Anderson Silva talks about his preparations for Chael Sonnen, UFC career and Fedor Emilianenko
Posted on July 21, 2010, 07:35 AM by Daniel CassidyWith all the heat surrounding Anderson Silva's Abu Dhabi adventure, all eyes will look to his upcoming fight to see what has changed. Set to take on Chael Sonnen at UFC 117 on August 7th, people will want to see the return of "The Spider", the knockout artist, one of the most vicious strikers in the game, not the guy who could take first place in dancing with the stars.
This time, with Dana White giving him an opponent who is his biggest challenge to date, we can expect to see the return of the real Silva. It's already been seen that Anderson struggles against wrestlers, and Chael will look to fulfil his promises of slamming him on his head over and over again. But thing appear to have changed. In his last fight, Silva said he acted as he did because Maia disrespected him, but with some of Chael's trash talking, surely at this stage Silva must be fit to be tied? But Silva as usual seems totally unfazed.
The Champ was asked about his training for Sonnen, and Silva was more than happy when talking about his preparations:
"The preparation is nice. People have helped me a lot. Black House family is supporting me so much. Lyoto Machida and Mark Munoz, among others, are focused for this match-up. I'm very happy. Regardless the result, I think it will be a good experience for all of us and I'm preparing for the worst"
When asked the inevitable Fedor questions, unlike some of his UFC cohorts, Silva was keen to praise the Russian:
"In my opinion Fedor still is the best heavyweight for all the achievements he has gotten. Regarding to Fedor-Lesnar clash, I think it would be a big fight, a great spectacle and the MMA fans would be the winners."
Finally, Silva discussed his improvements, especially in his striking, since making the jump to UFC:
"Well, I guess the technical evolution that I had was impressive. I owe this to all my coaches who helped in my formation as a fighter, athlete and trainer. I'm always in search for the perfection. Though it is something impossible, I keep improving and trying to make the difference. I watched many fights of Roy Jones Jr and Muhammad Ali. I inspire myself on them and try to give my best in a different way, more intelligent and superior."
Silva will meet Sonnen at the headline of UFC 117, where Silva will defend his Middleweight belt for the 7th time, and looks to extend his winning streak to 12, but Chael Sonnen will certainly have other ideas.
Source: MMAmania
Comments
I hope Chael woops his ass!!!
and I hope Silva whoops Chaels ass so I can laugh when everyone gets back on Silvas jock and act like they havent been talking shit about him for the last few months =)
Chael has no chance. Even if Anderson somehow lost there would certainly be a re-match.
Chael got lucky with Nate underestimating him, he's in WAY over his head.
LOL... so true...
It's amazing what a good KO will do to turn people around.
The only caveat here is that Silva did lose the first round to Henderson when Henderson focused on wrestling rather than standing with Silva. It was by standing with Silva in the second round that he got hurt and then eventually submitted on the ground.
I'm pondering what if Chael repeats Henderson's first round 5 times and actually gets the decision? Then again, Chael has been submitted when facing excellent BJJ which Silva has... more than a lot of people give him credit for.
I'm a big Silva fan but I have been talking shit about him because of that s*** he pulled against Maia and i watched it for free, if I paid 50 bucks for that s*** i'd probably be rooting for Sonnen like some people are. Most people recognize that Silva is a clear favorite for this fight but stranger things have happened in the UFC.
I would, because your comment dont make any sense @ all, 1st you're a Silva fan then you're not, you want 2 jump on Chaelly's ball bag but you're not 2 sure.....Try again MMAULKY
I used to like Sonnen. A good wrestler and definitely funny but the racial trash talk and disrespecting the Nogueira brothers is going way too far.
Sonnen and his mouth have made me want to see Silva smash him decisively.
