Almost two years ago, former UFC middleweight Thales Leites (18-4) squared off with champion Anderson Silva for the middleweight title at UFC 97. The fight was not one of the better moments for either fighter and had the entire Montreal arena booing both men’s efforts, or lack of. Silva would go on to easily earn a unanimous decision victory while Leites would earn the scorn of the fans as well as the promotions President.
Leties would go on to lose his next fight to Alessio Sakara by split decision at UFC 101, spelling the end of his tenure with the UFC promotion.
Since that time, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specialist has been working hard on his standup and has fought five times, going 4-1 with various organizations. In the coming year, the former UFC contender hopes to walk away with four victories in 2011 and he’s enlisted the help of his former adversary Anderson Silva to do it.
“I don’t see any problem training with Anderson because I have a good relationship with all fighters, I don’t have any problem with nobody and when Pedro asked me if there was a problem on him bringing Anderson to train I said that there wasn’t any. It was pretty nice, it’s always good to train with new people, you can learn more. I’m negotiating with some events and I think I might fight in March, I’d like it to be earlier, but let’s see, soon we’ll know more about my next fight. I hope this year will be better than the year then has gone, I hoped I won all fights I did last year, but I had that bad result. But I’ve won four of the fights I did and I closed the year with a win. In 2011 I want to do four or five fights and win all of them, if I can do five, six, as many fights as possible, I’ll do. I know it’s hard, but at least four fights I’ll do this year.”
HT: Tatame.com