Former UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva will be facing TUF champion Kelvin Gastelum in a few months at UFC 212.
Rafael Cordeiro is Silva’s former trainer and at UFC 212, the former trainer will be lending a helping hand to Gastelum.
"I got some history with Anderson Silva back from 2001 and 2002 when I trained him at Chute Boxe," Cordeiro told AG Fight. "Now, everything has changed. Friendship apart, that's a competition and we're all here to win. We all hope to win and I hope Kelvin Gastelum walks out victorious."
Although Silva hasn’t trained exclusively with Cordeiro in quite some time, that doesn’t mean that Cordeiro doesn’t have a plan to beat the former middleweight champion. Silva has cornered fighters against Kings MMA (Cordeiro’s fight team) fighters before as well.
"Anderson has been at Kings MMA a few times, I have a good relationship with him, we talk over the phone and there's no beef between us. A fight is a fight, that only shows how professional we are. Anderson has been in the opposing corner when Werdum faced Big Nog and that didn't affect us. In the end, however, when Werdum tried to hug him, there was no hug, but that's behind us. I was Anderson's coach in the past, when I was his coach. I'm not anymore and I don't feel disrespectful at all about it,” says Cordeiro.
UFC 212 takes place on Saturday, June 3 from the HSBC Arena in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil with Jose Aldo and Max Holloway headlining.