I don't even see how it was racial. he made a mistake saying anderson was all like se habla espanol but he was just saying that he really speaks english and fakes not knowing it. who knows what's true but chael was just mistaken and shoulda been talkin bout portugese
yea i admit that i have been more than talking shit about this guy, frist because he was one of my favorite fighters and hes been pulling some bullshit in a lot of his last fights mainly the last, and that shit that he says about beeing disrespected by maia is meaningless the only people that were disrespected was us the fans, but yes he is gonna come in there and beat sonnen a la griffin and it will all be geart again...till the next time. i think that is silva lost this fight would be best for us because hell come back the way he use to be.
hes been pulling some bs in a lot of his last fight mainly the last...SERIOUS!! Do your parents know you're playing on their computer making an ASS of yourself. daigoro702 stop it
Anyone who disrespects "fans" like you has got my vote. If i fought professionally i'd constantly insult the "fans" who sell you out when you don't do what they want as if you're a puppet.
Like they were on machidas. Thats why i cheer everytime some whiney clown cries about how he's so much of a fan that he cusses the fighter whenever he doesn't jump the right way
Most MMA fans are fickle and act like they dont only have short-term memories. That's why they are weaking my comment =p
So True! Those people were NEVER Anderson Silva's fans in the first place. True fans would continue to support their fighters no matter the circumstances. Whether if Anderson Silva wins by a knock out, decjsion, or even if he loses one day, I'm still going to remain one of his biggest fans.
i can't speak for everyone but i weaked it cuz i want chael to whoop that ass. maybe you just make weak comments tho. who knows. i suppose some of them are bandwagon silva fans.
whatever i'm a MASSIVE Silva fan he's my second favorite fighter behind BJ Penn BUT that doesn't stop me from being honest and objective about what happened against Maia. The worst fans are those who can't be objective and just **** ride fighters regardless of what they see in fights. there are pro and cons too all fighters BJ and Silva included.
WTF??!! He battered Maia and toyed with him like a cat to a bitten mouse....
The worst fans are the ones who sell out at the drop of a hat.
I HATE ANDERSON!! i do not like him as a fighter...but u kno im stuck in a prob wher ei can root for a Showboating ass or a Trash talking-cant back it up-dildo up his ass-politician........so hey ima go with the lesser of two evils Anderson Silva. An di hate it when people say that Chael is the best comp that Anderson has faced...BS!!! Anderson aint like Fedor he fights fighters that people actually kno. Chael has beaten only 3 "well known" ufc fighters...all the others he has lost to...and NAte just underestimated him. But if he goes in there looking for the "Hoe Down and the Curcification of lil pigmes" that hes been flappin his mouth about hes gunna find his head in the 3rd row 20 secs in.
What an idiot. Chael is definitely for real. Olympic caliber wrestling. Probly better than Hendersons as far as power and explosion. Chael is no joke. Sometimes his submission defense didn't look great but he's been working on it and come on. It's Demian Maia. Everybody's hating on him but he talked shit, sold the fight, and no matter what he's leaving with a big paycheck. So he's just a smart dude. And he's probly got a better chance of doing what Dan Henderson did 5 times than any chance Hendo would have again. Everybody has a chance. And Marquardt always trains hard. Everybody always makes excuses when they predicted the fight wrong. Bottom line is Chael is a bad dude, relentless. If anyone at that weight can pull this off, it could definitely be him.
"If anyone can beat silva, it's definitely whoever we put agaisnt him!"
Yea..and then after the fight they say he was a nobody.
oh yea Chael was a back up olympic wrestler. an alternate. But the man who won gold is.....DAN F'n HENDERSON!!! So how do u get the idea that Chael is better than him??? Oh yea cause he says he is...i forgot.
Thats what they and you will say if sonnen loses. not hardcore fans that know he can dominate most of that division.
No thats wat i say cause thats my opinion. I dont see Chael winning....thats my damn opinion. If he does win i will prolly clap and say "Good fight.....you prick" I am a "true" mma fan but that dont mean that i have to suck his ****....hes got that covered anyway. I believe that every fighter has chance to win a fight because thats true. Anyone can win on any given night. But hey i dont like him and i dont like silva and oyu kno what ima pick silva. Jump on the bandwagon if u want to but hey ima keep my dignity.
Are you really dumb enough to think chael can dominate most of that division? im pretty sure people aren't always changing weights to avoid him...
I think the worst case scenario for silva is being laid on for 25 minutes... yeah that'd be the worst because God knows Sonnen isn't gonna finish it
If Chael mounts Silva, he's getting submitted.
Who is getting submitted?
