TATAME has a really good interview with Anderson Silva after his UFC 97 fight,

On not wanting to fight Thales in the first place,

Once again we made our job. I was just upset to have fought with Thales, I wasn’t happy with that, but work is work..

I want to apologize to Thales, Dedé (Pederneiras) and the Nova União team. I already trained several times in the Nova União, with Dedé, Master Shaolin, and I didn’t like to do this fight, but we are professionals. I would like to congratulate Thales, he is a great fighter.

On the reason's he fought that way,

Every day we get older, the reflex is no longer the same... Fight with a kid like Thales and try to do things that might put me at risk wouldn’t be good for my career... I'm not risking something that took a long time for me to win... I try to fight and don’t get hurt and this is working over all these years. Sometimes I can fight faster, sometimes not, showing superiority, is better for me, for my career and the athletes who fight with me. Even because Thales is a dangerous athlete and I couldn’t risk something more.

I’m very motivated to fight, I continue happy to be doing my job, but is as I’ve said. I’m no longer a kid, I have much to lose. It took so long to get here and we, as the age comes, do more conservative fights, I won’t expose myself and be knocked out.

On his critics,

People have no idea, we were almost an entire month talking to the whole coach team, our doctor, physiologist, several people, to see what we could or not do during the fight... People must understand that fight is fight, I’m doing a fight that preserve my health, technique, and that is always like this, superior in some moments of the fight. One day I’ll lose, I’m not unbeatable, but the control we do have nothing wrong.

I think the fans are talking, criticizing... Each one has their opinion, I have to respect their opinion, after all they are always there applauding, but I'm happy, I was able to do my job well.

On his game plan and the weird 48-47 score card, 

We were achieving to annul Thales’ game and wouldn’t change the strategy. We were able to, from the first to the last round, annul Thales game completely, despite the scores of the judges be a little crazy, I don’t know what fight they have seen, but the strategy we did was good. We don’t have to change anything. We will always look to surprise the opponent, confuse them and minimize the chances of mistakes. 

On Shogun,

Shogun is a young boy, has everything ahead. Everyone has their bad phase, he went through one and overcame, a time when he wasn’t so well, had personal problems, injuries, and he, well trained, has already proven that it is candidate to the title, despite I’m cheering for Lyoto. 

On Wanderlei Silva and people calling him "cocky",

Look, I have nothing against Wanderlei, I think every person speak what they want. He can say whatever he wants, but I don’t consider a declared war... First, to have a war there must be disagreements. I’m ok, I’m not worried about this and people have to stop talking about me. Talk about me is easy, it’s hard to be me. I don’t talk about anyone, I respect everyone... Sometimes people make us say about some things, but I never said anything that was supposedly disrespect to Wanderlei.