LAS VEGAS – Josh Silveira is feeling great as he returns to the cage coming off his first professional loss. You read that correctly.

The PFL light heavyweight is thankful to have come up short in a unanimous decision against American Top Team teammate Omari Akhmedov this past August. It was a tough pill to swallow at first because it was Silveira’s (9-1) first professional defeat. But now days away from a return at PFL 2023, Week 1 on Saturday at The Theater at Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas, Silveira is thankful to have experienced defeat.

“After my loss, I sat there and tried to analyze a bunch of reasons of how and why I lost,” Silveira told reporters at Thursday’s media day. “We could sit there and cry about it over and over again. I even blamed the mullet, like, ‘Oh, the mullet was flying everywhere, and I wasn’t getting hit.’ There were these moments where I almost had to appreciate the downfall a little bit to appreciate the uprising to get back on my feet.

“I always tell people, ‘Don’t stay too high in the highs, (and) don’t stay too low on the lows – always try to keep yourself in the middle.’ Unfortunately, for the first time in my MMA career, I was in the lows. I had to take time and literally pick myself up little by little. It sounds cliché, but it was the best thing that happened to me, that loss. … I’m happy Omari was the guy to give me the wake-up call, and I love that guy still till today. It was good for me. The loss helped me put things into perspective.”

Moving forward, Silveira won’t focus too much on the future or past. He wants to live in the present and take things fight by fight.

“I think the pressure is always going to be there,” Silveira said. “It’s a fight. I always tell the guys I try to approach a fight like I’m 0-0. Unfortunately, this is a very glorious sport and it’s a rough sport. People kind of remember you for your last fight. The success is good, but I tell my dad when I’m an old guy and I’m done with the sport, I’ll sit and reminisce on the memories. MMA is like, OK, you won – all right, buddy. Just keep on moving. You lost? Same concept – just keep on moving, one fight at the time until you do something for yourself. You build a future.”