Former UFC middleweight champion’s future up in the air after stunning loss.
Former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva said he has not thoughts of a rematch for his belt that he lost to Chris Weidman in stunning fashion at UFC 162.
Silva was knocked out 74 seconds into the second round after playing games with the challenger, made the most of the opening created and finished the fight.
Silva said after the fight that he was done fighting for belts and his attitude had not changed by the time he spoke to a packed press conference.
The former champion was contrite as he summed up how it all went so wrong.
“I tried to induce Chris into my game,” Silva said.
“He threw some shots that landed, I got caught so obviously my game plan didn’t work
“I can’t make any excuses, it is what happened I would never fight to lose.
“I trained for four months for this fight, but this is what happened, I lost the fight and a fight’s a fight.
“First of all we need to respect my opponent Chris, he is the champ. He won the fight.”
Said he will take three to four months off and see what he wants to do then and said he cannot think about a rematch at the moment
the man of the moment Weidman said he cannot wait to get back into the gym and the Octagon and defend the belt for the first tine.
“I would think at this point I’d be able to sit back and be happy,” Weidman said.
“But I’m hungry, I want to get back in there because I still don’t think I looked my best
“So I’m excited to go out there and try and hold onto this belt for as long as I can.”
UFC president Dana White said gave kudos to the new champion for not getting rattled in what was just his 10th pro fight and his sixth in the promotion.
“A lot of people through the reason why Chris Weidman would win was because of his wrestling and his ground game,” White said.
“He took Anderson Silva down immediately and Anderson did a good job in defending the submissions and getting back to his feet
“And there’s no doubt that he got into Chris’ head at the end of the first round
“But he continued to do it the entire second round and ended up getting clipped and got knocked out
“Chris kept his composure and kept moving forward and kept trying to finish him until he did.”
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