Issue 041

September 2008

A former member of the Chute Boxe team, Ninja has opened the Universidade da Luta (Fight University) in his hometown with his brother and fellow MMA fighter, ‘Shogun’ Rua.  

Where are you right now?

Right now I’m in Curitiba, Brazil. It’s the place where I was born and my hometown, I love being here. My first kid is coming soon by the way, and our families are from here, so it’s going to be nice to have him being born and raised here as well.

What do you remember from your first fight?

I remember pretty much all of it. My first MMA fight was in my hometown, against a guy called ‘Bad Boy’ from Sao Paulo, and there was a rivalry between my camp and his. He was a very strong guy, and being my debut I got a little nervous and all, so it was an exciting experience for me.

How do you feel you have developed as a fighter since then?

I think I developed a lot, which is natural. A fighter has to be always evolving. Back then I had the roots for being a fighter, such as courage, self-confidence, etc. But now my technique has evolved in all areas, I mean, it was eight years ago. Now I’m a BJJ [Brazilian jiu-jitsu] black belt, which I wasn’t back then. My striking and my wrestling have got way better, and of course I have more experience.

Do you remember your fights well, or are they difficult to recall? 

I pretty much remember them all. Sometimes you forget one detail here or there, but I love watching fights and I watch my past fights all the time, so I’m always remembering them (laughs).

When you’re in the ring or cage you fight with intensity. What do you do to get ready for a fight? How do you get into that psychological state? 

That’s one of the good things we learned in our past team, Chute Boxe. They always developed this kind of mindset in you from the early days, and it got just natural to feel motivated and confident before a fight. I try to focus on my goals, what I want, how I want to beat the guy, and what this means to me, so it’s all that gets around my mind before a fight, and I really enjoy fighting! It’s something that I love doing, so it just comes natural.

Your career has seen success and dark periods. How do you motivate yourself to fight?

This is easy, because I love fighting. I’m blessed to be able to earn my living doing something I love, so motivating myself is truly easy, it just happens naturally. When you do something that you like, you enjoy doing, it’s easy to be motivated. It’s true that my career had many ups and downs, but things happens for a reason, and now with the new team and new management, I’m more motivated than ever and I think we’ll see better days ahead.

Is it good or bad to spar with your brother Mauricio? Do you ever argue and resolve it with sparring?

(Laughs) Not really, in fact it’s funny cause we have been training together forever, and we pretty much know each other’s games completely. So, when we train together, it’s good and bad at the same time because we nullify each other’s moves rather easily! But these days we pretty much resolve our stuff arguing, because sparring is usually a stalemate (laughs).

You fought in June against Tony Bonello. When do you fight next? 

I felt pretty comfortable in my fight against Tony, and I thank him for fighting me. My game worked nicely and I felt strong, and my strategy worked out nicely. So I was very happy with the fight, and I think I’m now getting more used and more comfortable to this weight class. My manager is still in talks with EliteXC, as I’m under contract with them, but I hope to be fighting again in either September or October.

What do you most want to be remembered for?

That’s a tough question. I think I want to be remembered as a fighter who had a lot of heart, and always had great fights. That whenever I was going to fight in a show, people would want to watch because they knew an exciting fight would take place, and that I would fight anyone. I think being a champion or not is important, but being remembered by the fans as a real fighter is even more important.