Thiago Silva trashes American Top Team

Thiago Silva was once one of the most feared light heavyweights in the UFC. But back problems have stunted his charge up the UFC ladder and he has since become a mere mortal when he was thought to have otherworldly powers. While most of us point to those back issues that slowed Silva down, the feared Muy Thai fighter who is set to face Stanislav Nedkov at UFC on Fuel TV in Macao points to his old training camp as a key reason why he never became the fighter most thought he would be. He voiced his displeasure with American Top Team to MMA Junkie recently.

“Once I moved to American Top Team, my life started going the wrong way. It wasn’t a good team. I think I lost three years of my life training the wrong way. Their coaches didn’t have much to teach the athletes. I’m glad I found a real team now and I now have the ability to get back on track. We have a very strong and very complete team. We have wrestlers, strikers, jiu-jitsu. We have everything. I wasted three years of my life [at ATT]. But ultimately it was my choice, my decision. I paid the price. Now I have to get back in the race. All I have to do is get back to my old habits of working hard in the gym. We didn’t train hard at ATT. I only noticed that after I left them.”

But is ATT really to blame? Since joining the Blackzilian camp his fight against Alexander Gustafsson earlier this year ended up being quite unimpressive as Silva was outgunned in the fight. Perhaps it was cage rust and Silva is ready to prove his worth this weekend. Either way, the ATT crew can’t be happy about this.