Wanderlei Silva answers several questions as he was recently interviewed by Yahoo Sports. He mentions the fact that he wants to fight Chuck Liddell despite his last 2 losses because he feels that their “styles are very similar.” Wanderlei, Chuck and most MMA fans have been waiting a very long time for this dream fight to happen. The former PrideFC light heavyweight champion had plans to fight Chuck after he defended his title earlier this year, but things just didn’t go as planned. After losing his title to Dan Henderson at Pride 33, everything went downhill for Wanderlei. He decided to take some time off after losing two fights in a row, one with Dan and the other one with Mirko Cro Cop. It’s been 8 months since he last fought and he sounds very eager of coming back. Now that both fighters are part of the same organization, when will they fight?! The question still remains…
Wanderlei Silva is scheduled to fight in UFC’s last event of 2007, which is going to be held on December 29th. His opponent has not been reported just yet, but it is expected to be revealed this Saturday during the UFC 77 event.
He goes on to talk about other topics including steroids, PrideFC fighters coming into the UFC and his training. This what he had to say:
“Actually, they do test in Japan. I was tested before and after my
fights in Japan. But if you are thinking of Mirko (Cro Cop) and Shogun
as examples, Mirko may have lost because he has so many other things
going on in his life, such as his duty in government, and his business.
Shogun went through a lot of changes before he fought in the UFC. He
changed his home, he changed his training, and he changed fighting
organizations. I don’t know why they lost their fights in the UFC; only
Shogun and Mirko understand the reasons why they lost…I am training more in boxing and jiu-jitsu. I don’t have just one
technique, now I have many good techniques. I’m doing a lot of physical
training, and training in circuits that are around five minutes long
for three rounds, just like the fight.Overall, the move has been great for me. Everything about it is good,
even the food here is better for me – I have more choices of healthy
food here in the U.S. than I had in Brazil. Also, I have three coaches
here in the U.S. now, just for my training. I have Andre Galvao, who is
an 11-time world champion in Jiu-Jitsu, and Ulysses Pereira, who
trained a world champion boxer in Brazil. And I have Rafael Alejarra,
who is one of the best physical trainers in Brazil.”
