UFC lightweight Thiago Tavares (15-3-1) needed a convincing win and he got it against Pat Audinwood at this past weekends UFC 119: Mir vs. Cro Cop event. Tavares stepped in for an injured Aaron Riley against Audinwood and walked away with a first round guillotine submission.
The win helped to improve the lightweights record as he was 1-3 at one point and is now 3-3-1.
After his win Tavares spoke to Tatame.com about the win and his next move in the UFC lightweight division.
What did you think of this win on this comeback to UFC?
Tavares: Man, it was a reward for the work I’ve been done. For a long time I’ve been training and my fights were cancelled, my last one was postponed because of an injury… I’m coming from a great evolution and it’s a reward of a serious work I’ve been doing… It was just a win. I needed this win, to have a nice win again, so it was great. Just when the fight was over, UFC’s match maker (Joe Silva) said this is the Thiago Tavares they want to see… I mean, they are used to this now (laughs).
That’s good for me, this charge is good for me because it demands me more, I have to evolve each time more and more constantly because they demand it of me, directly my boss demands. It was a simple win, an important one, a win that seals the work I’ve done. It was great and now I have to come back for the trainings. I hope I’ll be back in October. The important of it all is to keep the trainings so I can fight next month, take advantage of the fact I didn’t get injured on this fight, didn’t hurt myself, and I can fight again.
What is your next move on the division?
Tavares: Man, I’m gonna tell you the truth. I wasn’t punch, so if they propose tome to fight next week, I’m on it, I’m ready, get it? Since I worked very hard to improve and I’ve been working for a long time, I wanna fight pretty bad. I was glad that finally I was going to fight… It’s like a doctor who studied all his life and don’t be able to do a surgery. I also studied my whole life and I wasn’t fighting. Yesterday I was on the flood of happiness because I was working again. When the fight ended I talked to Alex Davis, my manager, and told him to do his job and get me another fight. He said that to the match maker of UFC to check the availability.
Any fighter, you can call. You can call me on the next weekends, if anyone is down, if they have a stand by guy, I can fight him. Otherwise, of course I’ll have to wait for my call and it’ll probably be on December or January because they make the guys to fight every 3 or 4 months, so it’s nice too. If that’s what happens, I’ll be more prepared than now. I want to work. I’m training since I was five years old and not fighting is frustrating. Today is one of the happiest days of my life because I’m fighting again, going for the event very happy. The fight had just ended and I asked to Alex: “find me another fight, please. Try to fit me on an event because I want to work”.