Felipe Silva shakes off first loss, aims to silence the crowd at UFC Chile

Felipe Silva tasted defeat for the first time in MMA in September, getting knocked out in 74 seconds by Mairbek Taisumov, and was anxious to come back “as soon as possible” to the Octagon to rid himself of the memory.

He now faces Claudio Puelles on Saturday at UFC Chile, and spoke with MMA Fighting about how upsetting it was to deal with a loss.

”We’re always confident we will win, but we live side by side with the defeat,” Silva said. “It wasn’t easy to overcome that, but with the help of my coaches I remained focused in my training for my comeback. I wanted to fight as soon as possible after that to get rid of this bitter taste, and the UFC called me to fight in Chile.”

Silva hasn’t changed a bit in terms of training and preparation for his fight because he doesn’t think he did something specifically wrong that led to the defeat.

”I knew Taisumov had knockout power, was a very tough and feared opponent,” Silva said, “but I was comfortable in the fight, wasn’t intimidated by his knockout power, but unfortunately he caught me when I was moving forward. I’ve always had a good head for high-level sport, especially after my career in Muay Thai.

”To be honest, I haven’t changed anything. I didn’t see the knockout as the result of a technical flaw. I was attacking him, being aggressive, and he caught me. Hats off to him. I’m coming off a loss now and I worked hard to come back with my best.”

Silva admits he had no idea who Puelles was when the UFC offered him as an opponent for UFC Chile, but is excited to be back in action in the Octagon.

”He’s young, doesn’t have much experience, but I’m excited,” Silva said. “My strategy is always the same, go for the knockout all the time. I’m willing to pay the price to become champion, even if the price is my head.

“[Puelles] doesn’t go much for the finish, he’s more of a strategist,” Silva added, ”but it was hard to find video footage of his fights online. I won’t change the way I fight, my aggressiveness. I like to go for the knockout and I’ll always fight that way.”

The CM System talent has fought all around the world in his past five fights, going from Brazil to Paraguay to Finland to Canada to Netherlands, and expects a hostile environment when he takes on a Peruvian lightweight in Chile.

”I think the crowd will be against the Brazilians so they will be supporting Claudio, but that was never a problem for me,” Silva said. “I’m motivated when I’m fighting in enemy territory. When the fight starts and they are supporting my opponent, I like to hear the silence as the fight goes well for me. I like when the crowd is quiet and gets surprised with what happened.”