(Video courtesy of YouTube/GroundandPoundTV1)
Wanderlei Silva was in Germany recently where he conducted a seminar in Frankfurt and was interviewed by GroundandPoundTV. The former PRIDE star says that in spite of a growing opinion that he should probably walk away from the sport following his most recent knockout loss to Chris Leben at UFC 132 in July, he ain’t goin’ out like that as he owes it to his fans to retire out with his head held hight, not held by the referee as he comes to.
“I rushed. I [was] so excited to be back to fighting and in the co-main event that I did something wrong at the start of the fight. But it happens. I need to come back to training. I hear a lot of guys talking, ‘I gonna retire…gonna retire.’ I can’t retire. Not after that fight. Maybe if I won I could retire, but I can’t retire now. I’m gonna go back to fight for sure and I hope I give a good show for my fans. I’m gonna talk to [Dana White], but he’s so busy right now. We’re gonna talk soon, but for sure, it’s not the last [fight]. After my career, I can’t have one last fight in my career like that. I want to make one fight. I want to announce when I’m gonna retire and I wanna make one big party for my fans. I have a lot of fans that have been been following me for more than ten years. I look at them and they’re like men who some are 25 years old and they say, ‘Man, I’ve saw you since I was a little kid.’ It’s for that kind of guy that I fight.”
As far as a much anticipated rematch with Vitor Belfort that perhaps has lost some of its lustre, Wand says he believes it will happen eventually.
“We can fight with everybody in the world, but some time this fight is gonna hapen. One up, one down, but soon we’re gonna be together. Just wait; it’s gonna happen.”
Finally, when asked about the ongoing verbal assault Chael Sonnen has aimed towards his Brazilian homeland, Silva says he doesn’t think “The American Gangster” would say anything disparaging to his face.
“I think he doing the wrong thing. He doing the wrong promotion. If you’re talking about your next opponent, that’s OK, but I don’t like that stuffs. I am Brazilian. I can talk about Brazilians. The guys who are German can talk about Germans because you know. You live in the place. The other guys can’t talk about your culture,” he says. “We’re gonna look at the future and what’s gonna happen. We’ll see when we’re together. The last time I saw him he run [away]. He don’t come to talk to me. Smart.”
^ Yeah, I think he just took to much damage, plus he was always a brawler not the most technical fighter in history