Back to his hometown, the Brazilian Antonio “Big Foot” Silva is now on his preparation for the bout against the Hollander Valentijn Overeem on Strikeforce.  Focused on the champion’s brother who is a heavyweight on the organization, Big Foot guarantees that it won’t be an easy bout. “There’re many people criticizing the choice of my opponent, but I believe there’s no easy fight, every fight is different and we have to be respectful always and train the same way”, affirmed Big Foot, who talked about the trainings, the “mess” on the heavy weight division and the defeat of Brock Lesnar to Cain Velasquez, on a dispute for UFC’s belt. “I think he must return to his fake fights. I’ve always said that, he’s not a better fighter than Fedor, or Minotauro, or Cigano… He’s a fake fighter”, shoot the heavyweight, commenting the odds of Cigano earning UFC belt and a lot more.

How is the preparation for this return to Strikeforce against Valentijn Overeem going?

I’m very happy to comeback… Unfortunately, Strikeforce is making us wait for a long time so we fight again, and it’s bad because every fighter wants to be active. There’re many people criticizing the choice of my opponent, but I believe there’s no easy fight, every fight is different and we have to be respectful always and train the same way. Many say that I must beat him, otherwise it’ll ruin my career, but I don’t think so… I’ll get there to win.

He’s very experiences, has over 50 fights on his professional record. What do you think about his game?

Man, he’s a striker, has a good guillotine choke, but I’m feeling pretty comfortable on the stand-up game, and my previous fight was all about standing up, only if I could take him down to finish him, I wouldn’t heist. Despite I feel comfortable standing up, let’s see what happens, but I think the shortest way for the win is the ground game, it’s my Jiu-Jitsu.

After beating Valentijn, will you challenge his brother, Alistair?

Man, in my homeland (Paraiba), when our brother is caught on the streets, we go there and see what it’s about. Let’s see… I’ll focus on him first, I’ll train to fight his brother and let’s see this brother thing.

Overeem is off for a long time because of K-1, and Werdum now has this elbow injury, Fedor doesn’t know when he’ll be back, and now they hired Josh Barnett… What do you think of your division?

There’re only top athletes, but unfortunately I can only call it a mess because it’s a real mess. Werdum, unfortunately, is injured. Fedor has a contract problem, since M-1 takes care of his career. He champion will only fight whoever he wants to because he’ll fight on another show, and that’s what’s going on… There are top athletes, they’ve hired Barnett, and I hope he comes to make this division even better because he has a great charisma, but I hope it’ll be better next year, because 2010 was a complete messy year for this weight division.

The other weight classes are great, they’ve just hired Gesias, there’s (Josh) Thompson, it’s a great division, and Jacaré’s been doing a great job, Feijão is fighting… The other weight divisions are fine but the heavyweight division is too messy. I think that the champion can’t start picking out names, he has to accept the opponent that the president of the organization chooses for him to fight, the one who deserves a title shot. If it’s Werdum that worths the shot, then you go and fight Werdum, but you don’t pick your opponent. If it’s Fedor, you fight him. The guy says he wants to fight in another organization and is the champion of the event… Let’s see if things get better next year.

You almost fought Josh Barnett in Japan. Now that he has signed a contract with Strikeforce, do you think it’s a good fight for you next?

It’s a wonderful fight. The guys talked about it on Sengoku twice, but, unfortunately, it didn’t happen. He’s a great athlete, he has a good name, he’s not on the top ten today, but he’s a strong name on MMA, and I hope he comes prepares because this division on Strikeforce ain’t easy, there’re only top athletes, and with God’s help, he’ll get here to make our cast even greater… He’s another top of the division joining us and the fans can only be grateful.

Talking about your weight class on UFC, you have always criticized that Brock Lesnar was pointed out as the best of all, and now he just lost to Cain Velasquez. Do you hoped for that outcome?

Man, I think he must return to his fake fights that it’ll be best for him. I’ve always said that, he’s not a better fighter than Fedor, or Minotauro, or Cigano… He’s not the number one. I’ve said that when Werdum beat Fedor, who would become the number one? To me, it must have been Wedum because he had just beat the number one, but no. they put Brock Lesnar as the first, Werdum on the second place and Fedor in third. For sure now the top position is on good hands because Cain is a great fighter, he’s complete, has proven to have a good ground game, a good Wrestling and h’s a good exchanger. Now it’s on good hands. It was ridiculous for us, fighters, to see Brock Lesnar with only four or five bouts being considered the top athlete on earth, it’s ridiculoius. And people like Cain Velasquez, Cigado, Fedor and Minotauro coming after Brock Lesnar… He’s a fake fighter.

Cigano will now have the title shot against Cain Velasquez. How do you think this fight will be like?

It’ll be a very good fight, both fighters have heavy hands, Cigano moves pretty well, has a very heavy hand, is a born knockout. On his last fight, against Roy Nelson, it was a merit of Roy Nelson to stand after so many punches. I think it’ll be a 50-50, and I’m cheering for the Brazilian without any doubts. It’s the Brazilian nation in there, the Brazilian blood that will be on that cage, so I think everybody must cheer for him, we must do a prayer for him so he’s on a good day and is lucky. I wish that God blessed him on that day, but I think it’ll be 50-50. Cigano hasn’t shown his ground game so far, but since he’s training along with Minotauro, Anderson, Rogério and Feijão, I’m sure he must be tough on the ground too.

What brought you back to Brazil after so much time on the United States?

Man, I needed to take some time off, I’ve spent for three and a half years on the United States and my family needed me. I came to solve so problems that only I could solve and we have everything out there, but we don’t have the affection of our family, parents… I came to spend some months here. I needed this father, mother and friend’s affection, I needed to come back here… I really needed it, but I didn’t leave everything behind. In March I’ll return to start my preparation for my next fight.

Where will you do your preparation?

I’m a freelancer now, I have as my physical coach Andre Benkei, and here my brother is taking care of that part of my training since he’s a personal trainer. There’s Ouali Mohammed on the exchange’s game, and we also bring many good athletes along with us, like Guto Inocente, and we’re getting in touch with (Gabriel) Napão, who’ll help us, and we always bring those guys for our sparrings… There’s a gym and we hire the coaches and a space for us to do our camp.