Issue 192

September 2020

The Brazilian talks training smart and saving brain cells.

How has the pandemic affected your day-to-day life and your training?

It really didn’t change much. I am spending more time at home with the family. It’s the training that has changed. I don’t have a lot of the people that I usually have working with me. We try to keep two or three guys there every time we train. I was working on my new gym, actually. I am just opening up right now. 

What have you done with your extra time around the house? Have you picked up a new hobby or skill?

Yeah I am cleaning more! The good thing is that I have the new gym for myself. I can open it up and have the kids run around for a few hours to get that energy out. The main thing is to keep the kids doing something, otherwise we will go crazy. I can stay at the house all day, chilling, watching some TV and just relaxing. That’s no problem, but the kids on the other hand are a different story.

Bellator has been re-airing a lot of fights. Did you get a chance to sit down and watch any old fights?

Honestly, I really don’t watch a lot of fights. I have been doing this for 20 years. I was a big fan of the sport for a long time. Before I started training I was watching fights. Right now, unless there is a really good fight coming up I don’t really pay attention to it. I just don’t. I like movies I like action movies and series. I don’t watch any other sports either. I don’t watch football or basketball or anything like that. 

So who is your favorite actor right now?

Any good action movie for me is good. I like Jason Statham. That’s a good actor right there. I really like his movies. I like 007 and those type of movies. I like to watch anything that has a lot of blood.

Bellator has some fights for you on the horizon. As this year plays out, what are your expectations of being in the cage for Bellator?

It’s pretty crazy. 2019 was amazing. It was probably the best year of my whole career. 2020 started a little slowly. I still believe I can get two fights in this year. If I fight in late summer and then again in December. That would still be good for me. I don’t have any details but I am just trying to stay in shape the best I can. Whenever they tell me I have six weeks to get ready, I will be ready. I am hoping we get back in there and get that Mousasi fight but I have no idea how it’s going to play out.

Your introduction to BJJ happened when you trained with Roan Carneiro at American Top Team. What would your life be like if you hadn’t found BJJ and MMA? 

I look back and I have no idea what I would be if I hadn’t found BJJ and MMA. I would probably be a construction worker or something like that. In school, I wasn’t good as far as learning. I could never pay attention to what the teachers were saying. I never had good grades. I didn’t graduate high school. I think I was missing a credit or two. As soon as I started training, I knew that’s what I wanted to do as a career. From the first day I stepped into the gym I knew this was it. I found my future. Thank God everything worked out really well. I never thought of myself as being good. I was always willing to learn. I think that really helped me out. The main thing now is to stay healthy. The injuries really do slow you down a lot. I had those crazy knee injuries and that took about three years off my career. My focus is to train hard but to train very smart. As long as I stay healthy I have a lot of years still left in me. I enjoy everything about the sport – the training, the fighting, everything. 

What changes have you made in training to train smarter and not harder?

As you get older you get smarter. We used to spar really hard back in the day. We would spar two or three times a day. Now I really don’t want to get hit in the head too much in practice. I did that too much already! I don’t mind it in a fight. In a fight, you have to be ready for everything. I will bang it out for 25 minutes in a fight if I have to but man, not in training. I only spar once a week and when people have fights lined up. But if nobody is getting ready for fights, don’t call me for sparring. I’m already not the smartest man so I have to save those brain cells!