Anderson Silva To Fight Daniel Cormier At UFC 200 As Jon Jones’ Replacement

LAS VEGAS — Daniel Cormier won’t have to sit out UFC 200 after all.

Middleweight Anderson “Spider” Silva will face the light heavyweight champion in a non-title fight Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, TMZ first reported and the UFC later confirmed.

Silva sparked rumors that he’d participate in the UFC’s biggest card earlier Thursday when he posted an Instagram photo with a caption that read “Vegas, here we come” in Portuguese, according to TheScore.com.

Vale a pena ser um vencedor?Talvez sim, talvez não. Obviamente tudo tem um prazo de validade. A melhoria exige auto-consciência para saber quando acelerar seus esforços e quando simplesmente estacioná-los. Mas aqui na MUAY THAI COLLEGE Nos treinamos até que seja impossível dar errado. E nunca estacionamos, pois a vida é como água, se ficar parada apodrece Fica a dica!! Vegas aí vamos nós 🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙🚙

A photo posted by Anderson Silva (@spiderandersonsilva) on Jul 7, 2016 at 2:12pm PDT

Silva, who owns a 33-7 pro record, last fought on Feb. 27, when he lost a five-round bout to current middleweight champion Michael Bisping by unanimous decision. Silva was scheduled to fight Uriah Hall at UFC 198 in May, but he had to pull out because of gallbladder surgery.

Cormier needed a new opponent after Jon Jones, the interim light heavyweight champ, was pulled from the UFC 200 card Wednesday night because of a potential doping violation. UFC president Dana White vowed to find Cormier a new opponent on short notice, and he delivered.

Thumbnail photo via Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports Images