Vi intervjuade Sahil Siraj inför matchen som flyttades efter skandalscenerna på invägningen för OKTAGON 54.
Bråket som flyttade matchen
Det var meningen att han skulle gått match redan den tredje mars. Men under invägningen blev det hätsk stämning mellan Sahil Siraj och motståndaren Akonne Wanliss. Sistnämnde tryckte upp sin hand i ansiktet på svensken vilket ledde till att de två fick separeras.
Men det var efter båda klivit ner från scen som kontroversen kom att äga rum. Siraj’s coacher, en av dessa forne UFC-svensken Reza Madadi, ska enligt OKTAGON MMA ha överfallit Wanliss. Något som ledde till en livstidsban för båda tränarna.
Till följd av detta flyttades matchen till den 20 April. Vi passade på att snacka med Siraj om allt som hänt, nya datumet och att tappa sina två sekonder.
”You lose time, you lose money”
När Siraj svarade på samtalet befann han sig på flygplatsen. Han avslöjade att den sista veckan innan match kommer att utspela sig i Göteborg. Detta efter ett längre camp på Allstars i Spanien.
I go from my training camp in Spain to Sweden. I’m gonna go back to Gothenburg.
Galan går av stapeln i Birmingham, England.
My camp is finished here in Allstars Spain, with Reza Madadi. So now I’m on my way to Gothenburg. So there one week and then I’m gonna go to Birmingham with my other coach.
The date of your fight got changed. Has that done anything to your preparations?
Yeah, of course. It makes it a little difficult for me because when you do preparation it takes a lot of you. You lose money, you lose time and you have to do over everything.
It’s so hard to be in 100% shape all the time. So everything costs. It’s a double training camp for me. But I am more than ready,
Reza Madadi kan få en andra chans
Bråket blev mycket uppmärksammat i media. Flera gick ut med att stötta Reza medans andra var oförstående inför dennes agerande. En debatt om att ”stå upp för” kontra ”förstöra för” sin fighter startade. Sahil står dock fast vid sin tränare, som han inte tycker är den som förtjänar skulden av den inställda matchen.
What’s your side of the story?
It was bad from his (Wanliss) side. He was the one to destroy everything for himself and for me. And then he didn’t have the heart to come and fight. I was dissapointed. If you are so cocky and if you are so – you say you are a warrior who’s gonna do ’this’ and ’this’ and then at the end you back out of the fight. It’s like, dissapointing you know? I was excited and I was ready to fight him.
And even he say ’Reza is out of Oktagon because he attacked me’ and ’I’m gonna take half of Sahil’s purse’. With all these things we accept the fight, we say yes to the fight you know? If it was someone else he never let go of half of his money and his coaches out of Oktagon. It was two, three different things.
But then I talk with my coach and everything and he say ’No problem. We just go fight, no worry about me and no worry about money. Eveyrthings gonna be okay. You train so hard, you come here to fight’. So with all this stuff we accept the fight and then in the end he gets mentally sick and he didn’t want to fight. So it was a little bit dissapointing.
Who are you gonna have with you in your corner at fight night?
Im gonna have another Reza (skrattar). Yeah, I have another Reza from Gothenburg, he’s my striking coach. So he’s gonna be there with me. And then one guy Michael and I have other friends, they’re gonna come also. So I’m gonna have like four guys or something.
Of course it’s hard to train with a coach and the coach is not there with you. It’s hard but I hope Oktagon realize that the guy did a mistake and this was the consequences you know. You can not disrespect people like… I was the one, he was fighting with me so he doesn’t have to involve other people. So it’s disrespect from his side, and even like everyone wrote in the comments that Oktagon did wrong to banish, for what? For what reason? The guy did disrespect him, he has the right to prtoect himself, to defend himself. And he (Madadi) even has more fans than before because people like what he did.
Of course it was a different reaction, I understand him. He’s also a former UFC-fighter, he has his own fanbase. You cannot disrespect him in front of the media, saying ’I’m gonna break your head, I’m gonna jump on your head’, ’gonna knock you out old man’ and stuff like this.
It affects everything. I hope Oktagon fix this, so Reza can come back in my corner. Becuase without coach it’s hard for me to go in the cage. We train together, we prepare together. So I need him to be in my corner. Hopefully Oktagon gonna fix this. We were talking and I think it’s gonna work. Maybe not for this fight, but for the next fight.
So you have been talking to oktagon about having Reza Madadi back?
Yes of course, I think they’d also like to have him back.
So, how have this affected you in your preaparation? All this media buzz going around. Mentally, is that throwing you off?
It’s normal everyone ask me this question. ’What’s going on, you’re gonna go to his hometown. It’s gonna be so much people booing you’. Listen, one thing I have to say. This is my work. I’m gonna go there, do my work, take my cash and come back home. I don’t have energy, I don’t have time to put on these things. What people say, who’s booing me. These things are not affecting me. It’s like my coach is not in my corner, but we train together and he believe in me. That’s why he sent me. I’m ready, I believe in his training. So I’m more than ready to go there and kick his ass, fight in front of his home crowd. So I don’t have any kind of problem, any type of stress. Nothing.
Siraj möter Akonne Wanliss som en del av Oktagons lättviktsturnering. Galan drar igång 18:00 den 20:e.
