UFC
Wanderlei Silva assistant Andre Dida on TUF set brawl: "I would be a coward if I did nothing"
Apr 14, 2014 - 2:20:34 PM Wanderlei Silva assistant Andre Dida on TUF set brawl: "I would be a coward if I did nothing"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

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On Sunday's new episode of "The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 3" on UFC Fight Pass, the much hyped brawl between Wanderlei Silva and Chael Sonnen was broadcast.

It went down at the weigh-ins for one of the fights, and was almost entirely instigated and riled up by Silva. He was running down why he didn't like Sonnen, who was trying to get him to calm down and just have a conversation while on set. Sonnen asked him for a date on when they'd actually fight, and then Silva said right then.

He got into Sonnen's face and looked ready to strike, so Sonnen pushed him and got in a fighting stance, taking him down when Silva moved in. It was then that Silva's assistant, Andre Dida, entered the fray with a number of other people. While the others tried to simply pull them apart, Dida threw several strikes at Sonnen's head from behind, and after things had calmed down he boasted bout punching him in the locker room.

An unapologetic Dida stuck by his actions in an interview with MMAFighting.com this week, saying he doesn't regret anything. It's a ridiculous response to what was the worst part of the brawl, but we'll let him dig his own hole here:

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I'm a trainer and I have my own gym, and I tell people to never do something like this. My intention was to separate them, but I had to do something. I acted by pure instinct. Sonnen has a bad reputation in Brazil, he talks trash about everybody, so it's complicated to regret [what I did]. I couldn't let Wanderlei Silva in a situation like that.

I know Wanderlei Silva for a long time. I know how he thinks. I never imagined that they would fight [during the reality show] when they invited me to coach, but I knew that something would happen. At the beginning of the reality show, Wanderlei Silva argued with Sonnen and pushed him back, but I never thought something worse than that would happen.

The coaches were behind the door when they both started to argue at the weigh-ins. I know Wanderlei Silva and I saw that he was getting ready to fight, so we all run in their direction. My intention was to get Wanderlei out of there, but everything happened so fast. When I got closer to them, Sonnen took him down.

My intention was to separate them, but I saw that Sonnen was trying to punch him, so in my mind I realized I needed to get Sonnen out of there as fast as possible to make him stop punching Wanderlei. I would never let Wanderlei Silva in a bad situation in front of me. I punched Sonnen to make him stop, but he didn’t. [The other coaches] tried to get me out of there, but I came back and punched him again. I just wanted to get Sonnen out of there.

Many people called me a coward, but that's not true. I would be a coward if I did nothing. I was watching someone that I admire since I was 13 in a bad situation, so I had to do something. My body told me to punch him to make them stop fighting.

I was hoping that Sonnen would stand up and fight me. I wanted to get him off Wanderlei, and now people call me a coward. Imagine that you're in a situation like that. You're in a supermarket and when you get back, someone in on top of your mother, your brother, your sister. Your instinct tells you to stop him as fast as possible. I did the same thing with Wanderlei Silva as soon as I saw that [Sonnen] was trying to hurt him."

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PENICK'S ANALYSIS: The cowardly act was Dida punching Sonnen in the back of the head when it was Silva who started the fight. Everyone else who reacted in that moment simply tried to pull them apart. Dida punched Sonnen in the back of the head and then laughed about it in the locker room afterward, talking about how happy he was to get to do that. I'm not by any means a Chael Sonnen fan, but he reacted how most would have in his situation with Silva pushing things to that point. The fight was started by Silva, and Dida's actions were not of someone "protecting" Silva so much as getting in some cheap shots before they were pulled apart. The situation didn't need to happen at all, and given how much continues to happen to push the date of the fight, there might not wind up being an actual payoff.

[SOURCE LINK]

[Wanderlei Silva art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]

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