Hermes França :: TATAME

Getting closer to UFC’s 90th edition, that will happen at October 25th in Illinois, USA, the Brazilian bout between Marcus Aurelio and Hermes França will have a special rivalry. After Marcus give his version of the history, França spoke to TATAME about his version, and he said Aurelio lied about a lot of details. “I’m fighting with him because I don’t respect him as a man, and I’ll be paid to do it… If he fight like he did against Clay Guida and Tyson Griffin, wow…”. Check below the polemical interview with Hermes França.

Marcus Aurelio said that you went to USA because of him… How did that happen?

I came to United Stated after a hard effort. Marcus Aurelio never bring me to America, I came with Wilson Gouveia. I’m very grateful for him because of that. I came to work, I washed cars for several months and then Wilson introduced me to Marcelo Silveira and Conan, then I started to train. Marcus Aurelio came because of me and Wilson, I catch him at the airport and put him in my house, and then we went to Silveira’s Brother gym, when he started to train too. He came when the lunch was already on the table, that’s pretty easy…

After that you went to American Top Team and then you got out of the team… What really happened?

I never did shit at ATT, I always did some good stuff. I got out because I came to grips with Marcelo Silveira, but then I had the opportunity to meet him and we spoke about it. About the “we gave him another chance”, nobody never gave another chance, because I never asked to go back to ATT, it was Ricardo Libório that called me and called me back, and I accepted. The second time I got out it was because I gave Kurt Pellegrino a BJJ black belt, because he was my athlete at Team Armony and I thought he deserved that, not only because of being a godo athlete, but he was a great instructor and actually beat Marcus Aurelio at a no gi championship when he was a blue belt. Liborio disagrees with that and I didn’t understand why, because I was four years with a black belt and Kurt was with me for more than one more. I said to Liborio that I’d create a bad situation if I changed that, and that’s why we disagreed again. I went to Team Armony and then I got out of the team, Kurt leave too create his own team and I’m creating mine.

You left ATT pissed with them?

Never got out with anger, because when I went to Team Armony I did eight fights and won all by submission, getting closer to the title. And about the “fishiness”, I always was loyal to my team, Silveira’s Brothers was a family, I had a lot of unforgettable moments, until the ‘rotten oranges’ came. Marcus Aurelio disagree with Sazinho, his first master, then he left Nova União, that’s the reason why when Vitor Shaolin beat him everybody celebrated.

How is your relationship with the rest of the team?

“Almost the whole team doesn’t like me?!”. I’m surprised, every time I meet somebody from ATT we spoke normally. I met Gleison Tibau, at the first moment my opponent, and he came to speak with me… I met Antonio Bigfoot and he came to me surprised, because he said that UFC had cut him from the event. I wasn’t ATT’s owner, but I put a lot of athletes to fight there, put them in my house, like Andre Benkei, that I bring to America. We split now, but I sent him an e-mail thanking him for everything and apologizing for anything bad I might have done. I sent Marcelo Silveira and Liborio too. I think nobody is perfect, but fishiness I know I’m not.

Like Marcus Aurelio, did somebody called you to help you for this fight?

If someone called him to help for this fight it might have been one of two, but I received 100 just from Fortaleza (Ceara, Brazil), where he’s note welcome in any gym. I received an invite from BJ Penn to help him on training, from Spencer Fisher, Joe Stevenson…From these, I only accepted BJ’s. Billy Rush invited me too, Jeremy Horn’s coach, but I knew he’d face Wilson and I said I couldn’t help him. Here in USA I’m welcome in any gym like Pat Miletich, Dan Henderson, Xtreme Couture, Greg Jackson and Chuck Liddell’s. I spoke to Saulo Ribeiro at the World No Gi championship and he invited me to train at Universidade do Jiu-Jitsu, and I tought this camp would be perfect to me, because Diego Sanchez, Jeremy Stephens, Ronaldo Jacaré, Xande Ribeiro, Fabrício Morando, André Galvão, Pablo Popovitch and Braso are training there. This is like going to Disneyland for the first time… And we still have Brandon Vera and Barret Yoshida helping us on training.

Who asked for this fight?

Atually, I was kind of surprised, because like I said, Bigfoot told me that he was out of UFC. I think about call Joe Silva (UFC’s matchmaker), because I was going to face a guy that is not well known here in America and did some horrible fights in the event. All fights I did in UFC were good, all of them, received the best knockout bonus, best submission, even when I lost it was the best fight of the night. But I stop to think about it: “you know what, I’ll fight, because I don’t respect him as a man and I’ll be paid for that”.

How do you think it’s going to be the fight?

If he fights like he did against Clay guida and Tyson Griffon, wow…