mma / News

Antonio Silva Says He’ll Make Up For UFC 193 Loss Against Stefan Struve

May 4, 2016 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas

Antonio Silva spoke with MMAjunkie about his fight with Stefan Struve at UFC Fight Night 87 and more. Some highlights are below:

On his loss to Mark Hunt at UFC 193: “When Mark Hunt fights, whenever he sees that his opponent is knocked out, he immediately walks away and starts commemorating. He never swarms his opponents. And in that fight, he saw that I was still OK. So much so, that he came toward me again, to land a few more strikes. Immediately after the stoppage, I got up to demonstrate that I wasn’t rocked. When you’re rocked on the ground and get up too fast, your body automatically stumbles to one side. I take no credit away from him, in any way, but I think the referee could have let the fight go a little longer.”

On the goal for his fight against Struve: “I need to make up for my recent loss now. It will be a great fight. I’m hungry to win again…When this fight was offered on his home turf, I accepted immediately. I like being the heel. I work well in that situation. When I come to my opponent’s turf, when the fans are booing me, I perform very well. And most of the time, I was the winner.”

On training ahead of the fight: “The entire time I was just training and waiting to be called. I only took two weeks off after the last fight. And the only break other than that was between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Otherwise, I’ve been training, free of injury, just waiting for another booking. Now that the UFC booked me, I can hardly wait to do what I love best, which is fighting.”