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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The UFC's booking of Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Thiago Silva for July's UFC 149 card came as a bit of a surprise to everyone, Rua included. He had been tied to the UFC 149 event for some time, but no opponent had been set prior to this past week. Shogun now says the UFC simply had a tough time finding an opponent for him, and though he's not always thrilled to take on a fellow Brazilian, he knows a fight is a fight.
"Rampage would be my next opponent but then he got injured," Shogun explained in an interview with Tatame.com. "They wondered about a rematch against Dan Henderson, but he’s fighting for the title, so they have this dilemma for a while, waiting for a guy and now they got it. They offered me Thiago Silva and it was a surprise to me."
"I’ve always said I don’t like fighting other Brazilians, especially a guy I know like Thiago. I really like him, but we’re professionals and that’s what we do for a living."
Shogun's expecting a firefight with his Chute Boxe teammate, but while it will likely be a violent fight, it will be a respectful one from Shogun's standpoint.
"I guess it’s going to be an interesting fight because Thiago likes striking and so do I," he said. "It’s gonna be [an] ass kicking. I respect Thiago as an athlete and as a person, I know he’s very good and complete, but I’ll get there prepared."
The fight will be featured on the main card of UFC 149 in Calgary on July 21. The event is headlined by a Featherweight Championship bout between Jose Aldo and Erik Koch.
Penick's Analysis: The matchup didn't make a ton of sense at first blush, especially when many had called for a Shogun-Ryan Bader matchup. However, with the UFC booking Bader against Lyoto Machida, it made a little more sense for this to be the fight considering the other names that were already booked for the summer. There's not a ton of interest in the matchup itself, but we'll see where Shogun's at after a brutal back and forth fight with Dan Henderson last November.
[Shogun Rua art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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