In a recent interview with Sherdog.com’s “Savage Dog Show”, the former UFC heavyweight champion spoke about how he intended to keep his weight at 300 pounds in order to deal with the massive Polish strong man’s size.
“I did that on purpose,” he explained Monday on the Sherdog Radio Network’s Savage Dog Show. “I wanted to be heavy for the fight. I wanted to be as big as he was. … When we took the fight, he was 336 pounds and then he was 300 during the press conferences we were doing. He lost another 23 pounds between the press conferences and when it came to the actual fight day. I actually hit 285 during training and then I just went back to eating five times a day again. At the peak of my training, I was 285, which is pretty much what I am when I fight for the UFC — actually about 275 and then I cut 10 pounds to make the weight when I fight (at 265).”
In Marius Pudzianowski’s debut against a former professional Boxer in Poland, the World’s strongest man was able to chop down his opponent with what could be described best as “Horse Kicks” all power no finess. The Boxer ran away looking frightened and hurt as Pudzianowksi’s kicks landed, Sylvia easily checked those kicks at Moosin MMA against the strong man in their fight.
“It wasn’t a good leg kick,” he said. “It was just hard and powerful. He didn’t kick me where he was supposed to kick me. If you kick anybody, like the three I put on him, you want to kick on the quad. That way it takes your legs away. He kicked me in the calf. And then the next one was just below the knee and the third one I was able to check.”
While Sylvia has also suffered embarrassing back-to-back defeats at the hands of Fedor Emelianenko and an over the hill Ray Mercer at Adrenaline MMA, the former champion is on a comeback trail and is quick to point out that he has still accomplished a lot throughout his career.
“I know what I’ve done,” he responded Monday. “I know no one else has been a five-time UFC heavyweight champ besides Randy (Couture). As soon as Brock (Lesnar) defends it and makes that, then he’s in that division too, but no one else is. Not even Arlovski.”
As for Sylvia’s critics, he makes no apologies and does not care if you love him or hate him. He is not going to beg you to like him and does not intend to change his personality.
“It is what it is,” he said. “I am who I am. I’ve made statements and stuff. If you hate me, I hate you. I don’t care. I don’t care if you don’t like me, to be honest with you. That’s just the way it is. I’m not going to change for anybody. I’m not going to kiss people’s butts and so on and so forth. That’s just not me. I’m from the East Coast, and that’s just the way we’re all brought up.”
Sylvia also reiterated his ultimate goal is to be back in the bigger fight promotions again “I’d like to think (by) 2011,” Sylvia said, “I’d like to be with Strikeforce or UFC.”
So far, Sylvia has the wins to begin his goal of returning to a major fight promotion, but he is often one of the most criticized figures in the sport today. Part of it is because of his work ethic. Sylvia will have to show he can make the 265 pound weight limit, and get down from his current 305 pound weight. Sylvia has said repeatedly that he does not like to diet, but if he intends on making it back to the UFC or to StrikeForce he will need to cut weight.
At the moment 40 pounds seems like a lot of weight, but for a fighter 40 pounds can be taken off easily. In the case of Sylvia it is up to him on how fast he would like to make that happen. For the sake of his career lets hope he does make that commitment and is able to get a few more wins and his weight down soon.
Props: urdirt.com
No comments:
Post a Comment