Recently in Tatame Category

By Eduardo Ferreira, tatame.com:
After a lot of rumors, the Nova União leader, André Pederneiras, confirmed with exclusivity to TATAME.com that the fight between Thales Leites and Anderson Silva is already set for the middleweight belt. The fight will happen at UFC 97, which takes places in Canadá at April 18th. "Thales already signed the contract and the fight happens at April 18th", guarantees Pederneiras. With five wins and only one loss at UFC's octagon, Thales is happy with the good news.

"That's something I'm after for a long time and now is finally happening. I'll do my best for the belt. Anderson is phenomenal and fought some of the best guys and made them look like nothing, won fast and easy. But the whole thing is training", said Thales, who imagines how the fight would be. "I think it'd be a fight where I'll try to work on the short distance and take him down, and he'd try to strike with me, but I won't avoid striking and I believe he won't avoid the ground... It'd be a Muay Thai vs Jiu-Jitsu fight", said Thales.

Paulo Filho

Tatame: And if their decision is to merge you to UFC, will you face Anderson Silva?

Filho: Definitely no. We're close friends and I believe there's space for everybody there, it's definitely out of my plans.

Yeah, sure. We've seen this before. Guys who are purportedly best friends saying they won't fight each other, but once they both get to the top of the mountain, money talks. See, the Zuffa (UFC/WEC parent company) is folding the WEC's LHW and MW divisions into the UFC. That means Filho, the WEC MW champ, will be thrown into the UFC ranks. To me, that means his WEC title is no more. He's undefeated, and although he recently suffered bouts with drug addiciton and depression, I see him winning his first fight in the UFC before he's offered a title fight with Silva. He'll take the fight.