Issue 001
March 2005
Brazilian fighters are popping up around world! 2005 is here and there’s no time to rest when it comes to the Brazilians and the MMA world. Fighters must put the holidays behind them as they need to keep training hard for their fights this year. It’s not even March yet and Brazilian fighters have already had plenty of commitments. The United States was the first battlefield. André Mussi of the Brazilian Top Team (BTT) competed in the WEC –13: Heavyweight Explosion event. He wasn’t able to work his game plan and was knocked out by Brandon Vera’s fists.
Vitor ‘The Phenom’ Belfort (BTT) missed the first Brazilian victory of 2005 when he clashed with the ‘Huntington Beach Bad Boy’, Tito Ortiz at UFC 51: Super Saturday. The Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas was on fire when these two fighters collided but Ortiz used his vaunted ground ‘n’ pound to win the third round.
Thirteen Brazilian fighters will fight in England and Japan in the next couple of months — and expectations are high. The Japanese fans will see seven Brazilians spread over Deep, Pride and Pancrase. Roan ‘Jucão’ Carneiro debuted on Japanese soil against ‘The Piranha’, Ryo Chonan, at Deep 18th Impact on February 12, so I’ll give you the results next month.
The most popular submission event in Brazil happened on February 18 and 19 but as we went to press before it happened you will have to wait until next month for the results. This year they changed the format, adding one MMA superfight, three Muay Thai bouts and one MMA four-man, under-90kg tournament. The MMA tournament featured up-and-coming fighters, veterans and rookies. The superfight was K-1 Brazil champion Jefferson ‘Tank’ Silva vs Muay Thai and BJJ fighter, Dimitri Wanderley. The submission tournament format changed as well, with only four tournaments featuring four fighters. These were expected to be Rani Yahya and Vitor Vianna, runners-up of the last Brazilian ADCC Trials, the Olympic wrestler Antoine Jaoude and the Vale Tudo veteran Jorge ‘Macaco’ Patino. The stand-up action is guaranteed via one of the protagonists of the best fight of the AFC Brazil, Edson Mendes Jr.
A big troop will have fought in Pride 29 on Sunday, February 20. As I write, only some of the fights have been officially announced. Mario Sperry (BTT) will be fighting Hirotaka Yokoi while Murilo ‘Ninja’ Rua (Chute Boxe) is facing Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson. Rogerio ‘Minotoro’ Nogueira (BTT) will take on Allistair Overeem from Holland. Ryan Gracie and Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua are still waiting for their opponents to be announced.
The rest of the troop is composed of four fighters. They will invade the United Kingdom’s octagon at Cage Rage 10 on Saturday, February 26. There, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral will fight Pierre Guillet.
The Chute Boxe fighter Cyborg will try to redeem his last appearance taking on Antony Rea. Gabriel Santos from Team Vitor Belfort brawls with Mark Weir. Last but not least, Jean Silva will battle with ‘The Westside Strangler’ Chris Brennan. Silva, the local idol, is Brazilian.
In the land of the Samurai, Gustavo ‘Ximu’ Machado and Nilson de Castro will fight. Their commitments are rematches against Grabaka fighter Yuki Sasaki and experienced Kei Yamamiya respectively. These fights are the featured matches of Pancrase on Sunday, March 6. Ximu and Sasaki fought to a draw at Deep 4th Impact back in 2002. Nilson beat down Yamamiya via TKO in their first contest.
