Anderson Silva practicing Jiu-Jitsu with Fábio Noguchi without gi pants, during the lean early days / Personal archive photo
“If the UFC 148 main event goes to the ground, Anderson’s prepared for it again this time around. The coach overseeing his training in that department, Ramon Lemos, did an excellent job. I checked out his training session with Pedro Rizzo and Rafael Feijão on Tuesday. Anderson’s running on all cylinders. If it goes to the ground, he’ll have the upper hand, like he did in the first fight.”
The aforementioned opinion is that of Jorge “Joinha” Guimarães, Ed Soares’s partner in managing Anderson Silva’s career and a commentator for UFC events on Brazil’s Combate channel.
“Anderson never neglects training Jiu-Jitsu. He even tends to wear the gi, which is something a lot of MMA fighters don’t do. His ground game is up to speed, yes, but I feel he’s better than Sonnen in all aspects of the game.”
Joinha is a Jiu-Jitsu black belt and will be doing the commentating for UFC 148 broadcast on Combate channel.
UFC 148
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, USA
July 7, 2012
Anderson Silva vs Chael Sonnen
Tito Ortiz vs Forrest Griffin
Cung Le vs Patrick Côté
Demian Maia vs Dong Hyun Kim
Ivan Menjivar vs Mike Easton
Chad Mendes vs Cody McKenzie
Gleison Tibau vs Khabib Nurmagomedov
Melvin Guillard vs Fabrício “Morango” Camões
Riki Fukuda vs Costa Philippou
John Alessio vs Shane Roller
Yoislandy Izquierdo vs Rafaello Oliveira