Ben Rothwell called Antonio Silva a "punching bag", but the Brazilian heavyweight won’t respond him -- for now.
Riding a three-fight finishing streak, capped off by a first-round submission overBrendan Schaub at UFC Fight Night 68, Rothwell spoke with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour about the effects on the banning of testosterone replacement therapy in MMA, saying that fighters who won on TRT won’t perform like they used to.
"I think one of the reasons they gave me that fight, was people thought I was going to be a tomato can because I had to come off TRT," Rothwell said. "Thank god I only did it a short period of time. I don't think it affected me as much as, say Vitor [Belfort]. Look at ‘Bigfoot’ Silva, he came off and the guy's a shell of himself, he doesn't look anything like he did before, he's a punching bag. You're going to see that with a lot of guys, changing when they come off it. I think even Overeem thought same thing, I was going to be a punching bag, but I surprised everyone."
"Bigfoot" Silva, a former UFC heavyweight title contender who went winless in his last four fights inside the Octagon after scoring back-to-back knockouts over Alistair Overeem and Travis Browne, used TRT only in his majority draw with Mark Hunt, when he tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone.
"I will answer him inside the Octagon," Silva said of Rothwell, who also tested positive for elevated testosterone levels while on TRT. "I know I need to win first, and then ask for a fight against him. On that day, I will answer him."
"I didn’t TRT my entire life and fought great fighters, like Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, Andrei Arlovski, Travis Browne, etc, and that was never an issue," he added. "That becomes an issue when you do it for a long time, and then have to stop using it."
"Bigfoot" gets back in action on Aug. 1, facing Soa Palelei at Rio de Janeiro’s UFC 190, and aims to return to the top 10 of the division.
LINK to full story: ‘Bigfoot’ Silva wants to make Ben Rothwell pay for ‘punching bag’ comments - MMA Fighting