Former UFC heavyweight champ Tim ‘The Maine-iac’ Sylvia (30-7) is campaigning to get back into the Octagon, recently releasing a video of him asking for fan support to get him back.
The former champ has is 6-1 in his last seven bouts, with six of those matches taking place above the 265-lbs heavyweight limit. Sylvia did make the heavyweight limit for his last victory, and has vowed to stay on weight in order to get back into the Octagon in order to finish his career.
Speaking to Fighters Only magazine, Sylvia talked about why he wanted back in the UFC, as well as some interesting thoughts on former champ Brock Lesnar.
(Sylvia has more to say about Lesnar as well as Matt Hughes, so be sure to check out the full interview by clicking the link)
So you recently started a campaign to try and get back into the UFC. What’s your motivation there, is it a case of looking for the biggest paydays, or wanting the title, or is there just a desire to be back in there full stop?
I am just getting older and I want to finish up my career in the UFC. There’s a lot of great match-ups for me and I feel like that is where I belong. I don’t care about going in there and trying to fight for the title – I’ve done more in the UFC than any other heavyweight except Randy Couture so titles don’t mean anything to me at this stage.
I just want to fight, I love to fight and I think there are some really great matches there for me right now.
The UFC fans haven’t seen you in nearly four years. If you come back to the organisation, what would be different about you?
Well I don’t think anything we saw last time was all that bad. You know when it comes to my fighting experience, when I was in the UFC I was fighting regularly and so my weight was always down and I was fit. But when I go to not fighting regularly my weight starts getting up there and it gets harder to cut, I am coming in at super-heavy and stuff, I just don’t like that.
I want to be heavyweight, not super-heavyweight, and in the UFC I have to be heavyweight so I always stay in shape. And when I am in shape I don’t think there are too many guys out there that can beat me. And you know this isn’t basketball, where you have some bad games but overall that doesn’t matter as long as the season goes good. We fight three times a year and on that night we have to be perfect.
But that doesn’t happen – you have injuries or you are sick, or you just don’t feel yourself or don’t perform well. You don’t get a second chance.
You were basically absent from the UFC for the entirety of Brock Lesnar’s career there right?
Sort of. We tried to get that fight, he came in and fought Frank Mir the night that I fought Nogueira for the interim title. We both lost and so my team tried to pitch me and him fighting each other, or going on The Ultimate Fighter together, but the UFC didn’t want that to happen because they were trying to, I don’t know, protect him or whatever.
Then he fights Heath Herring and gets a title shot which is… well, it is what it is. I don’t know how he got a title shot with a win over Heath and a loss to Mir. Brock Lesnar was made a champion, I definitely think he was a paper champion and no doubt about it.
But it did great things for the UFC, he really helped it explode in popularity because he took that whole crowd of WWE fans and brought them over to the UFC. That’s millions of people; he had some loyal fans and he brought them over. It was a great marketing job by the UFC.
What do you think of Lesnar transitioning into being a mixed martial artist at such a late stage?
He is not a mixed martial artist. No I don’t think he is at all! He is a big strong wrestler who doesn’t like to get hit. He hates to get hit.
Everyone says this about him but is it definitely true?
Yes its very true, I have two different friends – close friends – who were brought in to train with him and that is what they were told. To be a successful striker or stand-up guy you have to get used to getting hit. How do you get used to getting hit? You get hit over and over again in sparring practice.
Its going to suck the first few months but eventually you are gonna get away from that. If he had kept doing that I think he would have gotten to the point where he got comfortable with it.
Despite Sylvia’s hopes of getting back into the Octagon, UFC president Dana White said he wouldn’t be making any offers to ‘The Maine-iac’ anytime soon when asked by reporter Ariel Helwani following this past weeks UFC on FUEL TV 1 event.