After injuring his eye and knee and undergoing two surgical operations that have kept him from the ring since September of 2007, Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro began a new phase in his life. Now a resident of New York city, where he opened a gym, the Jiu-Jitsu black belt is full of plans and lots of desire to return to the ring. GRACIEMAG.com partner website PortalDasLutas.com had a talk with the Nova Uniao representative about this time in his life.
Portal das Lutas – When will we see Shaolin back in the ring? Is there a chance of your fighting at the K-1 end-of-the-year event?
Vitor Shaolin – K-1 was going to do two end-of-the-year shows, but ended up bunching them together in one event with striking and MMA and that lowered the chances of my fighting. I’m nearly 100% certain I will not fight at the end of the year. I should only fight if someone drops off the card, but I’m practically certain that I’ll not be in it. I should only fight in February or March next year.
PDL – How is your relationship with K-1 doing and why the delay in returning to the ring?
VS – I have four more fights on my contract and we’re still on good terms. I should already have fought, but they offered me Sakurai, who’s a bit heavier than me and I decided not to fight, since it was not in my category. But my situation with them is great and I’m anxious for a return. I was already supposed to have returned, but I had visa problems and then they offered me a heavier opponent.
PDL – What was your injury down time like? Are you training again without fear of further injury?
VS – Now everything’s great. Back when I was injured it was horrible, because I wanted to fight and to help the guys train and couldn’t. But that happens. Anyone who fights knows unforeseen things happen and that happened with me. I was unhappy about it, but things improved thereafter, everything is in the past and I’m training normally, without fear of injury and waiting. These days K-1 is not like the UFC, which has events almost every weekend. I have to wait, I’m dying to return and training a lot. I just need to hang on. When they call me, I’ll be ready, well trained and thin.
PDL – And what about life in the United States, how’s that going?
VS – I like it a lot. It’s a new step in my life, a new challenge trying to make it here in the United States. I’m here without big-money backing or something of the sort. I’m on my own trying to bring in students. It will take some time for people to know I’m here doing a good jog, promoting myself, returning to the ring and I think that will fill the gym in the future. In the meantime, I’m happy, content to teach class and see future potential training with me. It’s a new challenge and I’m very focused on that working out in my life. I like teaching class and the place where I’m living. It’s really different here, but I’m already adapting and now I just have to wait and have patience, in the future, I’ll make it.
PDL – Is your academy more geared to Jiu-Jitsu or MMA?
VS – My primary focus is Jiu-Jitsu, more or less the way Dede (Andre Pederneiras) does things in his gym. The focus is Jiu-Jitsu, bringing in students, finding talent, finding out who is interested in making a living fighting or not, and teaching the interested ones submission grappling and MMA. I won’t start off with MMA straight away, because I think I need to give everyone good foundations first. After laying the foundations and folks show they’re interested in delving deeper, then I’ll think of bringing in someone to teach boxing and muay thai in the gym. But for now it’s just Jiu-Jitsu, which is the way I did it and I feel it’s a strong foundation for the future.
PDL - In Brazil you have all the support of Nova Uniao. How do you prepare for challenges there?
VS – I’ll bring someone up from Brazil to help me out, but I have good friends here, a good relationship with several academies in New York and New Jersey. A few times a week there are some guys who train here who are in the UFC, like Frankie Edgar, Jim Miller and Ricardo Cachorrao, among others. We get together and train, and they are people I can count on when it comes time to fight. Of course it won’t be like in Rio, here it’s harder to get around to the different places, but I’m still feeling comfortable and training is excellent. The guys have things I don’t have, like really good wrestling, things I have to work hard on. But I’ll always bring someone up one month before the fight to train with so I can go in well prepared like when I used to live in Brazil.
PDL – Your old training partner at Nova Uniao, BJ Penn, will face Georges St Pierre in the UFC. What do you expect in this fight?
VS – I always root for BJ, who is a really talented and technical guy. Those who have trained with him know the quality he possesses. I hope he goes in well trained, with his stamina up to speed. If he comes in like that, there’s no way he can lose. St Pierre is a way talented guy too, but I lean more towards BJ. From what I know of him, with the strong mind he has and challenges he’s faced, he’ll do it. I just hope he has wind to go five rounds, because at the other end there’s be a guy who can go five rounds easy. So I think that’s the biggest worry. If he’s well trained, it’s all about BJ.
