"The UFC, they said they basically needed a main event," Franklin said. "I got a phone call from my manager, and he said, 'Hey, the UFC needs you to fill in for Brazil, and they said they would take care of you.' I'm the kind of guy that trusts that they're going to 'take care of me.'
"I really didn't demand anything. The only thing I asked was for a five-pound allowance on my weightcut because they were decreasing the amount of time I had to make weight by two weeks. I wasn't at the time certain I could make 185 pounds given that."
While both Le and Silva are strikers, their styles are vastly different. Le, an accomplished san shou stylist, is known for his spinning attacks and unique striking angles, while Silva is a more aggressive Muay Thai disciple who moves forward with powerful hooks and thunderous knees. Franklin was already entrenched in a Le-specific training camp when he got word of the switch, and he admits much of what he did is now somewhat irrelevant.
"I went down to Singapore," Franklin said. "I was at Evolve MMA down there bringing in wushu and san shou fighters so that I could get a look at the type of fighter that I would be fighting. So a lot of the camp was spent on pattern and technique recognition so that when Le hit his setups and feints and kicks that he throws, I wouldn't be surprised by anything. Obviously, Wanderlei is a completely different kind of striker.
"Not everything that I did at Evolve was for nothing. I had a great camp otherwise, working on my jiu-jitsu and wrestling and all those other things while still doing the Thai work. Working with the coaches down there was very productive. But all the stuff that I did that was specific for Cung is just not going to come in too handy for this fight, in particular."
And so, Franklin now turns his attention toward a rematch with Silva, a man he defeated in 2009 via unanimous decision. It's the third time in his UFC career Franklin has booked a rematch. In the first two cases, the results of the first fight held true in the second, as Franklin owns two wins over the late Evan Tanner and two losses to Anderson Silva.
However, Franklin said it's important not to make any assumptions heading into this contest.
"I believe that you have to have amnesia after every fight, win or lose," Franklin said. "If I come off of a loss, I have to completely put that fight behind me and forget about it. If you dwell on a loss, then it can mentally crumble you for the future. Likewise, if you dwell on a win and how well you did, then it can mentally crumble you for a fight in the future. For me, every time I fight, it's like starting at square one.
"Fighting Wanderlei, I don't think about the previous fight between he and I, the previous fights I've had with other fighters, the, 'Well I beat this guy, and he lost to this guys, and he beat that guy,' or whatever. I don't do those kinds of things. It's just, 'Here's the puzzle I have in front of me, and I have to solve it on June 23.' It's that simple for me."
For Franklin, it will be the first puzzle he's tried to solve since a February 2011 loss to Forrest Griffin. Cage rust could certainly prove a factor, as could the travel to Brazil. However, it's not a new experience for Franklin, who has fought five of his past nine bouts outside of the comfort of his home country.
"My family, nobody is going to come see me," Franklin said. "None of my family can come down there. I'll have my cornermen and my wife, and that's it.
"I'll have a total of four people in the audience that are directly tied to me."
And that's where things get a little tricky. Brazil, the birthplace of MMA, has again become a hotbed for the sport in recent years, with the UFC's past two visits to the country producing wildly successful events with intensely passionate crowds.
When it was Sonnen who was expected to make the trip to Brazil, there were some MMA experts who feared for his well-being. Franklin knows he won't be treated quite as poorly, but he's not sure exactly what to expect. After all, four of his six career losses have come to Brazilian opponents, so how angry at him could the crowd truly be?
"I don't know," Franklin said. "I think I have a decent fanbase in Brazil. After all, I've lost to a couple of their fighters, so they've got to like me a little bit, right?
"I'm not playing the evil part. I don't make comments about Brazilian people or negative comments about my opponent or anything like that. I'm just not the evil-part kind of person. I tell you what, if I was in like the WWE and I was playing a fake evil person, I would do a great job of that because I could play the part, but it's just not who I am."
Instead, Franklin will simply play himself, the well-spoken former math teacher with the ever-present black eye who always remains positive through any situation. And if Brazil isn't quite as friendly in return, Franklin insists he's been through it all before.
"The whole first half of my professional career, when I was fighting my way up the ladder to be in the UFC, being from Ohio, I traveled a lot to fights, and I was always going into somebody else's backyard," Franklin said. "I was never the crowd favorite because I was always fighting the hometown hero. So the entire first half of my career, I was booed.
"I had about 15 fights, and then after that things started changing a little bit. This is just back to the way things were with me."
