Diogenes Assahida was Silva’s muay thai coach when Silva won the UFC belt in 2006.
Brazilian martial artists can have a prickly sense of honor and it’s best you don’t end up disrespecting them, accidentally or otherwise. Just look at what happened to one Ulisses Teodoro, who made the mistake of walking past his old muay thai school wearing a new martial arts team shirt.
That enraged his former coach Diogenes Assahida, who also happens to be the former coach of some guy named Anderson Silva. Assahida was Silva’s muay thai guy back in 2006 when “The Spider” obliterated Rich Franklin’s nose with knees from the clinch. Assahida shows off a similar level of aggressive violence in teaching his former student a lesson.
Video captures Assahida motioning Teodoro to follow him towards the school before suddenly unleashing a torrent of punches and elbows on his former student. The video ends with Assahida trying to choke Teodoro out from off his back.
Treinador Diogenes Assahida se vangloria de agredir um ex-aluno que, segundo ele, teria falado mal dele após trocar de equipe — e ter passado em frente à sua academia usando uma camisa do outro time. Pra ele, mereceu a agressão. Lamentável.
Segue o vídeo que viralizou: pic.twitter.com/BnlPeydr2B
— Guilherme Cruz (@guicruzzz) April 9, 2019
“I’ve lost my head, but s**t … we need to go back to the samurai era, you have to honor your master, your professor,” Assahida said in a video trying to explain his actions. “You have to honor yourself. You have to wear the same shirt forever, listen to your master and professor.”
The incident went down at the start of April and has since gone viral. During a UFC media event in Rio de Janeiro, Anderson Silva shared his disappointment over his former coach’s behavior.
”I think each person has its own views,” Silva said (via MMA Fighting). “I’m from a time where you respect your coach, the coach respected the student. I never had any problem with any of my coaches, I’ve always respected them. I have (Rogerio) Camoes, master (Luiz) Dorea and master (Ricardo) De La Riva as second fathers for me because they are always helping me, always showing me the path to go to get to where I want.”
”That’s an isolated fact, it’s sad, because when you’re titled a master you have to give the example no matter if your student leaves the gym or not, if he continues or not. He has to follow his own path. The moment you open a gym, and you pass your knowledge forward, you can’t stop this student from creating his own path. Unfortunately, each person has his own views and opinions about it. It’s an unfortunate fact.”
Teodoro pressed charges against Assahida shortly after the video was filmed. Unfortunately, he also happens to live next to his former gym. We’d advise he start taking pretty wide detours rather than cross in front of his old school again.