SAO PAULO \u2014 Jean Silva is confident he will earn a shot at the UFC featherweight title with a win over short-notice replacement Jose Delgado in the main event of Noche UFC this Saturday in Glendale, Ariz.<\/p>\n
Silva originally agreed to face off with former interim champion Yair Rodriguez in a five-round clash on Sept. 12, but \u201cEl Pantera\u201d was forced out of the card with an injury. Despite the switch, \u201cLord\u201d said that doesn\u2019t alter the stakes for his future in the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there someone else to fight instead of me?\u201d Silva told MMA Fighting. \u201cThen I\u2019m next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alexander Volkanovski puts the 145-pound title on the line in the main event of UFC 333 on Oct. 24, when he battles undefeated contender Movsar Evloev in Abu Dhabi, and Silva sees the belt changing hands that night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Evloev wins,\u201d Silva said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be me and him. But if Evloev pulls out, then it\u2019s me and Volkanovski [at UFC 333]. It doesn\u2019t matter. I\u2019m next.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even though he picks Evloev to win in October, he calls Volkanovski a tougher match-up for him style-wise.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not 100 percent in everything, but what he does is absurd,\u201d Silva said. \u201cHe sticks to a strategy, sticks to the game plan. He knows how to fight, he knows what needs to be done, and he has knockout power. Evloev doesn\u2019t have knockout power. The first hand that gets in, he\u2019s going down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silva needs a victory in Arizona to consolidate his position as the next man in line for the featherweight belt, and said he wasn\u2019t necessarily surprised when the UFC called to inform Rodriguez had to pull out of the Mexican-themed card.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m never confident that anyone is going to fight me,\u201d Silva said. \u201cHonestly, that doesn\u2019t even exist in my head. When a guy gets there and starts preparing, what happens? I already thought he might pull out. I thought we would have more time, enough time to make some adjustments, but we didn\u2019t. It happened the way it was supposed to happen. It happened the way he planned it. I hope he didn\u2019t suffer any serious injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fighting Nerd talent revealed he pictures himself as a rottweiler when he\u2019s barking at his opponents before fights\u2014and sometimes during or after the matches\u2014but called Delgado a different dog breed, a pinscher.<\/p>\n
\u201cI respect every pinscher,\u201d Silva said. \u201cThey\u2019re f*cking brave. The difference is, they can\u2019t handle shit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be a real badass to accept this fight on four weeks\u2019 notice,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo I think they were already training. I think the UFC itself should have told him to stay ready, because maybe Yair could pull out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delgado stepping in for Rodriguez caused Silva to change his strategy \u201ccompletely\u201d for Noche UFC, but credits his coaches in Sao Paulo for doing a great job on such short notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe usually have about eight sparring sessions during a camp,\u201d Silva said. \u201cIn each sparring session, we test what we\u2019ve been working on during the week and the strategies. But when they changed the opponent, we only had one sparring session. We had four days to study him and everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we went into that sparring session, I was pretty scared of getting injured because everything was new. And I was also worried about whether my team would really be good enough to scout an opponent in just four days. And, man, my team is A++. I\u2019m really happy to know that my team was able to make all the adjustments that needed to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAO PAULO \u2014 Jean Silva is confident he will earn a shot at the UFC featherweight title with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-885910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}