(With a head that big, it’s no wonder “Bigfoot” has sore shoulders)
Chael Sonnen told me during an interview a couple years back that guys who go into a fight 100 percent healthy either didn’t train hard enough or they’re liars.
What he was referring to was the growing number of fighters who make excuses for losses or less than stellar wins after the fact by revealing that they were nursing an injury during the fight or training camp, since pretty much everyone has some kind of ailment or boo-boo come fight day.
Well, we can add another name to the list. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva tells Tatame that he had a shoulder injury and was on anti-inflammatories when he was upset by heavyweight grand prix alternate Daniel Cormier Saturday night at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Kharitonov in Cincinnati. Apparently the first jab he ate from the AKA fighter made him feel uncharacteristically dizzy and it was this bit of vertigo that led to him getting knocked out.
Now, I’m no doctor, and the translation by Tatame may be a bit off, but I’m pretty sure that neither a shoulder injury or anti-inflammatories make you dizzy, nor do they make you more apt to be knocked out. And apparently if you add an “I’m not making excuses here,” prior to rambling off an excuse for why you failed to perform, it’s okay. It’s like how the word, “but” gives you free reign to tell it like it is, except it really means, “Forget everything I said before the ‘but.’” For example, when you tell a buddy, “I’m sorry knocking you out, but in my defense you were being kind of an asshole,” you’re really just saying, “You deserved getting KTFO because you were being an asshole.”
Here’s Bigfoot’s excuse reason for not beating Cormier after the breakthrough performance he had against Fedor earlier in the tournament:
“I came to fight knowing I would have to go through a surgery. I didn’t want to leave this GP, once Overeem left, and if I quit it wouldn’t be nice. Since Strikeforce belongs to Zuffa now, I could even be cut off. It’s not an excuse. I used corticoid, but I was reckless. Cormier is to be congratulated. I made a mistake. I’ll go through a surgery now and I won’t fight at ADCC,” he explained. “The doctor said that within a month I’ll be back to the trainings, and I hope to fight as soon as possible, maybe in December. I want to fight once again until the end of the year so I have a chance to redeem myself.”
The first step to redeeming himself would have been not mentioning that his shoulder hurt and giving Cormier credit for his performance instead of saying he won because you made a mistake. Son, I am disappoint.
