Anderson Silva was just trying to promote his teammate.
Anderson Silva’s teammate Eliezer Silva has confirmed ‘there was no knockout’ of Silva in sparring and that ‘The Spider’ was just trying to promote his sparring partner ahead of his boxing match with Anthony Hannah on tonight’s Paul-Silva undercard in Arizona.
Silva previously stated that he had been KO’d twice by Eliezer in sparring but later retracted that statement after the Arizona Boxing Commission almost canceled his fight with Paul due to concerns about the Brazilian’s health.
Training partner Eliezier cleared things up during a recent interview with MMA Fighting, stating that he did not KO Silva in training but that the two had a very technical sparring session in which both fighters learned a lot ahead of their respective bouts on Saturday.
“Anderson is Anderson and every time you step into the ring to spar with him and help each other, you know it’s not going to be just a training session but a very technical fight, but there was no knockout,” Eliezer Silva (1-0) told Guilherme Cruz on Friday.
“The way he expressed himself, I think people misunderstood him,” he added. “But I think it was some fake news to [try to] help me.”
Eliezer Silva will take on Hannah (3-3) on tonight’s undercard at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona, while teammate Anderson Silva (3-1) battles YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul (5-0) in the main event. The card kicks off at 8 p.m. ET with the main event expected to take place at approximately 11 p.m. ET.