{"id":123710,"date":"2025-09-08T21:51:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/123710\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T21:51:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:51:06","slug":"wanderlei-silvas-replacement-opponent-for-spaten-fight-night-2-is-popo-freitas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/123710\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanderlei Silva\u2019s replacement opponent for Spaten Fight Night 2 is Popo Freitas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wanderlei Silva was supposed to box<\/a> Vitor Belfort at Spaten Fight Night 2 later this month (Sept. 27, 2025), but unfortunately, \u201cThe Phenom\u201d suffered a grade 3 concussion<\/a> during training and that fight is being postponed until 2026.<\/p>\n

Silva will still compete on the Sao Paulo, Brazil-based card \u2026 and against a potentially much tougher opponent.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Spaten Fight Night just announced that \u201cThe Axe Murderer\u201d will face former Brazilian boxing champion, Acelino \u201cPopo\u201d Freitas, who retired in 2007 with a 40-2 record and 34 knockouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIllustrious Wanderlei, I am deeply saddened to learn that your fight at Spaten Fight Night will not take place as planned,\u201d Freitas wrote on social media. \u201cHowever, after 34 knockouts in my career, I will have the honor of making you my thirty-fifth. On the 27th, I will extend my hand to you. In this case, a hand of stone!\u201d<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t too hot on the idea of Silva boxing at all, considering the PRIDE FC recently submitted an affidavit<\/a> in UFC\u2019s antitrust case revealing he suffered from several symptoms linked to traumatic brain injury. At least he was supposed to fight Belfort, a fellow aged-out mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter with little formal boxing experience.<\/p>\n

But, \u201cPopo\u201d is a two-time Super Featherweight and two-time Lightweight champion in boxing. His 27-fight knockout streak is one of the longest in the history of boxing. In short, this is one of those fights where the MMA guy could take a beating.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, this probably isn\u2019t going to be a violent affair.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, it\u2019s the same with \u201cPopo\u201d and Wand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wanderlei Silva was supposed to box Vitor Belfort at Spaten Fight Night 2 later this month (Sept. 27,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,30874,30367,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-123710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news-results","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}