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Hello, boys and girls. It is Thursday once again, which means it’s time for anothed edition of the Brazil Beat. You know, the weekly roundup of all the news in the Brazilian fighting community, all conveniently put together in one place by yours truly.
This week, we’ve got the aftermath of Derrick Lewis’ devastating flying knee TKO at UFC 291, finishes galore at Jungle Fight 118, John Lineker’s return at ONE Fight Night 13 and much more. Let’s dive right in!
Derrick Lewis messed up De Lima’s teeth at UFC 291
It seems the 33-second TKO loss to Derrick Lewis was not the toughest thing to swallow for heavyweight Marcos Rogerio de Lima at UFC 291. Though ‘Pezao’ was frustrated about losing even before he could have a chance of showing his work, the Brazilian was more upset with some of his fans following the defeat.
In an interview with Super Lutas, de Lima explained just how much damage Derrick Lewis was able to inflict with a single knee strike to his face. However, his followers online were not very supportive and according to the Brazilian, most of them did not send him uplifiting messages even though Pezao was going through a rough time recovering from the defeat.
“It’s one thing when you lose while fighting. The way it was, it was really painful. We do this thing where you feel out the other guy’s energy before you start fighting. I was feeling great. I felt like he was a little apprehensive. I started out like I always do. He rushed me and I thought he was going to throw a Superman punch. I raised my guard and he threw the knee. I was kind of out when I fell down. It was a hard blow and I couldn’t react.”
“Now, there’s a lot of people sending me messages, e-mails. I’ve never received that many messages. I lost one fight and instead of supporting me, people from my country, my fans, are bothering me. I took a hard knee. My teeth are all loose. I can’t eat properly. It’s a hard moment. Let’s support our fighters and motivate them.”
Brazilian fans love you when you’re winning, but a good portion of them will turn their back on you the moment you lose a fight, even for popular fighters which de Lima is not. Taking a Derrick Lewis knee to the face can’t be easy, so the treatment he’s been getting online really just adds insult to injury. It’s not unexpected, though.
I guess some fans were expecting Pezao to beat Derrick Lewis and get into title contention at heavyweight since Brazil haven’t had a champion in that division since Werdum, but honestly, I didn’t expect de Lima to be that guy at all.
Diego Lopes is back with a full camp
Moving on from UFC 291, we’ve got the return of MMA’s favorite Tom DeLonge lookalike.
Having impressed fans with his Octagon debut back at UFC 288, when he took on Movsar Evloev on short notice and put on a ‘Fight of the Night’ performance while ultimately losing a unanimous decision, Diego Lopes is back this Saturday.
Now paired up against Gavin Tucker at UFC on ESPN 50, the Brazilian tells Ag Fight he is ready to impress given how he he had a full camp to prepare this time around.
“I’m happy I had the time to prepare. Exactly three months after my first fight. We could say the first fight was the preparation, like a pre-camp for this fight. I’m happy, I’m motivated, I feel really great. I trained hard, I improved many aspects of my game. I know Gavin Tucker is a tricky guy, because he’s a southpaw. I did a good job in the first fight, so they’re putting me on the main card again. That gives me extra motivation to keep on showing my work, now with a full camp.”
Lopes is a fun fighter, I think he has potential to become a fan-favorite with his unique look and fun style. Like I said before, though, he needs to win fights in order to be loved by most Brazilians, so let’s see how he does against Tucker. Should be a good one.
John Lineker is back
Diego Lopes is not the only one fighting this weekend, though. UFC vet and former ONE Championship bantamweight champion John Lineker is also back.
Having been forced to take a longer break due to his TKO loss to Fabricio Andrade back in February of this year, ‘Hands of Stone’ is now set to take on Kim Jae-woong in his return at ONE Fight Night 13 on August 5, in Bangkok, Thailand.
In an interview with Combate, Lineker explained how didn’t want to have waited so long between fights, but the promotion felt like it was the best move after his loss to Andrade.
“To be honest, I wish I had already fought again. I wanted to have fought at least twice. The promotion gave me a break, though. If it were up to me, I’d have fought sooner, for sure. The anxiety to come back and get over that loss is big. We’re really competitive, so a loss, which thank God doesn’t affect us psychologically anymore, makes you want to come back sooner. Show that you want to stay ranked. This loss really made me want to return, for sure.”