No, If Chael mounts Silva, Silva is done. I don't see Chael getting to mount though and Silva's guard is a dangerous place for Sonnen.
or how about chael is flat out fuked when he gets in the cage
lol...who? chael submit silva??
Sonnen will be the one tapping & staring at the mat once the match is over.
I really do not understand how this is his "biggest challenge to date." Are people really this susceptible to marketing? For one, this guy was submitted just last year by an opponent that Silva just humiliated at 112... With that said, MMAth is not a science.. But in my opinion he faced tougher challenges in Thales Leites, Patrick Cote, Dan Henderson, Rich Franklin, Nate Marquardt, Travis Lutter, hell even Chris Leben is more dangerous and certainly a whole hell of a lot tougher! Looking at this list of names, what does Sonnen bring to the table that is any different or better than the challengers who came before him? Nothing... Of course he has "chance." In mma, anything can happen due to "chance," all it take is one mistake. Other than that chance, Sonnen is hopeless...
I was thinking pretty much the same thing.
I agree. The only thing new Sonnen brings to the table is a big mouth and some vicious ground and pound which he will never have the opportunity to implement.
I think people are so blinded by the fact that they are pissed at Silva that they fooled themselves in to believing Chael is a fearful opponent. Before Silva/Maia people were saying Silva/Sonnen would be a joke, all of a sudden their opinions changed now.
No way is Leben tougher. He's tough but Sonnen is as tough as they come. That dude works as hard as anyone and wants it as much as anyone. He beat the best Nate Marquardt there has been. And none of those guys except Hendo being a close 2nd have the takedown abiltity Sonnen has. It's definitely his biggest weapon. And none of those guys are as relentless with the pace as Chael. It may be wrong to say he is hands down the biggest challenge. But he will take more of a beating than all those guys except maybe Leben. Thales was a joke. Has no wrestling, got destroyed by Martin Kampman. Chael is just a different animal than those guys. He's only got one way to win but he would beat all those guys on a good day.
I don't think Sonnen's ground and pound will be that dangerous to Silva. Silva just has to worry about getting hugged to death.
His GnP isnt very vicious. Sure he has some great takedowns, but his last 5 wins were LnP to decision.
I'd love to see him try to LnP Silva.
That's retarded. His takedowns and his gnp are pretty damn good. No one ever dominated Nate like that. He had no answer for 15 minutes to Chaels relentless top game. If his submission defense keeps getting better all he'll have to do is take guys down and it's in the bag. Silva is way better standing of course. But everybody here underestimates Sonnen. That double leg is ridiculously explosive. Everybody just wants to make sure people know they predicted Silva. If Sonnen wins everyone will say Silva didn't try.
Is that right? I do not really care about people knowing who I predicted... If u are not familiar with LowKick, there is a game called LowPick that does that for me. I was simply stating the obvious....
Stickinurchick. I wasn't necessarilly referring to you and your predictions. Obviously I picked Sonnen to cause the upset in this one. But I'm talking about the long list of people that act like he's really not as good or better than those other fighters Silva faced. Cote doesn't evolve and looked like a joke against Alan Belcher. Franklin got lucky against Liddell, cuz if that round ended that broken arm would've been a real issue. And most other guys on that list Sonnen can beat. I'm saying he's as legitimate a threat as anyone so far, and it seems everyone's just trying to hop back on the bandwagon before the fight. No offense to you personally. I usually agree with a lot of what you say. I did pick Chael in this one cuz his takedowns and relentlessness is 2nd to none. He may be a long shot. But we all know if he gets a hold of him he could at least win 1 round like Hendo did.
I take no issue with your opinion, that is what we are all here for is to talk mma. I just thought, well u know... But its cool then.
I cant wait for this fight, this is the fight i have been lookin forward to for a long time. I hope Sonnen can figure out a way to shut the spider down. I got Sonnen by decision
After his UFC career hes going to face Fedor
What about GSP?
No offense, but you use enter too much man. It's harder to read sensibly when it goes to the next line instead of a period, or you have run on sentences every line.
Your comments are formatted
so that they look like
poems, except that
they just dont rhyme.
