Jean Silva recently tried to make a bet with his next opponent Diego Lopes that he won’t be able to take him down when they clash in the main event of UFC Noche 3 in San Antonio, Texas on September 13th, but his rival has laughed off the idea.
A couple of months ago Silva had noticed that Lopes was reported to be working on his wrestling while training in Oklahoma, and took that as a sign that he was intending to take him down when they get into the Octagon.
“I bet my purse that you don’t take me down,” Silva had commented to Lopes on social media in his native Portuguese. “Go on, keep lying to yourself.”
The thing is, according to Lopes he never saw the message, and even if had he had no intention of taking it seriously.
“I didn’t even see that,” Lopes chuckled when told about it during an interview with MMAfighting.com. “I’m only seeing this message two months later!
“Brother, leave him with his money. I don’t want to make him have no money. Leave him with his money because I think he will need the money, right?”
As for his recent wrestling focus, Lopes says it’s not quite what it seems, and mostly what he was seeking to do was shore up his own takedown defense.
“When I went there to learn wrestling they said, ‘Oh, you have a good base,’” Lopes said of his wrestling practice in Oklahoma. “Of course, because of jiu-jitsu, but I didn’t want to just have a good base and make it stronger. I wanted to learn more things. When I went there in January, that was before they announced the Volk fight. I didn’t even know I was going to fight him. My goal was to learn and make my takedown defense better, because I don’t have good takedown defense, but I’m getting better at it. In the Volk fight, of the 11 takedowns he tried, I defended 10.”
However, while his ability to stuff takedowns is improving, Lopes doesn’t expect that to be something he will be utilizing too much when he fights the in-form, Silva, who has stopped all five of his opponents in the Octagon so far, including four by T(KO).
“I don’t think he will try to take me down, man,” Lopes laughed. “Not underestimating him or any of that. He might try — but like you said, if he takes me down, I have no problem being on the bottom. But I don’t think he will do that. He won’t try to take me down. I’ll be really surprised if he tries to take me down.
“I’m only seeing this [bet] comment now because you’re showing me,” he continued. “Cool. Let him be, man. I didn’t go [to Oklahoma] to learn takedowns or anything specific for this fight. I went there to improve myself, to learn true wrestling. I didn’t go there to learn takedowns for MMA or any of that. Of all my fights, people see that I have a good ground game, I know how to submit people.”
