By Guilherme Cruz

Photo Guilherme Cruz

The loss to Junior Cigano, in the UFC, started a new phase of Fabricio Werdum’s career. While Dos Santos walked towards the UFC title, Werdum made his own victorious win in Strikeforce, and conquered the greatest win of his career, over Fedor Emelianenko.

Getting ready for the first phase of Strikeforce’s GP, when he’ll confront the current champion of the division, Alistair Overeem, Werdum talked to TATAME at Rafael Cordeiro’s gym, in California, and commented on his trainings for the fight, his opponent’s game and his greatest dream.

“My main goal is to beat Overeem, win Strikeforce’s Grand Prix and fight the top guy from UFC”, said Werdum, hoping that Cigano beats down Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez on his next bouts in the UFC so he can have that rematch he wants so badly. Check below the exclusive interview with the tough guy, who also commented on Anderson Silva’s trainings.

What are the expectations for this fight against Overeem? How’s your training going?

The expectations are the best, we’re training hard for this bout, and it’s tough for us fighters when the show changes its schedule, because it changes everything. We had a training schedule set for this bout and it was supposed to happen in April and now it’ll be in June… These things happen, it happens to everybody… I don’t think it’s a bad thing to happen, it was suppose to happen this way. It’s like what happened to me when I left UFC, and then I beat Fedor up, so it was supposed to happen. If it changed it, I believe it was meant to be this way, and we’ll wait. I had slowed things down on the training, but I’m speeding things up now. When I first heard about it, I slowed things down for two weeks, but now I’m speeding my trainings up. I’ve beat him once and I want to do it again and prove the world I’m among the top athletes.

With this postponement, you’ll be out off the rings for a year total. How does that disturb you?

Yeah, I don’t like it. If it was up to me, I’d like to fight four times a year, that’s the ideal by me, but it happened that they postponed the fight and I’ll get there being off for a year, because I had my elbow surgery and I’m fully recovered from it. It’s a thing that happens, you can’t help it. It happened with Minotauro (Rodrigo Nogueira), Wanderlei. We always try to postpone these things, especially when there’s a bout coming up, so I believe it was the right time for me to take some time off and do this surgery, which I needed to do like two years ago and I kept postponing it. It was time, it was successfully, but I realized it’s too much, it’s too much not to fight for an entire year. It’ll be an exact year since I last fought, and in my mind June is the months on which I’ve beaten Fedor, so it’s my month, it’s a special month, so that’s my thought.

You’ve been training Muay Thai with Rafael Cordeiro, and it’s Overeem’s strongest point. How are things going on that matter?

I’m fully dedicated, not only on Muay Thai trainings, but in all my trainings. I train Wrestling with Mark Munoz, Muay Thai with Rafael, conditioning with Cristoph, so I’m training it all, but I’m focusing on Muay Thai, I’ve been graduated a Muay Thai black belt by Rafael, and I believe I’ve evolved a lot. The other day I was watching on the internet my fight with Ebenezer Fontes, on Jungle Fight 2. It’s been like four years since then, or more, and I could tell the difference, when I look at myself four years ago it’s impressive, I wasn’t good at all. I’m training a lot so I can defend myself from Overeem’s coups, because he’s strong, everybody’s saying he’s evolved a lot, but I have also evolved. People say Overeem is on a good victory sequence, but so do I. Since I left UFC, I only won, so he can have evolved, but so did I. I don’t keep thinking about my opponent. Of course I watch the fights, I watch what he’s done, I have to know what he’s good at, I have to know his weakness, but I mostly worry about my training.

In case you win, you’ll face Big Foot on the semifinals, and he’s coming from a striking win over Fedor. Then, in case you win again, there’s Josh Barnet, Brett Rogers and other guys who you might have to fight. What do you think about this GP?

I guess it will go on until the end, but as Strikeforce has been purchase by UFC, I don’t know if it’ll actually happen, if there’ll be a next round or if they’ll cancel it… I don’t know what will happen, I don’t know what’s on their mind. I said it a while ago: I intend to win this GP, then challenge the top guy form UFC. I actually said that in some interviews, but people said I couldn’t do that since it’s two separate organizations, the events are each other contender, but now it’s possible because the events belong to the same organization. UFC purchased Strikeforce, so it’s possible they match this GP’s champion with UFC’s champion. Why can’t it happen? So, a thing I’ve wanted for a long time can now become true. That’s my goal.

When UFC bought Strikeforce Dana White assured the GP to go on until its end, and that there’s a current two-years contract with Showtime. How did you react to this news? Were you surprised?

Of course. I didn’t see that coming. Nobody could see that coming, everybody was caught by surprise. It was a good and a bad thing. Now there’ll be a monopoly, because now you can fight on Strikeforce, on UFC or you won’t have a show to fight in. Japan has gone through this tsunami, so it’s not a good idea to go there to fight, so that’s it. Or you fight in Strikeforce or UFC, or you won’t fight at all, that’s the bad side of it. The good side of it is that UFC is the best event on earth, Strikeforce was growing a lot too, so it’s the two greatest events and my goal is that: my main goal is to beat Overeem, get to the next phase, and I’ve beaten Overeem in 2006 in Pride’s GP on the first phase of the event, so things seems to be conspiring in my favor, it’ll be in June, my month, so things are good for me. So, I want to win this GP and then do this super fight against whoever UFC champion is. I don’t know if it’ll be Velasquez, dos Santos, or other guy… Whoever is the UFC champion is the one I want to fight, that’s what I want to do. I want to unify the titles, like it happens on Boxing.

