Before fighting Anderson Silva on Jan. 31 at UFC 183, Nick Diaz shared how he plans to fight Anderson Silva who was reportedly knocked out during a sparring session.
A tweet from sports journalist James Goyder started the rumors and it read: "I just got a message from someone in the MMA industry telling me that Anderson Silva got knocked out sparring in Los Angeles this weekend."
An earlier MMA Mania report, however, said that it was Silva who knocked out his sparring partner, Douglas Moura, and that he even got criticized for it. One of his managers, Jorge Guimaraes, explained that The Spider did not intentionally hurt his opponent and friend.
Moura also shared his side of the story, as quoted by MMA Fighting: "They didn't do a good job with the editing. That's not what happened. We're fighting, it happens, but when (Silva) realized I was dizzy, he didn't punch for real. He was just touching his hand on me, giving me time to recover. There was 2:30 minutes left in the round, and we continued training after that, but they didn't show that on TV. It happened to me, but it also happened to him before. It's completely normal. The way they edited, looked like he was trying to hurt me."
Watch the video:
Meanwhile, during his appearance on Inside MMA, Diaz discussed how he took in Artem Levin, a rangy Glory middleweight champ, who can copy Silva's style of fighting and why it took a long time for him to go back to the MMA, ProMMA said in a report.
"When I stopped fighting, I didn't see myself in the right fight so I just quit until something came up that was big enough," Diaz added during the interview while noting that his training camp has really been good.
As for Levin, Diaz said that he has been a great help for his training especially that the latter is a phenomenal striker.
"He is here for a couple of days. We had some workouts. And I like to work with different kickboxers and a lot of professional strikers," Diaz added.
Asked what he expects from the fight, the UFC star said that he is really not out there to prove anything and that he just wants to fight Silva.
"I'll just do what I got to do. I will get out there to fight and see how it goes," he added.
According to Bleacher Report, UFC President Dana White said that if Silva wins, he might get a shot at a title fight against either Vitor Belfort and Chris Weidman. The report, however, noted that it does not necessarily guarantee a shot at the belt but it could be a chance for him to redeem his title as one of the best in the UFC.
