Anderson Silva: "The Charge People Put on Me Was Tremendous"

MMA fans wanted a Superman, but in the end, Anderson Silva proved to only be a man, nothing more or less.

It has been a month already since Silva lost the middleweight title to Chris Weidman, but the passage of time has done little to alleviate the confusion surrounding the UFC 162 main event.

Despite Silva’s clear explanation at the post-fight press conference, people still want to know exactly what was going on in his head that night. Why did he drop his hands and openly taunt a dangerous opponent like Weidman?

Lately, Silva has been a harder man to track down than the President of the United States. He seems to be taking time away from the spotlight to reflect on his career and all of the mistakes that led to the end of his seven-year title reign.

Danilo Gentili, host of Brazilian talk show Agora É Tarde, finally tracked down “The Spider” and got him to agree to make an appearance on the show, which was translated by MMA Station. As he entered the studio, Silva seemed to be in a good place.

Gentili opens up by asking Silva if it was worse being knocked out or getting asked the same questions over and over again about the fight. Silva’s lighthearted response generated several chuckles from the audience as he delved into detail on the eerie sensation of being knocked out:

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“There will always be questions. Fans, people, they wanna know what happened. But being knocked out is worse because you can’t remember. There is just a black out. And then when you wake up, you’re like: ‘Uh? What happened? The fight is over?’ And the ref says: ‘Yeah, it’s over and you lost.’ But how? Then the ref says: ‘Yeah, you’re knocked out.’ BUT HOW? The ref then answers: ‘You took a big shot and fell to the mat.’”

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For fans, the image of Silva’s limp body plastered on the Octagon floor is no laughing matter. People mourned the loss as if it were a funeral. One young fan in particular was caught on camera literally bawling his eyes out after seeing Silva go down on his birthday of all days.

If it's your party, you can cry if you want to. 

After showing the video to Silva, Gentili joked that Silva is “breaking hearts.” Silva playfully agreed and admitted that he texted the young fan and others who called him following the fight:

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“But afterwards I’ve texted him and some other fans who called me. Unfortunately, it was a mistake and I paid a high price for it. It was a technical mistake, but it shouldn’t have happened…but happened. The truth is…the charge that people put on me due to my previous performances was tremendous. So…in this way when you make a mistake people just don’t understand. It was an unintentional thing. I’ve never said that I was the best in the world or that I was unbeatable.”

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When it comes to Silva, fans tend to become a bit detached from reality at times. This way of thinking has been created in part due to Silva’s larger than life persona and overwhelming accomplishments. For seven years, Silva’s dominance in the UFC has served as a state of normalcy for so many fans.

People became attached to Silva’s spotless UFC record, the shiny gold plate fixed around his waist and the numerous debates surrounding super fights that would likely never come to fruition. Even at the tender age of 38, fans expected Silva’s reign to go on forever, but this simply isn’t the case for any athlete in any sport.

If anything, Silva proved he was human in his loss to Weidman. Perfection is often striven for but never attained. No one is immune to failure, and eventually, everyone falters.

Silva understands where he went wrong against Weidman, and he is diligently working towards rectifying those mistakes in the already scheduled December 28 rematch:

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“I stood with my legs parallel when I had to do a step back instead to dodge the punch that KO’d me. Anyways, it was a sequence of events that led me to what happened. All the pre-fight tension and that feeling that makes you want to explode during the fight…During the round breaks, I always go back to my corner. But this time, I didn’t come back to my cornermen.

I came back to argue with Weidman, asking him to keep the fight on the feet, saying, ‘let’s strike, let’s give a good show,’ when actually I needed to come back to my corner, to get some instructions. I shouldn’t have been there, discussing with Weidman. I should have calmed down to receive the instructions in order to do the right things in the second round. And I didn’t do that. So I think I was out of control, lost my temper a little bit.”

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Silva has come to terms with his mistakes, and it’s up to fans to decide whether or not they are able to come to terms with them as well.

The UFC 168 rematch will either represent a new beginning or a definitive end to the greatest middleweight reign in UFC history.

Jordy McElroy is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMAwriter for Rocktagon Worldwide.