Talita Nogueira was the 2013 Female Fighter of the Year at the Brazilian MMA Awards, and she wants to continue to prove her talent inside the Octagon in 2014.
A multiple-time jiu-jitsu world champion, “Treta” is in talks with the UFC and hopes to sign a deal with the promotion after racking up a perfect 6-0 record with four submissions and a pair of knockout victories.
“My manager is talking to Sean Shelby and the UFC, that’s why I’m staying in shape and training hard already,” Nogueira told MMAFighting.com. “I always competed at 163 pounds in jiu-jitsu, so I cut down to 145 to fight MMA. But the UFC only has the 135 weight class, so I have to go down to 135. I’m staying at 151 now so it’s going to be easy to cut to 135.”
“Treta” last competed in December, when she scored a first-round submission win in Sao Paulo, and believes that the UFC needs a jiu-jitsu specialist like her on its roster.
“There’s not even one top jiu-jitsu girl in the UFC today,” she said. “You have girls with good jiu-jitsu, even some black belts, but none of them were world champion in the black belt. I think I can surprise a lot of people in the UFC.
“I always said, since day one, that a good jiu-jitsu girl, with a good strategy, beats Ronda Rousey. She has a lot of flaws in her jiu-jitsu. Maybe I defeat her with an armbar. Who knows?”
Rousey, the undefeated UFC bantamweight champion, recently said she could beat any jiu-jitsu black belt in any rule setting.
“We know it’s all marketing, she wants headlines, but she was disrespectful with the jiu-jitsu girls,” Nogueira responded. “She already lost in judo, now she says she can beat any jiu-jitsu black belt? I don’t even think she beats a top purple belt like Ana Carolina Vieira. She can fight anyone anytime, Metamoris would pay her anything she wants, but she will never do it because she would lose.”