UFC great Anderson Silva has been cleared for his boxing match against Jake Paul after his "bad English" prompted a late meeting to assess his health before Saturday's fight.
Silva had told MMA Weekly he was knocked out twice in his training camp – comments that raised concerns to the Arizona Boxing & MMA Commission.
The 47-year-old's team said the Brazilian had misspoken in his second language, while Silva himself told ESPN he was "joking".
"When I'm talking about the knockout, it's just to help the [team-mates] who help me, to [lift] them up," he explained.
In a Twitter post, Silva said discussion of the knockouts were "rumours" that stemmed from "simply bad English".
Young man please don’t try and spread rumors that were simply bad English. You and Jake are such an inspiration to the youth. Build together. Don’t burn. https://t.co/5MYvJaGBcw
— Anderson Silva (@SpiderAnderson) October 26, 2022
The commission still had chairman Scott Fletcher attend Thursday's news conference, while Silva also had to take additional medical examinations.
Ara Feinstein, a commissioner who is also a surgeon and a ringside physician, assessed the results and cleared Silva to fight.
"When I look at all of those things together, I don't have any more concerns with Mr Silva fighting [on] Saturday than I would have any other fighter," he said, as quoted by ESPN.
Silva left the UFC in 2020 and has since won two fights to improve his professional boxing record to 3-1 ahead of facing Paul.
