The curious case of Rousimar Palhares seems to be one that will simply not go away. As we’ve found out, Mike Pierce walked away from the fight with Palhares injured, albeit not seriously injured, but still injured. The implications walking away from the bout are that Palhares is no longer welcome in the UFC and that competitors Bellator and WSOF have no interest in him, either. That leaves Palhares in a bit of a sticky situation, but he insists that he didn’t intend to do what he did.
He was on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour today and once again spoke out about the incident.
“I did not want to hurt him,” Palhares said through his manager/interpreter, Alex Davis. “In the heat of the fight, I didn’t feel him tap. Afterwards, when I watched the fight, I’d realized that I’d held on too long. But I really didn’t mean to hurt him, you know? He’s a fighter like I am, and I know that he does this for a living, and I’d never want to hurt him.”
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“I think it has a lot to do with my style,” he said. “I’m really aggressive when I go after the submissions, and there’s been times also when I’ve not held on and people have gotten out of it, and I end up losing the fight. So, it’s kind of the way I fight, but I’ve been getting better, and working a lot on this. But it’s just the way I fight, it’s my style.”