Issue 178
May 2019
The Brazilian fighter reflects on the state of MMA and his hopes for the future.
You scored a controversial split decision victory over Max Griffin at UFC in Fortaleza. Now that you’ve had some time to reflect what are your thoughts on the fight?
It was a great weekend for me and my family. To be able to come back to my hometown, where my career started, was special. MMA is so big in Brazil now. When I left it was nothing like that. Now it’s as big as soccer. I used to get stopped in the streets here in America a lot. In Brazil it never really happened. Now I am as popular in Brazil as I am here. That’s crazy. That never happened.
It’s good to see the evolution of the sport. To be able to get a victory there was great. It sounds like a very special week for you. Especially overcoming what I had to overcome, it was a special week. I’ve been in this sport for so long I have had a lot of ups and downs. I have had ten surgeries since I started fighting in the UFC. With those ten surgeries I have been out for four or five years of time without competition. Now, finally, I am able to put a few fights together back to back. I am healthy. I am pumped, I am feeling great. At 35, this is the best I have ever felt, body wise and mentally. I understand the game. I have been through so much. I have seen it all. There is literally nothing I haven’t seen. It was special to go to war in front of my hometown.
Can you put into words the emotions stirred up during that fight week?
It’s like you are fighting an uphill battle on a daily basis. You win and lose the fight in your head so many times before the actual fight happens. You have those positive images in your head that you keep playing over and over. Then at the end your hand is always raised. Then you have all those unwanted negative thoughts that, for no reason, jump into your head. Then, fuck, what if I lose this fight? Even when those thoughts enter my mind, in my visualizations, I always try to overcome. You play the fight back and forth and you fight the fight in your head so many times. If you know how to use those thoughts, you are winning. It’s the mental drainage and the emotional roller coaster before the fight that you go through. If you don’t catch your thoughts it could be a bad thing. You really have to be aware of your energies during fight week.
Do you see the sport today as being a bit too cautious and too game-plan heavy?
Oh 100%, man. I think the fun got taken out of the fight game due to all of these outside pressures. When I started, there was no way you could make a living in MMA. You really fought because you loved it and had a passion for it. That samurai lifestyle was real. You would go out there and test yourself against this other dude and see who was the best. There was no holding back. There was no worry about losing your job or getting cut.
There are a lot of outside forces that are making the fighting inside the Octagon not as pure as it used to be. People are really worried about winning. We are in a professional sport and victory and positive results are important. I think there is a fine line between going out there to fight and going out there and trying to finish a fight. You really have to be in a good place of finding that harmony of just fighting because you want to fight and you want to win but you are using every second of the fight to try to finish the fight. That’s just the game right now. It’s a different game than it used to be and you have to be able to adjust.
Do you still feel like you are improving?
It’s crazy that at this stage that I am still learning and still getting better. I am still developing as a fighter. Now I have no distractions. All I do is eat, breathe, sleep and fight 24/7. That’s just a combination of years of hard work. I had some setbacks and now I am making up for lost time. Now it’s finally coming together. I am super excited. I’m 35. I don’t want to be fighting for too long. These last few years I am going to finish on top and I am coming stronger than ever and ready to be finishing my career the way I started.
How do you see things playing out?
I am looking to win. I want to finish my career on a winning streak. That is the goal. I made a lot of plans throughout my career. I fulfilled about 99% of them. The only thing I didn’t fulfill was becoming a champion but I came pretty damn close. I fought one of the best fighters and champions to ever live, GSP. He was so ahead of his time. To be able to come back after two years and become a champion in a weight class above where he fought, that shows how ahead of his time he was.
If I die today I die happily because I have been living my dreams for as long as I can remember and I did it in a very hard sport. This isn’t for everyone. I know that. I know the gifts and blessing I have been given my whole life. I am just smelling the flowers, man. I am really enjoying the process of learning and getting better. But I am still a motherfucker in there. You have to kill me to get me out of there. I know that and having that confidence in my back pocket is very special. I have no fear.
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