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I'm glad I wasn't the guy tasked with giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight submission master Rousimar Palhares doesn't want to sound like he's making excuses -- BUT -- he was too sick to pull out the win against Alan Belcher at the UFC on FOX 3 event earlier this month in New Jersey.
"Toquinho" elaborates to Tatame.com:
"I couldn’t do anything, I was too sick. I don’t really wanna talk about it so it doesn’t sound like an excuse and I’m not taking back his credits. That’s only going to strengthen me and I’ll become a champion. When you get it (the submission), you gotta really get it. I tried to repeat it, but I was gassing off, I was not strong enough. It wasn’t my day, literally. I was dead, I couldn’t move. My plan now is to train and never step up on the ring like I did this time. I was trying to jump and scream to see if I had any energy left, but I couldn’t do it."
Belcher was fearless in his attack, mixing it up with the heavy-handed heel-hooker and emerging with all his limbs intact. "The Talent" put a stamp on his emphatic win as well, pounding out the Brazilian brute via first round technical knockout.
But was Palhares beaten before he even got to the cage? See how it all went down in "Dirty Jersey" with a video breakdown of their bout here and our complete fight review and analysis here.