News broke yesterday that Anderson Silva has been pulled from his fight with Kelvin Gastelum at UFC Shanghai due to a possible anti-doping violation. Gastelum said he is staying on the card, but the fight is just two weeks away and that makes it difficult to find a replacement. That is, unless Mike Perry hears the news. The surging welterweight contender is willing to jump up to middleweight and step in to fight Gastelum.

Did Mike Perry just call out Gastelum and burn his Santiago Ponzinibbio (Pinocchio) at the same time? That’s pretty impressive. What would be even more impressive is pulling a Georges St-Pierre up at middleweight. However, that  isn’t the craziest part about this whole thing, Mike Perry is scheduled to face Ponzinibbio at UFC Winnipeg. That would be a ridiculously quick turnaround to fight on November 25th in China, then on December 16th in Canada. The UFC doesn’t have too many options though and if both parties are willing and able, let’s put together that fight.  

This hasn’t been the first time Kelvin Gastelum and Anderson Silva were scheduled to fight. The two were initially supposed to meet at UFC 212 in Brazil, but Gastelum tested above the threshold for marijuana metabolites and the bout was called off. This time for Shanghai, Silva is the one who has received the call from USADA. As of today, Kelvin Gastelum and his team are still in negotiations with the UFC to find a replacement.   

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 11/10/2017.