Now the UFC interim Heavyweight champion, Fabricio Werdum gave his thoughts about his battle of Saturday with Mark Hunt in the main event of UFC 180. Interviewed by the UFC, “Vai Cavalo” praised his opponent and said he was never hurt enough for the fight to be stopped, and also explained his set up before landing the flying knee revealing that Hunt asked the bout to be stopped after the blow:
“It took me a little before I could enter in the fight. It was very clear. Hunt hit me and is for real that he has heavy hands, but I was so well prepared that he landed the punch and I wasn’t rocked. I felt the blow, then I got up and started to laugh. We went to the ground but he was very clever. He is very smart when he fights. He blocked my guard game in the cage. When we stood up, I tried twice to take him down and he defended very well. I trained a lot for this, I asked my master Rafael Cordeiro and he allowed me to use my double leg as a set up. Hunt knew that I would try to take him down, it was obvious. So I did the set up downstairs and then I hit him with a knee in his chin. It was hard because he is very intelligent, he knows how to move at the octagon and he’s smart. I was able to hit him with the knee and after that happened a thing that no-one saw was that he asked the referee for the end of the bout. When he was knocked down he said that it was enough and the referee didn’t listen, so I had to hit him a few times more.”
Whether the win was by verbal submission or TKO, the fact is that Werdum is the interim champion and should be facing Cain Velasquez in an unification bout next year.
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