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Despite decisively losing the first two round to Rashad Evans at UFC 108, Thiago Silva found himself in position to finish the fight late in the third round. Except he didn’t. He just stopped causing fans everywhere to question what he was doing. In this interview with Tatame, Silva explains what happened.

On the third round you started to provoke him and almost knocked him out. On that moment, did you think you were winning the fight?

I knew I was losing. I wasn’t that good on the energy and I tried to provoke him to see if he comes over me, but he didn’t bought it. I knew I was losing, I lost the two rounds.

When you hit him, don’t you think that you needed to keep hitting him more?

To be tired make a difference, man… I started to provoke him because he was with the low energy, getting tired… Wanting or not, he has a heavy hand, there’s some time that we don’t know what’s going on anymore… I think the energy made the difference, I was pretty tired.

While not having the cardio to go a full three rounds at this level is typically inexcusable, we might want to give Thiago a pass on this one. Earlier this week, news surfaced that Silva had suffered a back injury while training for the Evans bout. Under normal circumstances he likely would have withdrawn from the card, but considering the extraordinary number of injuries that struck UFC 108, he opted to fight through it. That is what you call taking one for the team.

Image via Sherdog

UFC 108 took place earlier this evening at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In the night’s main event, Rashad Evans took on Thiago Silva in a light heavyweight contest.

In the co-main event, heavy-hitter Paul Daley faced off against submission wizard Dustin Hazelett.

Joe Lauzon returned to action against Sam Stout.

Duane “Bang” Ludwig returned to the UFC to take on Jim Miller.

Gilbert Yvel made his UFC debut against Junior dos Santos.

Results, thoughts, bonuses and live gate (when available) after the jump.

Fanhouse’s Ariel Helwani talks to Rashad Evans, Thiago Silva, Paul Daley and Dustin Hazelett at the UFC 108 pre-fight press conference.

UFC 108 “Evans vs. Silva” takes place on Saturday, Jan. 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada and will air live on pay-per-view. The official UFC 108 fight card and event info can be found in our fight cards section.

Rashad Evans takes on Thiago Silva in the main event at UFC 108.

Thiago Silva faces off against Rashad Evans in the main event on Jan. 2 at UFC 108.

Thiago Silva tells Fanhouse’s Ariel Helwani that he hopes a win over Rashad Evans at UFC 108 will earn him a title shot. If that’s the case, he better be rooting for Shogun to beat Lyoto Machida in May.

Rashad Evans is not waiting around for Rampage Jackson.

Last week, Evans told MMA Fanhouse he wanted to take on Thiago Silva, and it looks like the UFC agreed. According to MMA Junkie, Rashad and Thiago will co-headline UFC 108 with Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) has learned from sources close to the fighter that Evans and Brazilian Thiago Silva (14-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) have verbally agreed to meet in the co-main event of UFC 108.

Rashad and Thiago have never fought each other before, but they do have one thing in common. They both took early evening naps in the Octagon courtesy of current champ Lyoto Machida, which pretty much means whoever wins will be one step closer to showing the world just how good Machida is again.

In other UFC news, word on the street is Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, coming off his impressive victory over Randy Couture, is next in line for a heavyweight title shot. These kind of plans don’t always pan out though, so I wouldn’t take it as set in stone in just yet. If Cain Velasquez looks like a world beater against Ben Rothwell, don’t be surprised if we wake up the next day hearing he’s getting the next title shot.

If Big Nog does in fact get the Lesnar/Carwin winner though, it’s pretty much guaranteed we’re going to see one of two things, and unfortunately for Nogueira both scenarios involve him taking a extraordinary beating. It’s merely a question of whether or not he pulls a submission out of thin air on the brink of unconsciousness.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say Big Nog wins. Would we care as much about Fedor not being in the UFC if Nogueira is the heavyweight champ instead of Brock Lesnar?

“I just found out. Rampage first and foremost is a friend of ours and we really like Rampage…I am not going to get into the battle of who did what for who and all that stuff. We’ve done a lot for him and yes he has been there and fought. The guys come in here and that’s what they do, they fight. They are fighters. We give them fights and they make money, and we make money and that’s the way it works…Rampage is a grown man. He is acting like a baby right now but he is a grown man. If he wants to be in the movie business, Rampage, good luck to you man. I hope you make it big, and I am not being sarcastic, because Rampage Jackson is a guy that I actually like and Rampage Jackson is a guy that I know doesn’t always make the best decisions. I hope the movie thing works out for him, if that is what he truly wants to do and what he thinks his career is, I wish him all the luck in the world. I like Rampage, I have no ill will towards him whatsoever…We’ve got no problems. We are in the fight business, we make fights, that’s what we do. There’s always guys that are injured, guys that have conflicting dates, stuff comes up, movie roles… there is something every day…I have said this for years, there is one thing guaranteed when I get out of bed: bad stuff is going to happen today. It happens every day and its my job to deal with it.”

—Dana White, on The Carmichael Dave Show via Fighters Only, reacting to the open letter Rampage Jackson published on his official site yesterday effectively announcing his retirement

That definitely wasn’t the response I was expecting from DW. It sounds like he doesn’t have any problems whatsoever with Rampage’s retirement. Maybe he thinks Rampage will come back eventually like a lot of people do? Maybe the UFC will just skip the small talk and go after him legally? I don’t know, but at this point, it doesn’t sound like Dana is too interested in throwing a bunch of money at him to keep him, though it could be a different story behind closed doors.

Rashad Evans also weighed in on the situation.

I think that him coming out and saying stuff like that was a bit premature. He’s jumping the gun a little bit. Rampage is a very emotional fighter, a very emotional person, and he just let his emotions take over his rational thinking. I think that him and Dana White just probably need to talk it out, and get past it. I think it’s just a breakdown in communication…Dana’s the kind of guy who is going to say what is on his mind, maybe without thinking it through all the way, before he said. Rampage is a hothead, as well. You get two tempers like that, go at each other like that, it makes the situation hard to work through…I’d be disappointed not to fight him. It would be a good fight, a fun fight, but mostly because he talked trash. He got me really angry, and I want to fight him just because of that alone. It’s a fight that people want to see. You get your mind wrapped up, and you get your mind so psyched up about fighting a fighter, and then it doesn’t happen, it’s disappointing…That’s why I hate making a fight personal. At the end of the day, we’re professional athletes, and we get paid to do a job. But when you get to fight someone you really want to fight, that’s like a bonus. You’d almost do it for free.

As disappointing as it is for Rashad, he’s still makes his living by fighting, so he has no choice but to move on to a different fight, and he already has someone in mind, Thiago Silva. Rashad told MMA Fanhouse that Silva will likely be his next opponent either in December or early 2010 which makes UFC 108 a very likely candidate. It’s not Rampage-Rashad, but I suppose it will have to do.