In a monumental case of sticking your foot in your mouth, Alex Lopera of Miletich Fighting Systems in Houston, Texas released the following statement on Sunday:

“We want to issue an official statement regarding the seminar that was suppose to take place this weekend with Anderson “Spider” Silva. We received a phone call last night from Anderson’s manager Ed informing us that the seminar was going to be canceled due to a personal family health issues. Obviously we were taken a back and concerned for Anderson and his family. We were also very disappointed for all of our students and fans who had planned to attend our seminar this weekend. It was brought to our attention this morning that Anderson and Nogueria are both having a two day seminar at their grand opening event in Miami. If this is true then we have been completely mislead and as you can imagine we are furious at this. We are doing our due diligence to confirm that this is really happening. If this is true we will take all legal recourse possible. We are extremely sorry for all those who planned on attending this event!”

Today, Sherdog.com has confirmed that Silva lost his Aunt, the woman who raised him from youth and who he considered his Mother. She apparently passed away on Monday.

Silva learned of his Mother's illness on Friday and tried to catch a flight back to Brazil on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, all flights to Brazil were booked until later that evening, so Silva decided to go back to his gym for a couple of hours before finally being able to fly out to Curitiba later that evening to be with his ailing Mother.