Now that the Brazilian is back, he expects a striking battle against Jae-woong and feels ready not to make the same mistakes from his last outing.
“He’s going to be almost the same as his previous fights. Working in the medium and long distances. Using kicks to wear me out. I don’t think he’ll try to take me down, he’s not too keen on the ground game. He’s a good at blocking, hard to control on the ground. I believe he will work his straight strikes. I think he watched my last fight, but I’m more prepared now. I’m really well-trained in case he comes with a strategy similar to Fabricio’s.”
Jungle Fight 118 delives night of submissions
It was another exciting evening in Brazil when Jungle Fight held its 118th edition in the city of Aracaju, capital of Sergipe.
With a 12-fight card headlined by a featherweight title fight that saw Willian ‘Colorado’ Guadalupe win back his lost belt with a unanimous decision win, the promotion only had three of those matches going the distance.
Out of the night’s nine finishes, just three of them came by way of knockout. So let’s take a look at them before we dive into the other six submission finishes in store. In the co-main event, welterweight Anderson Nascimento finished Jose Melo with some heavy ground and pound in a title eliminator.
Featherweight Fabricio Oliveira won via TKO (retirement) when his opponent Kleyton Alves gave up in the middle of the first round due to medical reasons.
Finally, Featherweight Nicolas Savio finished Geovane Barbosa with another ground and pound victory in the second round.
As for our six submissions wins, we start off with bantamweight Marcelo ‘Guara’ finishing Isaque Siva with an armbar. Then, featherwieght Isai Ramos caught Jose Alves with a rear-naked choke and welterweight Danubio Vasconcelos scored an armbar of his own against Carlos Henrique.
Further down the card, bantamweights Antonio Bonfim Jr. and Salmy Silva picked up a couple of RNC’s against Vinicius Augusto and Valdeir Inacio, respectively. In the evening’s curtain jerker, bantamweight Cassio Lima tapped out Jairo Costa with a triangle choke in the third round.
Not a bad night of fights at all, huh?
Jungle Fight champ wishes to KO Max Holloway
The new Jungle Fight 118 has some big plans for his future. Having just defeated Julio Almeida to win back the featherweight title, Willian Guadalupe is eager to keep on putting on impressive performances until the UFC notices him.
With a 12-2 record with 11 finishes, the 27-year-old’s last win was the only one of his career to go the distance. In an interview with Combate, ‘Colorado’ revealed he enjoyed a longer fight this time, because he was able to put his skills to practice more.
“I train for the hardest wars in the world. That’s the first time someone made me sweat a little bit. I was knocking out everyone in the second or first round before that. It was an honor to fight Julio. He’s a really tough athlete. He was making history in the promotion. He used to be the featherweight champion. He has beaten great names and beating him that way was epic. It tastes better to win my third belt here in Sergipe. When a fight is rougher like that, it’s more thrilling. When you spend four months away from your familiy to win by knockout in 30 seconds, it’s no fun. It was perfect.”
Now that Guadalupe has sights set on a spot securing a spot in the upcoming Sao Paulo UFC card in November, the Brazilian reveals a dream of taking on former champion Max Holloway and knocking out ‘Blessed’ in the first round.
“I like Max Holloway. We still have some work to do before to get to him, but I’ll take anyone and knock them out. It’s going to be an epic fight when I face Max Holloway, because he’s one of the best boxers in the UFC. It’ll be an honor to knock him out in the first round.”
That’s a fun prospect. He was on an 11-fight win streak before his last loss and now he won a title fight in the biggest promotion in Brazil. That’s a good way to get noticed.
A Brazilian Beat
All right. So, for this week, we’re going with a guy called Severino Dias de Oliveira, whose name may not ring a bell for most Brazilians, but many will realise who it is when I address him by his nickname: Sivuca.
Though he had a playful stage name, Sivuca was a multi-instrumentalist, a maestro and a master of the accordion who dedicated much of his talent to promoting the music of the Northeast region, himself being from the Northeast state of Paraiba.
Genres such as baiao, forro and frevo were a big part of his repertoire and the perfect settings for his accordion. Sivuca passed away in 2006 at 76, but left a career that spanned over 50 years and plenty of good music for us to enjoy.
So here’s an example of what he could with the accordion.
That’s all for this week, folks. See you all next Thursday. Stay safe!
Lucas out.
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