WEC champion at 83kg category, Paulo Filho spoke with exclusivity to TATAME about his difficulties in keep the weight for his fight against Chael Sonnen. The Judo and Jiu-Jitsu black belt confirmed his permanence at Team Link, analyzed Anderson Silva’s fight against Dan Henderson, that will happen at UFC 82, and spoke about Wanderlei Silva’s loss to Chuck Liddell and Lyoto Machida’s victory against Thierry Sokodjou
Tatame: You had some difficulties to impose your game on your last fight. What happened?
Actually he did a boring game, his tactics game me a lot of work and I had that trouble of keeping my weight. I had this difficulty because I was trying to do like the Americans, that keep 83kg until the weighting and go to fight with 93kg again, only hydrating, and didn’t worked for me. It was the first time I tried this tactic and didn’t had a professional accompanying, tried to do by myself.
Tatame: Your father, one of your biggest stimulator, criticized again the fact of you’re losing too much weight and said that prefers you at 93kg category. Do you pretend following his advice?
Well, the problem of fighting at 93kg category is that this weight doesn’t fit with my high and I know that, doing everything right, I can beat 83kg easily, no problem. At this fight, the problem was that I, with all attempt to lose weight, couldn’t show everything that we know I can show. But I’ll go look for a professional help next time, I’ll forget my laziness too (laughs).
Tatame: Who is your next fight? How many fights do you still have at WEC?
I have two more fights at this contract and it says that this two fights if for the belt, so I’ll do two more belt defenses. Organization had a lot of trouble to get opponents for me, but not because they’re afraid or because of financial problems, but the athletes that are today at UFC don’t wanna fight at another event knowing that they’ll face a tough guy and a loss would be a step back for them.
Tatame: What are your plans for 2008?
I’m still watching it. Everybody started 2008 too fast, but I still look what is the best for me. I’ll do a couple of fights at WEC and after that we’ll see what, professionally, they can offer me. If it had to be at UFC, at or even WEC... I want the best, I don’t choose opponents, I wanna see what they can offer me.
Tatame: Anderson Silva’s UFC belt defence at 83kg category will be against Dan Herderson, last Pride 83kg belt defensor. How would you believe this fight will be?
Dan Herderson is a great professional, he was at Sonnen’s corner at my last fight and I had the opportunity to talk a little with him after the fight. But the fact is that he has a predictable game, has a heavy hand and uses the head, but I think Anderson will win well, I believe in a knock out. Anderson is a tougher to Dan Herderson than Dan Herderson is to Anderson .
Tatame: You had recently trained with Minotauro, but fights for Team Link. What’s your team, anyway? Team Link or Minotauro Team?
I’m from Team Link. The problem is that Team Link is at , their base is there, but I have a great relationship with Marquinhos (Marcos Alvan) and (Gabriel) Napão and a good agreement too. So, at I do my preparation with (Josuel) Distak, that takes care of almost all of my training. But I still recruit friends here from Niteroi , tough guys, to help on my training. Sometimes I train with Minotauro and Minotouro, great friends of mine. Ricardo Arona, although we don’t train to much together, our chats are really important on my preparation. Amaury (Bitteti) always give me strength too.
Tatame: What did you find about Wanderlei Silva’s fight against Chuck Liddell?
I think that Chuck won closely, but Wanderlei did a knock out and it counts a lot. But sincerely, Chuck Liddell did better. It seems like Wanderlei lost a little focus on the fight, he didn’t use his great clinch and Liddell is not prepared to fighters who do it a lot. He really changed his game to this fight. But he did well, being ate the wall with an exchanging game. We have to congratulate him, he showed that, dispite Liddell being Liddell at , he is Wanderlei and at his next fight he has to go and fight for real. He needs to respect less and fight hard.
Tatame: And Lyoto Machida’s fight against Sokodjou?
Lyoto is one of the most terrible fighters to face nowadays. With that carate base, mixed with his great floor game, I knew he would win. Sokodjou had no chance against Lyoto.
source: tatame.com