UFC’s heavyweight division was one of its weakness division, since great names were fighting in Strikeforce. With this merge planned to happen in two years, do you think it’ll be the greatest heavyweight division ever?

Of course.  There were good guys on UFC and good guys on Strikeforce, so now it’s all together, it’s the best division on the world, the best are on it, and there’ll be great fights, so let’s hope the best of this merge.

Before Strikeforce’s GP gets to an end, Junior dos Santos will confront Brock Lesnar and, in case he wins, he’ll have a title shot against Cain Velasquez, but we don’t know what’ll happen in case Brock wins. What are your thoughts about this bout between Junior and Velasquez?

No one knew Velasquez, nobody knew who he was, he came out of nowhere. Even on the games, if you really notice it on UFC’s game, Velasquez is the smaller, no one knew him, no one noticed him. He came on his own terms, slowly, and now he’s the best in the world, he’s UFC heavyweight champion of the world. Cigano’s coming form a great sequence of wins, he proved he’s really good in what he does, so I think if he strikes with Brock Lesnar, he beats the guy up. And about him fighting Velasquez I guess it’s the same thing: if he sticks to striking, defend the takedowns, which will be a hard task, because Velasquez will manage to take Cigano down as least once, so Cigano has to work his guard, work his feet on the groin, and knows when to stand-up and do it quickly, I think he’ll win. I believe Cigano wins it standing up, and he’ll do also a great work on the ground and pound. I’m Brazilian so sure, I cheer for him to win.

So, if you win this GP and Cigano beats Velasquez you might have a rematch…

That time Cigano defeated me it was the first time I was knocked out, I wasn’t excepting  it, then I had that discussion with UFC, it wasn’t that we argued, but I was upset for losing the way it happened. I had been defeated before, but on a judge’s decision, this was the only time I was knocked out. So I wasn’t on a good state of mind because I had been defeated, I was far from my family. I’m not saying Cigano didn’t deserve it, because then he went there and kept winning. I’d be surprised if he had beaten me down and then lost. He went there and proved himself to be pretty good. I want to win this GP, to earn a belt, because I’ve never won one, and fight UFC’s champion. If it’s Cigano, I’d be a dream coming true. To do this unifier fight and against Cigano, a rematch, it’d be perfect.

What do you have to say to your fans, who may watch your bout with Overeem?

I’d like to tell the Brazilians to believe in me because I’m training a lot, I’m dedicating myself a lot. I’m here on the United States, by my heart still is Brazilian. I’m here for the opportunities, for the trainings, for the good life I have here. Here we have better Wrestling coaches, I have Rafael too. So if you want to come from Brazil and train with us, you’re all invited. I hope you all cheer for me, for me and for Big Foot. It doesn’t matter if I go though it or Big Foot, it’ll be a Brazilian on the top, and that’s fine by me. Let’s cheer for us.

Anderson came here last week and trained with you. How was it?

Man, I’ve talked about it the other day. Anderson’s a special guy, he’s the one. I trained Muay Thai with him and it’s impressive, he’s awesome. He showed me some ground positions that surprised me, so Anderson’s doing just fine, he’s great. He’s a special person, he’s a nice guy, he’s always joking about everything, so what happen is that people start saying thing on the internet, on TV, saying Anderson’s full of himself, but the ones who know Anderson know he’s nothing like that, he’s zero arrogant. People say he’s a fake humble, but there’s no such thing, he’s a simple guy, he’s nice. I knew him already and we’ve spent three or four days training together and he told me he’ll come back here, so he’s special. Let’s believe in Anderson, we already do, but he’s awesome on Muay Thai, as a person, he makes you laugh a lot, he’s always joking and he really is a special one.

Anderson vs. St. Pierre?

There’s no way. St. Pierre is really good, I like watching his fights, he has good takedowns, but Anderson’s different, Anderson has a bigger reach… St. Pierre will try to take him down and he’ll be hit by Anderson’s knee. Anderson’s that guy you fight and then realize he’s pointy, we usually say this because he’s a guy that, wherever he hits you, it’ll hurt, whether it’s with his knee, elbows, shin… So I believe it’ll be a piece of cake for him. But will it happen?

Who knows… It depends on Dana White…

St. Pierre won’t be able to win this one.

After being baptized by Rafael and Wanderlei, now you’ve got Anderson’s baptism…

Anderson took it easy with me, because with Rafael, we were training and he gave me the black belt, and I remember back at Chute Boxe that they punished the guys and I was thinking it wasn’t that hard, and then Rafael launched a knee on my stomach… I felt on the floor and it hurts a lot, it’s that kind of pain that you feel and then it starts going up, and then I asked him why he didn’t hit me like that before and he told me it was because I wasn’t a black belt yet, and now I am. Then Wanderlei came, returning from his knee surgery… He told me was doing just one boxing training, just one… When Rafael told us there were only 30 seconds left, Wanderlei came like a machine, he almost knocked me down, I almost fell, he punched me really hard, and when that happens you assume the other guy will stop, but he kept smashing me, then Rafael told me to punch him, but I couldn’t find him. I was dizzy and I wasn’t prepared, but then when we started struggling again I managed to clinch and we laughed together, it was great.