148 verkar det som att den regerande mästaren slipper undan böter för till agerande.
Sonnens inställning ska ha spelat en avgörande roll till beslutet. Men kommissionen har varnat Silva att en upprepning kommer leda till att han inte är välkommen att tävla i Nevada igen.
”I talked to [Sonnen] and said look, ’What’s your view? What’s your level of outrage, so to speak?’ And he was very forgiving,” säger kommissionen ordförande Keith Kizer till MMAjunkie. ”I’ve got to give him a lot of credit. He basically said to me that he wasn’t looking for any kind of serious discipline against Anderson, that he’d forgiven him. He wasn’t even sure if it was premeditated by Anderson. He was very gracious, very forgiving.
”But I wanted to let him know. I said, ’You’re the aggrieved party here. I want your input before the chairman makes a decision, here.’ His viewpoint was, ’I’m not looking for you to discipline him or anything. If you want to do a small fine, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t even do any kind of fine.’
”I said, ’I appreciate your input, but it’s the chairman’s call. Your input is the most important of all.'”
Kommissionens representanter tog ett snack med Silva som inledningsvis inte ville tillstå att han gjort något fel men till sist medgav han att Sonnens kommentarer gällande hans fru blivit för mycket.
”Anderson had some very lame excuse initially about, ’Oh, well, Chael put his head down at the beginning of that,'” Kizer recounted. ”I’m like, ’C’mon, that’s silly.’ And then he said, ’Well, I’m upset about what he said about my wife.’ I said, ’Look, I understand that, but that’s not an excuse for doing what you did. It’s inexcusable what you did.’
”The chairman pointed out that he should be above that, that this was a very unprofessional thing to do. [Silva] wasn’t very happy with us pointing that out to him, but he understood. I finally had to say to him, ’Look, if you ever, despite your previous record with us as a good licensee, if you ever do anything like this again, that’s it for you in Nevada. You’ll be fighting your fights elsewhere.’
”I think that got to him. Then he let down his guard and apologized and said he shouldn’t have done that, and was angry about Chael’s comments about his wife.”
Ingen lär ha förmågan att komma under skinnet på Silva på samma sätt som Sonnen gjorde så en upprepning av beteendet känns i dagsläget osannolik. Men kommissionen kanske måste bevaka den gemensamma grillfesten som Silva talade om, bara för säkerhets skull.
