LOS ANGELES — A strange video of Anderson Silva apparently knocking out a training partner with a knee aired on Brazilian television this week. A clip made its way to Twitter on Tuesday, queuing up multiple questions about its validity.
UFC fighters Alexander Gustafsson and Phil Davis and their Alliance MMA head coach Eric Del Fierro both watched it Tuesday during a media luncheon to promote UFC on FOX 14: Gustafsson vs. Johnson. Even after viewing it several times, the trio had no clue what to believe.
“He didn’t look knocked out to me,” Davis said. “He looks maybe hurt. People when they get knocked out look stiff and he doesn’t look stiff anywhere.”
Gustafsson joked that maybe it was all for the cameras and the sparring partner, Douglas Moura of Team Nogueira, took a dive.
“[Silva] probably gave him a hundred bucks after practice,” Gustafsson quipped.
Del Fierro was more disturbed than anything. He said something like that would never happen in his gym, especially the follow-up shots Silva came in with after initial impact, though they didn’t seem to be at full speed. Del Fierro marveled that the other person in the cage just stood there and watched instead of jumping in.
“I would have quit that gym right then and there,” Del Fierro said, if he were Silva’s training partner.
Del Fierro admitted it did appear that Silva’s flying knee did connect on Moura. He admitted that people do get knocked out Alliance, but it looks nothing like this video, where no one came to Moura’s aid.
In any case, Davis, who called out Silva after his win over Glover Teixeira at UFC 179 in October, was not too impressed by the entire thing.
“And if he is knocked out, why is he still hitting him?” Davis said. “That’s what you do to a training partner? You don’t just knock him out like Hendo and follow up on him like Bisping. It’s your training partner. What’s wrong with you?”