Photo: Luca Atalla
Anderson Silva and Demian Maia were face to face this Sunday, on Brazilian television channel Globo’s “Domingão do Faustão” Sunday show. However, the Spider also appeared in another Sunday news outlet. In a special by Ary Cunha, in “O Globo” newspaper, Silva commented on the controversy surrounding his title defense against Demian Maia. Below are some excerpts and, to see the article in its entirety in Portuguese, click here.
“Anyone who watched the fight from the outside, from another angle, may have seen things totally differently. When they judge you to be the best in the world – even though I don’t feel I am –, it takes a split second for people change their thoughts on you for your attitude. I learned a lot from this fight, more than from any other.”
“I did things no one has ever seen me do. And then, they certainly said: “This guy’s nuts. He’s screwing around. There, at that moment, it was a purge of three or four pent-up months.”
“He said he respected me as a fighter, but questioned my attitude, my character. He said the spider has eight legs and that he was going to pluck one of them in the ring. I’ve had fights with more smack talk in the past, but in this one I really needed to purge.”
“I won’t say I lost control. From my heart, I wouldn’t do it again. Or better yet, I’d do things differently.”
“There was a moment when I started seeing the thing as a street fight and I said things: ‘Didn’t you say the spider has eight legs and you’re going to pluck one of them? Let’s go, get up, playboy!’”
“If there’d been all this fallout and I’d lost the fight, it would have been worse. I might even have lost my job. But I went home with the belt, without taking a scratch, nothing. The Spider did what he always did: I went out there, fought and won.