From the drama of surgeries to the knockout: on the day the event completes ten years, Minotauro recounts memories of debuting in Brazil and tells Anderson Silva's request for him to quit.
I was one of the best fighters at heavyweight from 2001 to 2008. I was champion of Pride, of the UFC, I was on top. In 2010, when I lost to Cain Velásquez, I realized that I couldn't train anymore. I could feel my hip, the same problem as Guga (Kuerten). I couldn't move well, jump, I lost 40% of my performance. In a standing fight, you have to get into your opponent and get out without getting hit. It is the moral of the fight. And I didn't have stability, I couldn't do it, I was wobbly.
I looked into what was going on, and I ended up at the greatest hip specialist at the time, Dr. Marc Philippon. I was in Vail, Colorado (USA), with a bad head, in depression, because he said that my hip was broken on both sides. When I was run over by a truck as a child, I injured my pelvis, broke a piece of my L5S1 vertebra, which made me compensate the weight on my hip. The doctor said I needed to operate, stay out of surgery for six months, and then operate on the other side. I was really bad, because I had just come out of a knee surgery, which left me out of work for a long time. I had even tried shamanism. A friend found me a shaman in Canada, I took some "herbs" and it didn't help at all (laughs).
There was no way out. The first hip surgery was in December 2010, in Colorado. I started physical therapy in Southern California, but it didn't work and I couldn't walk. I decided to treat myself in Brazil, where I met Dr. Angela Côrtes. She said we would heal the leg in ten days, and operate on the other side. I said: "No way, this is crazy, I can't walk". She asked me for a "goal", because without that there would be no treatment. I didn't have any plan, I was upset.
In the meantime, Ed Soares (manager) called me saying that the UFC would have an event in Rio de Janeiro and that Dana White wanted me on the card. My brother, he didn't understand my situation (laughs). I had my leg operated on, I couldn't walk, I had a giant callus on my hand from using crutches so much. My physiotherapy protocol was 750 hours and, doing two hours a day, it would take me a year to recover. But a UFC in Brazil was the missing "goal". I had 39 fights in my career, none in my country. It was fight number 40. I was famous in Japan, in the United States, but in Brazil nobody knew me that well. I fought all over the world, wouldn't I fight here? That was everything to me, the great moment of my life.
When I told the doctor about the fight, she said it would take time, but we would need 6 to 8 hours of physical therapy. Every day. What would take a year, we would do in three months. I accepted and went for it. There was so much running against the clock that, after the second surgery, in February 2011, the swimming pool was frozen by the cold, and the physiotherapy was there. My hair came out all frozen. It was the thickest scene of my life. It was very difficult, it was marked. They were very serious injuries. I wasn't thinking about stopping fighting, but I had a chance, because I didn't know if the surgery would work. Every day was a different pain. The hardest thing was to get to that fight.
The camp to fight at UFC Rio was with high level fighters. I had Rogério (Minotouro), Ramon (Lemos, jiu-jitsu coach), Rafael Feijão, Antônio Pezão, Cigano... Anderson Silva came to Brazil. And everyone saw that I was in no condition. I went into the octagon with a limp and trained badly. My training was shit, everybody in the gym was beating me. Then Anderson, Rogério and Feijão got together and said: "Rodrigo, we love you, but you better not fight. We are worried, the big guy (Brendan Schaub) is beating everybody. I answered: "Do you trust me? Everybody nodded. I will win, I give my word. The fight was a month away. This meeting was the D-Day. I said: "Bet on the underdog horse and everything will work out fine (laughs).
My thought was: if there is time, I will fight, if not, I will cancel. The UFC organized a press conference at the Copacabana Palace to promote the event. I took off my crutch that day, but, old man, I had a limp. Climbing the stairs to the stage without the crutch turned out to be more difficult than the fight. It was eerie. And Schaub with a smile on his face, saying he would knock me out or even finish me, because he was a student of Renzo Gracie. I believed that I would arrive confident in the fight, but in the press conference I was still insecure. I said I was going to knock out and I got serious. I had to make that tough face (laughs), but I knew that my body was weak.
I could only train well for this fight with 20 days to go. That was when I turned the key, I felt better. I did a lot of aquarobics, my camp for UFC Rio was in the pool. It was crazy. I was insistent, very insistent. Dana White wanted to retire me, he said that the result of the fight would tell what would become of my career. Today I understand that he did it out of caution, I had a bad hip.
When the day of the fight came, I did a lot of mentalization. It's something I always do, something I like. I visualize me entering the arena, the fans touching my shoulder. But I had a back crisis, my neck was stiff, I couldn't look away. Imagine this on fight day (laughs)... it was tension. I put on some warm towels and got better. On the way to the arena, I drove by where I lived in Barra da Tijuca, looked at people walking and thought: "It is not possible that I won't win here, old man. I am at home, my dream was to fight in Brazil. The funny thing is that even though I knew I wasn't 100%, I was confident that I would win somehow. It's Brazil, my brother! Are you crazy? I was very excited.
When the fight started, the knockout came right away with a straight right that I trained more than 100 times with Cigano. He would throw, I would take his head off and hit. Schaub liked to give uppercuts. It was coordinated. I was going towards him, when Dórea (boxing coach) and Cigano yelled: "Throw now. I took my head off and threw the pigeon (laughs). It was perfect! When I threw two more, I noticed that he softened, and I felt that I won. We beat the gringos (laughs). At this moment there was that feeling that the effort was worthwhile, it was a real overcoming. The ice pool, the fucking surgeries, the crutch, another surgery, a film played in my head. I remembered my interviews, Dana asking me if I was able to fight, my career, the Pride title.
Lorenzo Fertitta went to my room to tell me that I had won the "Fight of the Night" bonus and he lifted me up, made a joke, as if he was going to knock me out in the double leg. Dana White thanked me for having helped the UFC in such an important moment for Brazil, he recognized that I turned around to fight. Schaub said he was a fan of mine, asked about the knockout, we talked about technique. It was a very nice day, we had a party at Recreio dos Bandeirantes with the whole gang.
Before this victory I was known by 20% of the Brazilians, after this fight, everywhere I went... I remember a guy stopped the car beside me and said: "I have cancer, level such and such, such and such, they say there is no cure, but I am inspired by you. I saw what you did in that fight. This fight was the click, it was on open TV, it became popular. I felt I could retire after UFC Rio. If I don't stop, from now on it's crazy, I thought. If I stop, I will stop well and write a book. But they always called me to fight, I liked it, I pushed myself because physically I wasn't the same anymore. The first UFC Rio transformed MMA in Brazil. This was one of the three most special fights of my career, next to the fights against Bob Sapp and Mirko Cro Cop. It didn't have a title, I wasn't champion, but it was important for me and for transforming MMA in Brazil. It was a joy, because it was an endless effort to fight. And I would do it all again.
Casa De Luta FightKlub (Eingang im Hinterhof) Mainzer Str. 30 66111 Saarbrücken Website: https://www.bjjsaarbruecken.de/ Email: acasadeluta@gmail.com
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