The legal pressure has finally paid off.
It’s taken a while but former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight fighter Wanderlei Silva has withdrawn his claims that some fights in the UFC had been fixed and that he had proof.
Silva took to social media in July to accuse his former employer of putting on WWE-style fights.
Fake fights !! We will gonna be wwe, this is finish the line , I am so sad!
— Wanderlei Silva (@wandfc) July 13, 2015
The claim came the night after Conor McGregor had beaten Chad Mendes for the interim featherweight title at UFC 189, with some conspiracy theorists online believing that the referee ended the fight suspiciously early.
The next month, the Pride legend claimed that he had evidence that bouts were being fixed by the promotion.
“I’ve made it very clear to you all that I will never again fight for this promotion, the U.F. Circus. Fixed fights – and I can prove it! I haven’t yet dropped the bomb. I haven’t said everything I know!”
But after a lawsuit was filed against the Brazilian, he’s clearly received legal advice to retract all accusations and apologise, which he did in a Facebook post on Thursday evening.
Silva, 39, hasn’t fought since 2013 and announced his retirement from the sport last year following a lifetime ban for avoiding a drug test which has since been overturned.
Shortly after Silva’s public apology, he was officially released from his UFC contract as the promotion had, to that point, kept Silva on their books to prevent him signing with a competitor.
