Machida: I think Silva is a victim
Lyoto Machida: “I’m very surprised, but I think he’s a victim … I prefer not to talk about that because it’s a very difficult situation. I have a lot of confidence in Anderson Silva.”
Black House teammates former UFC light heavyweight Lyoto Machida and former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva have not spoken in a while. Late last year ‘The Dragon’ indicated that he would accept a fight with ‘The Spider’ and Silva, who doesn’t want to fight a Black House fighter or even a Brazilian, was not impressed.
“When the guys talk like this, I’m very, very, very disappointed,” said Silva.
However, after Silva tested positive for PEDs, Machida stood by him, in a recent interview with MMA Digest.
“I’m very surprised, but I think he’s a victim,” said Machida as transcribed by David St. Martin for MMAFighting.com. “I think he’s a story. I prefer not to talk about that because it’s a very difficult situation. I have a lot of confidence in Anderson. I know that maybe he doesn’t use that. I’m in camp. He’s in America now. I haven’t talked to him for a while. I don’t know what happened. I prefer to stay away from this situation.”
“Sometimes back in the day it was allowed to use steroids through TRT, but suddenly they banned everything. I don’t know what happened. Maybe a couple guys still using TRT got caught. I try to be away from this stuff because I know it’s very dangerous.”
“To be honest, I’m never concerned about that. I’m just concerned about doing my job, doing my best. But if they’re very strict now it’s going to be good for the sport. It’s going to be good for everyone.”
Reading between the lines, Machida appears to be saying that the use of PEDs by Anderson Silva was unknowing. If that is the case, who did know is the obvious next question.
Lyoto Machida fights Luke Rockhold on Apr. 18 at UFC on FOX 15 in Newark, New Jersey.