Anderson Silva had his first pre-fight press conference with Jake Paul yesterday ahead of their boxing match on October 29th and you can watch it in full below.
While it’s a boxing match there was plenty for MMA fans to enjoy here, with Silva being one of the sport’s all-time greats, while there was an added twist to the presser due to the fact that his old rival Chael Sonnen was hosting it.
However, if you didn’t know about their past bad blood you’d never have guessed that Silva and Sonnen weren’t just old friends, though ‘The Spider’ did give a nostalgic nod back to that time when he went over to his former foe, put an arm around his shoulder and asked him why he never came around to his house for a BBQ.
The significance of that may have flew over the heads of Jake Paul / boxing fans, but MMA fans were laughing uproariously at that reference, stemming from an old taunt from ‘The American Gangster’ prior to their rematch that he’d go over to Silva’s house, slap his wife’s ass and tell her to make him a steak, leading to Silva inviting him to a BBQ after he beat him for the second time.
Sonnen seemed uncharacteristically sheepish at Silva’s good-natured trolling yesterday, though he burst out laughing when he asked if that meant going to Brazil and Silva responded, “No, here. In Brazil, a lot of people try to kill you, trust me!
“People hate you in Brazil. But I’m not, I love you, man.”
Even Paul didn’t seem to have it in him to engage in his usual attempts to get under his opponents skin, admitting that Silva was one of his idols growing up, though he did claim he’d finish him within five rounds.
All in all it was an unusually wholesome presser that will have done little to generate the kind of headline-grabbing antics that Paul usually thrives on, but nonetheless there’s no doubt that this is by far his toughest test to date, even if ‘The Spider’ is now many years removed from his prime at 47-years-old.
