Seeing his sequence of victories broken in the title fight against Anderson Silva, Thales Leites has returned to the trainings for his next challenge. Scheduled to the UFC 101 against Alessio Sakara, the Nova União athlete wants to show why he got won five fights in a row and beat the ATT fighter. In interview to TATAME.com, Thales talked about the fight against Sakara and promised: will go inside on August 8^th. Check below an exclusive interview with Thales, who also commented about the next confrontations of his division, with Wanderlei Silva’s coming, and more.

How are the trainings to your return to the UFC?

I already returned to the trainings slowly, I’ll grow gradually. We started doing the physical preparation now. Since my last fight I trained a lot, so I took a time to rest, but I already returned to the trainings.

What are you expecting of the fight against Sakara?

All the guys who I fought are strikers, but, independent of that, my strategy is always to take the fight where I feel comfortable, which is the ground fight. I’ll always search for that, no matter who is my opponent. I’m training a lot my striking and Wrestling and every time I feel more comfortable, but the striking is that thing, it’s lottery, even if the man is excellent, one time he can be knocked out.

What did you learn from your defeat to Anderson?

Nobody likes to lose, but I take everything as learning, all my training, everything. One thing that I learned and don’t want to repeat at all is the way I fought, I don’t want to repeat that anymore in my life. I don’t have what to say about Anderson, he is excellent, but I could have fight more, I spared myself a lot and the time ended. I preferred to have gone inside the whole time to win or lose, no matter be knocked out, but give my maximum. This is the biggest learning for me. I always go inside, look for the submission, and this is what I’ll do, I’ll go inside all the time. I couldn’t do that way, but it was a great learning.

To the fight against Anderson, you made a different training. Will you keep this training?

I’ll keep it, of course. Sakara is a tough opponent, with a heavy hand, a boxer, and I’ll continue doing my training with the heavy guys, working on the gas to get there well. The work has already begun, it will be great.

How do you think it will be Anderson’s next fight, against Forrest Griffin?

Well, it is very difficult to talk about a fight that didn’t happen, but he has total conditions. Griffin is a very good guy, has a big heart, goes inside all the time, always makes exciting fights, but I think that Anderson is more technical, works well. I think Anderson will win this fight, but in any way it will be great fight.

Your division just received “new” blood. What do you think about Wanderlei Silva coming to the middleweight division?

He's new for our weight, but he is a tough guy, fights for a long time and is an idol for many people. Everyone likes to see Wanderlei fight, it doesn’t even have what to say about him. He is phenomenal and is another great fighter coming to the weight. If I fight with him it would be an honor, it would be cool. He always goes up in the tops, because he is tough fight for anyone, regardless of weight. He goes to knockout, he’s really the Axe Murderer.