The year 2007 has not been one of the busiest for the Nogueira family. Considered two of the best MMA fighters in the world, Rodrigo Minotauro and Rogerio Minotouro fought only once each this year. Rogerio has a fight set for the 1st of February in Canada for the event HCF, returning to the ring for the first time since being knocked out by Cameroonian fighter Thierry Sokodjou, shortly before Pride came to an end.
Now his twin brother will have one of the most important fights of a career that reached the mark of 30 wins the last time he fought. Minota will face the giant Tim Sylvia for the UFC heavyweight belt, February 2nd in Las Vegas. GRACIEMAG.com went after black belt Amaury Bitetti, responsible for two beasts’ ground training, to find out more about both their preparations for their upcoming commitments, here goes:
GRACIEMAG.com: How have the two been training for their upcoming fights?
Amaury: They are training really hard. The ground part is up to me, the takedown part is with Artilheiro (Rodrigo) and a Hungarian Olympic champion, there boxing with Kelson (Pinto) and muay thai with Luis Alves. There’s also weightlifting that they’re doing with a Romanian who was a power lifting champion. Aside from all that, next week we’ll head to the army school to do some tests of physical capacity, wind and blood tests with Colonel Morais.
GRACIEMAG.com: What specific training is Minota doing to face Sylvia, and what are the dangerous the giant may present in the octagon?
Amaury: we’re training to take him down and not lose the position. To try and get from the mount to the back, from the back to the mount, always hitting in the right places, so he’ll expose himself and we can grab an arm or the neck, what we can’t do is lose the position to the guy. He is prepared for everything, is training really hard standing too. It’s just that as Sylvia is really heavy and hits hard, besides being in front of his fans, we can’t take risks. We’ll take him down and the way Minotauro’s training, he’ll win.
GRACIEMAG.com: What are the expectations for Minotouro’s debut at HCF, are there any plans for after the fight?
Amaury: He’ll fight on February 1st in Canada, against a Canadian. The guy is pretty tough in will have all the support of the crowd, but Minotouro is training hard, I don’t believe he’ll have to hard a time. For now he’ll stay with this event, for which he signed a three-fight contract.
