The mood after UFC 92, which took place this Saturday, December 27th, in Las Vegas, was not of the most pleasant for the Brazilians involved. What they had hopes would be a night of raucous celebration, turned out to be an absolute nightmare for the South Americans in action and their fans. Wanderlei Silva, who had defeated Quinton Jackson on two occasions prior, was knocked out handily, and Rodrigo Minotauro, who was in line to face Brock Lesnar for the definitive heavyweight belt, lost his chance as he suffered, at the hands of Frank Mir, the very first knockout of his career.
Clearly distressed, coach Amaury Bitetti spoke to Portaldaslutas.com, GRACIEMAG.com partner site, while still in the dressing room, about the hard knock. All at once, in the octagon two of the greatest idols in MMA history fell.
“We’re all here together, Demian Maia, Rafael Alejarra and the whole team to get back on our feet. We’ll change our training and tactics, we’ll see what went wrong. We’re going to ameliorate all that and Minotauro has more fights up ahead to become UFC champion. Wanderlei will also come back, I’m sure of it,” said Amaury, very shaken from the losses.
“I said he (Minotauro) had to take it to the ground, that Mir would get tired. But he did the opposite and stuck with boxing. Unfortunately the strikes found their mark. That’s how striking is: if it goes in right, it knocks you down. And that’s what happened to the both of them. Now we just need to work and get back to winning. We’re going to work hard with Minotauro,” he finished.
