Quote of the Day - Wanderlei Silva: "After Years of Fighting, My Body Made Me Stop This Time"

"I am here to talk about my last few days.  I went through a very tense and difficult weekend and had a very hard decision.  Two weeks ago I felt pain in my knee while I was training wrestling.  I had an MRI of my knee and three doctors told me my knee was torn.  I took medicine to help with the pain, and although my knee felt loose, I said "no," this date is very important to me and I continued training.

I tried training more upper body and boxing; I kept losing weight and I was gonna fight no matter what.  Last Friday, during sparring, I injured my rib.  It was very painful and the next day I had an x-ray and an MRI.  I discovered I had three broken ribs.

"After years of fighting, my body made me stop this time.  I am here to tell you that I cannot fight on this card.  I am very sad because I trained for four months.  This is a very difficult time for me.  Now, I know that I need to have surgery on my knee.  I have no option... I am going to work hard to return.  I know my God is with me and He is going to bless me one more time.  I am praying a lot and I know that God is going to bless the surgeon.  I am going to be 100% and will fight many more years."

...This is a very, very, very hard moment for me.  This is my livelihood, my job and I already put in a lot of time and effort into this fight.  This was a fight I really, really desired... You cannot imagine how much I wanted to fight on this card. I am not the kind of fighter who fights just for the money and I will prove to you now - I could have entered the Octagon, received one punch, and said "that's it, I have broken ribs." But I fight to give you a big show. When I fight I always give 100% and I fight to show everybody real MMA and to help the sport grow and to excite my fans.

"I apologize to all my fans.  I ask for your prayers for a successful surgery and healthy body.  I will be back in shape to fight again and to give you more excitement. A big hug for all of you and be with God."

--Wanderlei Silva, addressing the fans after he hesitantly pulled out of his UFC 116 match up against Yoshihiro Akiyama. He already had a knee injury that required surgery, yet it took three more broken ribs before he finally decided to withraw from the card. Here's to hoping for a quick and successful recovery for the Axe Murderer.