By Guilherme Cruz

Photo Guilherme Cruz

Rodrigo Nogueira is training hard for his bout against Brendan Schaub in UFC Rio, and the countdown for his debut in Brazil is getting to an end. TATAME TV visited the training center of the heavyweight fighter in Rio de Janeiro and chatted with the tough guy that, with a broken teeth – a mark of his tough preparation for the fight -, showed much confidence. “There’s that pressure of fighting at home and representing the Brazilian people, and it’ll be almost my 40th bout… I’m super motivated”, tells Rodrigo, who was glad to have Antonio Bigfoot Silva to help him on the trainings.

How is your final preparation for UFC Rio?

The prep is great, I’m having the support of my friends here, thanks’ God, like Pedro Rizzo, Anderson (Silva), Bigfoot, who came here and is helping me on this final phase of the trainings and he’ll do a camp for his fight here and he’s helping on my camp too, so he’s getting back his conditioning and he’ll be prepared and so will I, and he’s helping me on that matter. There’s also Junior (dos Santos), Rafael Feijao, who’s my training partner and helped me a lot. The expectations are high. There’s that pressure of fighting at home and representing the Brazilian people, and it’ll be almost my 40th bout… I’m super motivated.

How is the feeling of fighting, for the first time, in Brazil?

It’ll be my first fight here, so I’m excited about it, I’m really motivated. Four months ago I was using crutches to help me walk, and now being here training with high level athletes proves I overcame many obstacles, we did a hard and strong work with the physiotherapist Angela Cortez, and the team is really strong for UFC Rio. Me, Anderson Silva and Erick Silva will fight hard.

You already has great trainings with Feijao, Jacare, Junior dos Santos, Anderson, and now you also have Antonio Silva, a huge, strong and technical guy training with you. How does it help you to train?

To me, Bigfoot coming here was great because he’s a guy who has a big team a big support at Imperial Athletic. He came here invited by me, he helped me a lot and I’ve helped him on the beginning of his career and now called him in to help me out here and he came, really liked it here and actually decided to do his camp here in Rio. So it was really good for me. I also asked for De La Riva’s help on this camp to help me in Jiu-Jitsu, Amaury Bitetti, who’s always worked with me. There’s also Ramon Lemos helping me, so I gathered many people to help me to get prepared for this bout, and Big Foot coming here was really important because he’s a big and strong guy, like the guy I’m fighting and I guess it was really important.

You saw him growing and now he’s on the semifinals of Strikeforce GP and has already defeated Fedor…

Bigfoot has all the tools to become Strikeforce GP champion. I believe he’ll become the champion of the tournament and also of the event. He has always been a top guy because he’s a big guy, agile, thin… He’s not a heavy or really muscle guy, he’s just big, he has good takedowns, he has a good ground game, he has good Boxing skills, he has a perfect Wrestling, he’s practically a international level wrestler. He trains his takedowns a lot, he’s explosive, he has great conditioning, he has a good head too, when the fight comes he becomes even bigger. He’s not a lion on the gym, he’s a lion on the fights (laughs).

Now you won’t let him leave your gym, right?

(laughs) We’re treating him right. He’s on a flat in front of the beach, he has all the structure and he’s doing fine. I believe we’re setting good trains for him and thanks’ God him and the Pitbull brothers, who came to the guy a while back, also had all our support while fighting in Bellator. So, all the guys who come here to train also get the whole structure they need, like trainings, press assessor, we really take care of the guy, we pay attention to his supplementation, physiotherapy… So I guess we’re one of the only gyms in Brazil that provides all the structure that one needs and deserves.

What would you say to the fans that’ll support all 13 Brazilians who’ll fight in UFC Rio?

The Brazilians of our gym will do their best and I believe the others will too, so I want you to go to the gym and support us. If you didn’t have the chance to get your ticket, watch it on TV, since it’ll be broadcasted by RedeTV and SporTV, stay tuned on the web, stay tuned on TATAME because we’re doing our best to represent Brazil and we’ll be there. Now UFC came to Brazil and it came to stay. Let’s make the sponsors believe that Brazil really is a fighting country and the country of the martial arts.