I think this guy types like that to make his post stand out a little and get more people to read them. I also think he is Scott Coker's son. Always trying to help Strikeforce on here anytime they get bashed. Yeah Dana and the UFC don't always do everything we want them to. But come on, we'd all still rather have the UFC if we were only allowed 1 organization for the rest of our lives.
I dont get why people "hate" AS so much. Maia disrespected Silva. He did. When you say youre ready to face a champion, you must be REALLY ready. Silva gave him the chance to become the champion and Maia disrespected him because he didnt prepared properlly for that fihgt. If people want to face the champion, they need to bring it, they need to go get the tittle, not just lay on the mat and wait for a miracle... like Maia did. The guy didnt even tried to wretle him to the ground, he just pulled gurad every time and that my friends, that is disrespecting a champion.
He knew Silva, he knew that he was (at least for some) that best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and still he went there ill prepared with no strategies whatsoever to beat him. He just went there for the "punchers chance" and the money. In that way he disrespected Silva...
I really hope Silva wins this one and I think Sonnen knows he has little chance to win, hence the trash talk - his so he can try and get some kind of advantage and maybe because he knows his 15 mins of fame will end soon. I think that I speak for most MMA fans when I say that MMA doesn't need a champion like Sonnen, I think its a discredit for the sport IMO...
Yeah, if Sonnen wins, MMA will have trouble living that one down.
When it comes to Silva, he actually mentioned in an interview that his comments about being disrespected were because he had to "Hype the fight" considering Dana White was pissed at him at the time. That's why he switched up his comments were different directly after the fight when compared to the post fight conference.
With that said, people really over overdoing it with the anger for Silva. The first 3 rounds he completely dominated, and was all up in Maia's head. Anyone who is a true fan of Silva knows he does his taunts and shit to get in the opponents head - a perfect example of it was how he got in to Forrests head before dominating him.
After the 3 rounds were won, he just took a decision win. Why put yourself at risk by getting in to clinch range with a world class grappler?
People are quick to say "He could have knocked him out at any time"... But I say to those people, look at how often you see knockouts in the championship arounds? If I remember correctly, there has NEVER been a knockout in the 5th round. Furthermore, the chance to get SUBBED actually INCREASES the longer in to championship arounds it goes.
By that point both fighters are not fresh enough to strike at full power - especially fighting outdoors in freaking Abu Dhabi.
Besides, the commission even reviewed the fight and said Silva did nothing wrong - in both MMA and Boxing it's common for winning fighters to grind out a decision - especially when defending in a championship fight. 5th round when the challenger is for sure losing, his corner should be saying do everything you can to pull off a win, not the other way around.
If people are so pissed about him grinding out a decision, then why arent they pissed at both Shogun and Machida for listening to their corners when BOTH of their corners told them "your winning the fight just survive this round" in their first fight? They both did the same thing and it led to one of the most controversial decisions in history. That's far worse than A. Silva sitting back and avoiding any risk against a BJJ expert that could get a hold and sub you any time in a fight he dominated.
Yeah man, as I said, people were very quickly to join the bandwagon when it came to criticizing him after UFC 112.Silva always had this problem. For reasons unknown, people opt to dislike him. Remember the fights agains Franklin? Remember how long it took for people to accept the fact AS was the legit champion? People just dont like him it seems and they saw the UFC 112 incident as a perfect excuse to openly criticizing him, hence all the shit we see from everyone, fans and adversaries alike...
PS - only two fights ended on the 5th round IIRC, one was the BJ Penn vs Sanchez fight and the other was Couture vs Rodriguez - both were TKO I think - I cant remember if the Randy fight got stopped by the referee or if Randy tapped...
BJ tko'd Diego in the 5th. I would think that's close enough to a KO. Yeah Silva got tired but whatever. There's too much talk about this fight anyway. Needs to happen so some people can say I told you so and so other people can start their excuses.
I think people were mad cuz of how little Silva was trying for a lot of the fight. And the obvious playing and trying to insult Maia instead of fight him. Making fun of him and wasting energy in doing it. It did seem pretty clear Silva could land strikes at will on him. And when he stopped doing that people got upset.
Anderson Silva is going to kick Sonnen's ass. AS is just too good for him and he does not realize that.