Mauricio Rua won’t forget his last trip to Rio de Janeiro.
The former UFC light heavyweight champion was in the “Marvelous City” with his sponsors earlier this month and decided to have dinner with his manager Eduardo Alonso, as well as fellow UFC fighter Demian Maia at Barra da Tijuca. Driving back to his hotel in Niteroi, a city located 25 miles away from Barra da Tijuca, “Shogun” was robbed by a four armed men.
“We were in Rio de Janeiro with Demain and we went to dinner with Mauricio at a restaurant,” Alonso told PVT. “At the end of the night, he left us at the hotel at Barra da Tijuca and drove back to Niteroi, where he was staying. He was driving a friend’s car at Linha Vermelha and he was forced to stop by another guy with four men armed with rifles.
“They took his clothes, money and his friend’s car. They said ‘I know who you are, you’re a fighter. Don’t try anything.’ It was a sad situation.”
Rua had to walk from Linha Vermelha, one of the most dangerous expressways of the city, during the night.
“They took everything, even his shirt,” he continued. “He was shoeless and shirtless. Imagine a guy at his size asking for a ride in the middle of the night. Nobody stopped to help him. He had to walk one mile to get to the police station. It was tense, but it’s all good now.”
Nothing worse happened to “Shogun,” as he provided assistance once he got to the police station.
The UFC light heavyweight, who recently underwent surgery for a broken nose, has no timetable for his return to the Octagon.
“We’re not sure when Mauricio will be cleared to fight,” Alonso said, “so we will wait and see if anything interesting happens.
“I really wanted to watch a fight between Shogun and Rogerio ‘Minotouro’ (Nogueira). There are cards in Japan and in Brazil in September and that would make sense, but now that they matched Rogerio against Anthony Johnson, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”