Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza made his light heavyweight debut on Saturday night in Sao Paulo against Jan Blachowicz, and it was a pretty disappointing affair across the board. A whole lot of nothing played out in the cage over twenty five minutes, ending with Blachowicz getting his hand raised by split decision. Souza was uncharacteristically sparse in his striking and listless in his grappling – the Brazilian jiu jitsu specialist threw just 88 punches and landed zero of his five takedown attempts.
Souza had been pretty open leading up to this fight about some mental hurdles he went through following his previous loss to Jack Hermansson in April. The way “Jacare” explained it, he was burnt out and considering retirement before working with a psychologist. Was this dud of a performance an indication that he’s still not in the right headspace? If he is, at least he still sounds motivated to keep fighting.
Take a look at the statement he released on Instagram following the loss (translated from Portuguese):
”First I would like to thank God for this fight, thank the Brazilian fans for the love I received that keeps me increasingly motivated to fight, also my great team that gave me all the support to be here fighting @josueldistak @mssteam @db_dezan @ jwill1224 @phillyfreshufc @iam__coachjt @ rafaellima91kg @stones_drink @drrodrigomauro @carladipierro . Let’s move on correcting the errors and coming back even stronger for the next! @ufc_brasil”
“I apologize to you, I tried to do my best. – @RonaldoJacare”
Will this be the end of Souza’s light heavyweight experiment? At 39 years old, has this second loss in a row (and third loss in four fights) closed the chapter of “Jacare” as a title contender at any weight class? I’ll never count Ronaldo out, but it’ll be a tough climb back up to the top five list he used to sit in comfortably for years and years.