Claudio Silva made a triumphant return to the Octagon after a near four-year hiatus at UFC Fight Night 130 last weekend (Sun., May 27, 2018) in Liverpool, England, taking out Nordine Taleb via first round rear-naked choke.
But, the two combatants almost went for round two following the fight, as they were involved in an altercation at the host hotel after an irate Taleb allegedly approached Silva to call foul play for his antics during the fight.
“The UFC has to take notice. He needs to be punished,” Silva told MMA Junkie. “He kicked me in the leg as I was sitting on the ground. He said, ‘(Expletive) you, you’re a (expletive). You robbed me. You didn’t win that fight. You told the referee I was holding your gloves and then you got the choke.’”
According to Silva, Taleb hurled plenty of homophobic slurs and even stated if anyone ever spoke to him in that manner he “would kill them.” Eventually, Taleb’s teammates separated the two and prevented it from coming to blows, though Silva never expected to go that far on his end.
“I’m a professional fighter at the end of the day,” Silva said. “It’s not professional to say those kinds of words. And man, I feel really bad for the sport. I come to fight. I don’t hate anyone. I just came there and did my job. I just looked at him and laughed, because we don’t have to do these kinds of things. We are professional fighters. We get paid to fight. It’s really bad for the sport. I’ve never experienced it before.”
While the Brazilian bomber expects the promotion to punish Taleb for violating the promotion’s guidelines and code of conduct, he won’t settle their beef by granting him a do-over.