Antonio Rogerio Nogueira was set to rematch Shogun Rua on June 15, but he was pulled out of UFC 161 with a back injury. Slowly returning to training, he eyes the winner of the main event for next Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 26, as he predicts Shogun’s victory in devastating fashion over Chael Sonnen.
“Sonnen may take him down twice, but he won’t be able to do that for five rounds,” “Minotouro” told MMAFighting.com. “He will need to stand at some point of the fight and Shogun will tag him. I believe Shogun will knock him out.”
When the UFC announced Nogueira off of UFC 161 with an injury, Chael started to campaign to replace him. He got the fight, and Nogueira had to listen.
“I hear Brazilian chicken is off the menu,” Sonnen tweeted in June. “American gangster is still available if you want to send your waitress over.”
Rogerio fires back, but has no interest on facing “The American Gangster” inside the octagon.
“That fight doesn’t interest me because I want to fight the best, and there are a lot of fighters that are better than him, including Shogun, Dan Henderson and Rashad Evans,” he said. “Chael talks trash, he’s pure marketing. If we keep talking about him, that’s what he wants. He fought three times for the world title and got beat up. He tried to make his name when Anderson was fighting him injured, and we all saw what happened in the second fight.”
“Minotouro” eyes a potential return by the end of the year, and Rua’s name is in his head.
“I want to fight again this year, absolutely,” said Nogueira. “(Shogun) is good fight, a good option for me. I’m a lot better now, back to boxing training already. I have trained jiu-jitsu last Saturday and it was a little painful, but I believe I’ll be ready to train hard in a month.”