Sam Caplan on Frank Shamrock vs Anderson Silva

The reason Shamrock vs. Silva won't happen isn't because the UFC is opposed to it, it's because Shamrock has no interest in ever competing under the UFC banner again. While White legitimately does not like Shamrock, he also doesn't like Tito Ortiz and the UFC still promotes him in matches. Since Shamrock returned to competitive mixed martial arts in 2006, the UFC has made attempts to re-sign him but he has rebuffed it at every turn. It's Shamrock who wants nothing to do with the UFC, and understandably so.

Shamrock has made it clear he doesn't approve how the UFC does business. It's also little known that the UFC has been suing Shamrock for years over a variety of issues, the most notable being that Shamrock uses footage of himself from when he was in the UFC. According to Shamrock, he has legal rights to 30-second clips of some of his fights because they were signed over to him by Bob Meyrowitz before Zuffa obtained ownership of the UFC. Zuffa doesn't seem to care about the legal documents that Shamrock claims he has and is suing him anyway.

Shamrock is believed to be losing thousands of dollars in legal bills each month in this legal dispute. In talking to him in the past, he's also not allowed to fight in Nevada. The belief is that the UFC is trying to bleed Shamrock dry in order to force him to come to a settlement with them and fight once more for the UFC. The thing is, while the UFC is burning a hole in Shamrock's wallet, he's still making a very healthy living on his own.

Maybe I shouldn't have said earlier that Shamrock vs. Silva has zero chance of happening because the fight might not be completely impossible. It's not a stretch to say that the UFC would be willing to promote Shamrock again. The question is, is the UFC willing to pay Shamrock so much that he would feel like an idiot to not accept the offer? Shamrock has said he'd only return to the UFC if he was the owner. Well, that's not going to happen. And while Shamrock has said he's going to remain true to his principles, he's also a businessman. If the UFC offered him an obscene amount of money, he'd accept it.