ONE FC's Tim Sylvia wants to KO Andrei Arlovski, build win streak for octagon return

 

ONE FC\’s Tim Sylvia wants to KO Andrei Arlovski, build win streak for octagon return

It should tell you a lot about the state of relations between Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski that Sylvia, when asked what he remembered about his three fights with the fellow ex-champ, offered one broken sentence. “Him being fast but having a weak chin,” Sylvia told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). There\’s still no love lost between the two heavyweights, but Sylvia (31-7) hopes to end the long-running beef when they meet a fourth time at “ONE FC 5: Pride of a Nation.” That, or leave Arlovski (17-9) with one last reminder that he\’s a superior fighter. “I\’m going out there to KO him,” Sylvia said. “If it happens great, if it doesn\’t, whatever. I would like to be done with our beef, but we\’ll see what happens.” “ONE FC 5: Pride of a Nation” takes place Aug. 31 at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines, and streams live on the promotion\’s website. Sylvia, who enjoys a three-fight win streak and recently came within a signature of joining Strikeforce, said the fight is actually the fifth time he\’s prepared for Arlovski, who\’s won his past two outings. The two were supposed to fight before their first meeting, which took place in 2005 at UFC 51 and ended when Arlovski submitted Sylvia with an achilles lock to become the interim heavyweight champion. And it\’s the sixth time the prospect of a fight between them has surfaced, if you count the plans of the dormant-again ProElite, who put the two in the main and co-main draw of an event this past November in hopes of pairing them in the promotion\’s next event. “Once you\’ve trained that many times to fight somebody, you know them pretty well,” Sylvia said. “We feel real confident going into this fight.” Sylvia avenged his initial loss to Arlovski at UFC 59 with a come-from-behind knockout loss to win the UFC heavyweight title for the second time in his career. At Sylvia\’s request, the two fought a third time three months later at UFC 61, and again “The Maine-iac” walked away with a win in one of the more lackluster heavyweight title fights in UFC history. Since then, the two have periodically sparred in the press. At one point, Arlovski even coined a vulgar phrase to describe Sylvia\’s relationship with his ex-girlfriend. But with the waning careers of both, a fourth fight hasn\’t exactly been demanded by fans. And so much time has passed that the bad blood between them is no longer a boil, but a simmer. Sylvia, however, has designs on using the bout as a springboard for a comeback. He\’s enlisted the help of UFC heavyweights Stipe Miocic and Matt Mitrione in training camp, and he said his days of fighting at super heavyweight are over. At 36 years old, he estimates he has but two or three years left in the sport, but he\’d like to hang up his gloves inside the octagon. “It\’s always been a dream of mine to fight overseas,” Sylvia said. “I\’ve wrestled in Japan. But [ONE FC] is a good opportunity. I\’ve got a three-fight contract with these guys. I\’ll fulfill the contract, and maybe I put on three good ass-whuppings and maybe the UFC will give us a call.”