Basics of negotiation dictate that one starts with a high asking price. UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva doesn’t need to be told that twice.

Fans want Silva to fight light heavyweight king Jon Jones, but neither he nor Jones really seem all that interested in tainting their legacies testing themselves against one another. Well, sorta, but not really. Nonetheless, UFC Prez Dana White has confidently declared on several occasions that he has the cashflow to change their minds completely.

“I think the Jon Jones fight is a big fight. I know my man says ‘No, no, no,’” White told reporters at the UFC 153 post-fight press conference, “but the amount of money that would be offered for that fight, I guarantee you I will make Anderson Silva say, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’”

“O RLY?”, Silva recently replied in an interview with Brazil’s Tatame Magazine, stating that his price tag to fight Jon Jones is a completely reasonable 50% of the UFC’s net worth. “Let’s ask him to see if [White] will give me 50% of the UFC,” Silva told Tatame.

White has publicly estimated that the UFC is worth $2.5 billion. Half of that is…well, we’re writers not mathematicians but we’re betting its a lot of money.

And why does Silva have such a high price for Jones’ head, you ask? Because he has better things to do than this Ultimate Fighting nonsense, of course.

“I have my projects out of the UFC and I want to put them into practice,” Silva went on.

“To open my school (martial arts) in Los Angeles. I do my thing, take a breath a little, take time with my family. I have better things to do (than just taking punches in the face).”

Well Anderson, if you’re so opposed to getting punched in the face, perhaps it would be in your best interest to not leave your hands at your sides and let your opponents do exactly that during your next fight. Just a suggestion.

But at least we have a starting point from Silva as to what type of money it will take to get him to fight the larger Jones instead of his dream fight with the much smaller Georges St. Pierre. Sure, that figure is completely ridiculous and as close to a stonewalling as we’ve seen from a UFC champion and supposed GOAT, but you gotta start somewhere, right guys?

Let’s hope that Jones doesn’t ask for a 50/50 deal as well, because we may not be all that great with this math stuff, but with each fighter taking half of the UFC as their purse, there won’t be that many halves left…

-Elias Cepeda