Yoel Romero offers to step in and fight Anderson Silva at UFC 212

Top UFC middleweight contender Yoel Romero is willing to step in and fight former division kingpin Anderson Silva at June’s UFC 212 pay-per-view event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani recently tweeted that “The Soldier of God” would step in and face “The Spider” but only on the condition that the fight be for an interim belt.

The former middleweight kingpin, Anderson Silva, was expected to square off with surging division contender Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 212 on June 3.

However, news broke earlier today that Gastelum had been flagged for potentially testing positive for marijuana metabolites stemming from an in-competition drug test conducted by USADA and was subsequently removed from the card by UFC officials.

Yoel Romero was last seen in action at November’s UFC 205 event in New York where he scored a brutal third-round knockout victory (flying knee) over former division champion Chris Weidman. (Watch that here.)

The victory over Weidman marked Romero’s eighth straight win, boosting his record to an impressive 13-1 overall. Yoel has scored finishes in eleven of those of his thirteen career mixed martial arts victories.

Silva, meanwhile, recently re-entered the middleweight contendership picture with a controversial decision defeat of Derek Brunson. This win was his first since a 2012 light heavyweight defeat of Stefan Bonnar. Prior to this defeat of Brunson, Silva lost decisions to Daniel Cormier and Michael Bisping, and a pair of fights to Chris Weidman. These losses were split by a no-contest with Nick Diaz, which was initially a decision win for Silva, but was eventually overturned when Diaz tested positive for marijuana metabolites and Silva tested positive for several more serious banned substances. The middleweight legend is 34-8 in sum.

Would you like to see an interim middleweight title fight between Anderson Silva and Yoel Romero booked by UFC officials for June’s UFC 212 event? Sound off PENN Nation!