Photo for Getty Images via UFC.com
Earning a huge victory this past Saturday in Brazil, UFC heavyweight Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira (33-6-1, 1NC) showed the World that he is far from retirement by finishing a younger Brendan Schaub by first round knockout.
Previous to the UFC 134 bout, Nogueira experienced a long road having been plagued by knee and hip problems, having to pull out of a rematch with Frank Mir last September at UFC 119. Having undergone successful surgery to repair all of his problems, and coming off of his big victory over Schaub, ‘Big Nog’ says he’d like that rematch with Mir next if the UFC will book it.
Speaking to Tatame.com, Nogueira talked about his training camp for Schaub and his desire to avenge a previous loss to Mir.
Before the fight, you had a #FinalizaMinotauro (Submit Minotauro) campaign in Twitter, but you won while standing yo. Was your game plan to take him down or did you use it to mix him up and trade punches with him?
I was ready to fight anywhere, I was ready for everything. I was huge in the ground, feeling fine. I guess it was my best camp of all, with names like De La Riva coming up to help me. He spent the whole time with me. I also had the support of Ramon Lemos, who’s a coach at Atos, and he came down to help me on the last days of training. I trained with five black belts and they all tapped out twice, man. I was really huge on the ground game.I called Josh Janousek in for Wrestling… I really spent a lot of money on this camp, bringing down here a good American wrestler so that I could be good with my Wrestling, besides the work I did with (Luis Carlos) Dorea and Erivan Conceicao, who’s a Boxing coach. I’ve worked the encounter Boxing.
Before going to the fight, Junior (dos Santos) kept telling me to ‘use this one, this one’. It’s like a punch, a jab and a powerful left hand. I got Schaub with his back at Dorea, Rogerio and Junior. And the guys kept yelling ‘do it now, now, now’… When they yelled ‘go’, I moved my head and punched him (laughs). It was automatic, it was the right timing. I guess he thought I would grab his legs and I fit an upper punch. He didn’t know I’d strike as much, It really was a surprising knockout.
What are the expectations for your future in UFC? Do you hope to fight Frank Mir, since he has no bout scheduled and you’d fight each other in the past?
I’d like to fight Frank Mir, I want to fight UFC Japan. I’d like to fight UFC Canada, which will happen later this year. Fighting Frank Mir is something I’d Love to do. I’m motivated to fight him.
Nogueira and Mir squared off back in December of 2008 at UFC 92 in a UFC interim heavyweight title match. Mir would go on to win the bout by second round TKO, becoming the first fighter to stop Nogueira by knockout.