Natalia Silva has loads to combat for forward of the largest matchup of her profession.
The surging flyweight contender is about to face former strawweight champion Jessica Andrade within the co-main occasion of Saturday’s UFC Vegas 97 card at UFC APEX. Silva, 27, enters the bout on an 11-fight win streak, together with a 5-0 begin to her UFC run.
Whereas she steps into the cage with optimistic accolades, she additionally does so months after a heartbreaking loss in her household.
“To begin with, I’m going into the octagon with loads of will to win,” Silva informed MMA Preventing. “I combat with loads of coronary heart and put together myself loads. This specific camp was actually arduous and I’ve a heavy coronary heart as a result of I misplaced a sister throughout this camp, and it’s one thing that once you combat for one thing that’s greater than you, and if you happen to truly lose one thing is extra necessary than all of this, you combat with every thing.
“[Andrade] understands why she’s getting ready a lot and why she’s coaching a lot for this combat, as a result of she is aware of how harmful I’m, she is aware of what [it] means to [fight] her. I’m going to go on this octagon approaching it as if it’s my first and final combat. I all the time take it one combat at a time and I’m going into the octagon with the desire to win it, with the accountability of being the combat that I have to win. So, she’s not going to have the ability to beat that.”
Silva’s sister tragically handed away earlier this 12 months shortly after her thirty first birthday, based on an Instagram publish.
The lack of her sister was devastating and it left a gap in Silva’s coronary heart that can by no means be crammed. Nevertheless, Silva now approaches her climb up the ladder via a distinct lens of pondering, and all of it begins along with her enormous alternative in opposition to Andrade.
“I needed to be a champion for a really futile motive, possibly, simply to be a champion of the UFC,” Silva defined. “I’ve understood that to be a champion, and carrying that belt, carries a accountability, carries a chance as properly. You’ve got a chance for folks to hearken to you and to listen to your story, and you’ve got a chance to the touch folks everywhere in the world, and it offers you the opening to say what I’ve been via. And if I want to share my story, and what I’ve been via, hopefully folks will hear.
“If simply possibly, one or two or three folks get impacted, whose lives will get remodeled, or touched by what I’ve been via, I will likely be proud of that. And this win now represents one thing extra of, not simply being [closer] towards being a champion of the UFC, but in addition being a champion carrying that belt and having the chance to shine the sunshine on folks and to achieve out to extra folks [by] being a champion. That’s what I see.”
Talking not too long ago with MMA Preventing’s Guilherme Cruz, Andrade mentioned she noticed loads of openings throughout Silva’s victory over Viviane Araujo at UFC Vegas 85 in February. Moreover, Andrade believes if she takes Silva down — like every other opponent in her eyes — “I do know there’s no escape.”
Silva was requested to reply to Andrade’s ideas, and the Brazilian standout welcomes the problem.
“I believe it’s actually cool that she truly thinks that, as a result of if that’s the technique that she’s going to have, she’s about to satisfy a Natalia that she hasn’t had the chance to see in a earlier combat,” Silva mentioned.
