MMA legend Wanderlei Silva recently suffered a knockout that left him unconscious. However, despite blame being laid on the opponent’s team, UFC star Kamaru Usman believes the only person to blame is Silva.
The incident took place in São Paulo, Brazil, where Silva was disqualified from the match. Things soon escalated into an all-out brawl that left several injured, including Silva, who suffered the worst of all after being hospitalized.
Despite Silva’s recent claims for reparation by suing Rafael Freitas, his attacker, Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo shared their opinions on the subject during their Pound-4-Pound podcast. During the sit-down, they largely blamed Silva for the escalation and said it was the result of his multiple fouls during the fight.
“When you foul the man repeatedly, continuously, at that point you’re not really in here to fight,” Usman said. “You’re not in here to fight a fair fight. You’re going and throwing strikes and things that are not within the confines of the rules, of course, my team’s going to try to protect me.
“When you create a situation like that, which I do believe that he created, and I love Wanderlei Silva, but he created that situation. Part of what we do as professional fighters is we have to learn how to control that aggression and let it out when it’s necessary. Whether it’s outside the ring or inside the ring, you have to learn how to control that. And if you can’t control yourself to where you continue to throw headbutts, and like you mentioned, there was a knee in there at some point, yes, then you’ve got to be prepared for the repercussions that are going to take place. And you saw what took place.”
“One, he headbutts him, he does it on purpose,” Cejudo added. “There is a knee involved in it, too. A headbutt, competition’s out the window because you could slice somebody. You could hurt somebody. To him, eventually getting disqualified, and then this is what I will say: when everybody’s fighting and everybody’s throwing punches, everything goes.
” I get it, if that was my dad or my son in a position like that, gloves are off. If you’re not my blood and you’re around me, I’m going to do whatever it takes. To fight, sometimes it’s unfortunate the legend has to be at the shit end of the stick, but he started fighting. He should have just backed away, maybe went to the corner and allowed his team to fight if that was the case.”
For Silva’s age, Usman believes he shouldn’t be putting himself in the cage, much less at risk in a brawl. Many say the fighter should take a bow out of the sport with his 50th birthday coming up and enjoy a well-deserved rest.
“I don’t think also that they should hold their head down,” Cejudo said. “It’s not a sucker punch. That’s my dad. Everybody’s swinging in the ring.”
“…I think it’s—I don’t want to say this for the man, but as far as continuing the fighting career, it’s a tough one,” Usman said. “You’ve got to question the fighting career after this.”
At the end of the day, Usman made it clear that Silva has to take responsibility for what happened. For a fighter his age, stepping back might be the best move instead of risking more injuries inside or outside the cage.
