You might say that Sonnen is only two years younger than Silva, but in the early days of Silva's career, he was training nearly harder than he was fighting during his days with Chute Box Academy. Silva will always be known as a legend in this sport, but I feel UFC could be the final time we see Anderson Silva inside the Octagon. Follow CKissGuinn. Enjoy our content? Join our newsletter to get the latest in sports news delivered straight to your inbox! You know who else was on the fight card that night?
Ryan Bader. Now, a decade later, he has the Bellator heavyweight and light heavyweight belts. He owns the world championships that I need to have to keep my promise to my dad. And Bader is within reach. I used to whip Bader in the wrestling rooms. He never got the best of me. So if that match does come about, I will have a good source of confidence and motivation. But I can't allow myself to look ahead.
Right now I have to remain fully locked on Machida. He is all I think about, all day long. At night, I get in bed and watch Machida tapes. I go to the gym and practice with Machida in mind. It's not easy, though, keeping to "one step at a time. And yet I know that if I don't keep my focus, I could get carried out after fighting Machida, like many guys have. I'm very aware of the damage that fighting can do. This is a contact sport. Nobody said MMA is good for you. We do many things to keep it as safe as we can, but that's the best we can do: keep it as safe as we can.
I've always taken precautions. In practice, for example, I have around 30 teammates and I'm the only one who wears headgear every day. I've done that for my entire career. And I also don't fight in practice. I know a lot of guys who do, and if I end up with a partner and he wants to fight, I stop going with him. I only want to practice and work out. I do my actual fighting a few times a year, whenever I can get a match.
I'm going to keep going like this until I fulfill my promise or until the reality hits that I'm just out of time. When that day comes, I will focus on the other deal I made many years ago. As a kid in Oregon, I had a great wrestling coach, Roy Pittman. I never paid him a dollar, never even thanked him, but when I was 9 years old I made a deal with him.
His deal was: I will teach you what I know, and when you're done with it, you've got to go teach it to somebody else. So ever since I got out of college, I have coached kids' wrestling. I'm just honoring my deal. And I hope that the kids I coach will take the skills I'm teaching them and someday pass them on to somebody else. I'm going to make sure every one of his teeth are broken, his arms are broken, his legs are broken, he's not going to be able to walk out of the Octagon by himself.
I can guarantee that. I know that he's listening. The game is over. No more [expletive] talking. It's on now. He uses a lot of movements and motions to set guys up. But at the end of the day, his skills are amateur. If you walk into a fist fight with your hands down then that's amateur. I treated him like an amateur the first time and he's going to look like an amateur this time. Not to be outdone by his newly verbose rival, Sonnen waxed poetic about the facts of these fisticuffs to help emphasize the imperative that fight fans absolutely need to tune in on July 7th and watch these two in caged combat.
I'm trying to hurt this guy and he's trying to do damage to me. I was just the opposite. I was like a good cowboy that just wants to jump back on the horse. From the grappling to his striking, his strategy, I just expected more resistance everywhere. So yeah, I was surprised at his lack of resistance.
So good for him. A lot of other fighters have a real misunderstanding that lying and dishonesty is respectful. They love to bow to your face and stick a knife in your back the first chance they get. You guys are a bunch of liars. This is what I want to do with my life. He can go off and do what he wants.
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