Photo Josh Hedges

Coming from a win over Michael Bisping, Wanderlei Silva will have a great challenge on UFC 116, which will happen on July 3 in Las Vegas, United States: Yoshihiro Akiyama, who suffered one single loss on MMA for the striker Jerome Le Banner, who had over 20kg more than him. With 15 wins in 15 fights against Japanese fighters, Wanderlei knows that Akiyama is tough.

“It’ll be the professor Rafael (Cordeiro) who will deal with it and guide the sparring to do it the way it must be done. Akiyama is really tough, a good guy, who was an athlete for all his life through. He has a good ground game, Akiyama is really strong”, compliments the former Pride champion in an interview he gave on TATAME Magazine #170, believing that the Japanese style, who won all of his fights by knockout or submission, will match his.

“It’ll be an interesting fight, it’s a good fight for me because he goes forward and goes with the flow, he doesn’t run off. I believe the fight will be busy, a big show”, promises, adapting to the new division. “I want to keep on fighting for the next six years, at least until I’m forty. This division change was good, I had to change my diet and I’m feeling just fine”, concluded.