Manager: Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II already signed for June 23 in Rio at UFC 147

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Though there's been some rumblings this week of issues with the date of UFC 147 in Brazil, UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva and his camp are preparing to fight on June 23 in Rio de Janeiro.

In an interview with Tatame.com, Silva's manager Ed Soares said they haven't heard anything from the UFC about moving the date of the fight, and he also shot down one particular rumor that suggested the fight could move to July 7 in Las Vegas.

"The contracts were signed two weeks ago, the fight will happen on June 23 in Rio de Janeiro," Soares said flatly.

Though there's some political pressure being put on the mayor of Rio with a U.N. conference in town the three days leading up to this fight, for now the event is going forward as planned. At least until further notice.

Penick's Analysis: It would be really bad for the UFC if they needed to move this fight to July 7 in Las Vegas, because it would scratch a big main event from the Brazilian fans, take the Brazil event out of a stadium, and severely hurt ticket sales for the third event in the city in ten months. That said, I think the most likely scenario is the event either stays put, or is moved one week forward to the originally planned June 16 date. I just don't know if they can afford to move the fight right now, and if they have to it might lead to a scrapped event and a really bad situation for them PR-wise.

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