Throwback Thursday y’all.
This remains one of the best unintentionally funny interviews that has ever been recorded on film. It was February 5, 2011 and a portly sensei Steven Seagal was interviewed by Ariel Helwani backstage after UFC 126. Anderson Silva had just landed the now legendary front kick to the face of Vitor Belfort that crumpled ‘the Phenom’. It is an iconic moment and one that helped define the legacy of Silva.
It was no secret that Steven Seagal was in Brazil training with Anderson beforehand because videos surfaced. It pretty much looked like what you think it would look like. Anderson playing along while Steven shows him some moves that would get him killed in The Octagon. All the while Seagal thinking he was really teaching Silva how to be a killer. Anderson was was so nice that he credited said training for some of his success which Joe Rogan and the rest of the MMA world clowned immediately.
Ariel Helwani was a bit starstruck by the whole thing and when he finally caught up with the aikido master backstage at the event somewhere we got a bunch of softball questions and some cringe fan-boying.
You will probably end up listening to this more than once because when Steven starts talking about inventing the front kick you can almost hear Bas Rutten losing his mind in the distance.