It appears as though Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva still has some strong resentment towards his UFC 156 opponent, Alistair Overeem. The heavyweight title challenger continued the verbal onslaught of Overeem along with discussing his training for heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez.
Silva spoke to MMA Junkie radio on Wednesday about his former opponent and the heavyweight champ.
“He talked a little too much, and he got what he deserved… Overeem, he’s nothing more than a joke,” Silva said.
Indeed Overeem was extremely confident heading into UFC 156. The comments made by Overeem and the pre-fight press conference lit up the Internet and his confidence was beaming during his walkout. Overeem walked to the Octagon like he was preparing to throw a massive rave rather than fight a dangerous heavyweight like Silva.
Still, Overeem dominated the first two rounds but the Brazilian rebounded nicely in the third by unleashing a fury of strikes to finish Overeem in the third round.
The win, along with his KO of Travis Browne last year, have propelled “Bigfoot” into title contention and the Brazilian will challenge Velasquez at UFC 160 for the heavyweight title.
Silva admitted that his training camp for Velasquez will be quite different than that for his bout with Overeem.
“I think Cain Velasquez is a real professional…It’s going to be good, because my motivation is going to come from my desire to win the belt and be the champion, not from wanting to prove myself to a specific opponent,” Silva said.
The Brazilian stated that he will be working with Olympian Steve Mocco as well as fellow UFC heavyweight Shawn Jordan. The Olympian Mocco is a training partner from Silva’s first fight with Velasquez but the Brazilian believes the rematch will have a different outcome.
“It’s going to be a really different fight, and I’m going to take this belt back to Brazil,” he said. “I’m 1,000 percent confident for this fight, and I’m feeling really prepared. I think he really deserved the win that night. That was his night, and he did a good job. He has a great trainer, a great team and implemented the right strategy. The level we fight at, whoever makes the least mistakes wins the fight.”
Silva will need an almost perfect performance to oust Velasquez at UFC 160. The heavyweight champion is seemingly without a flaw as he possesses great wrestling combined with a solid striking base. Velasquez is also possibly the best conditioned heavyweight in the world and won’t run out of gas in a five round fight.
Although Velasquez completely wrecked Silva in their first meeting, rematches typically do not play out in similar fashion, and I expect UFC 160’s meeting to look different even if I believe the outcome will be the same.
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