Stefan Struve: I’ve been fighting my entire career at 60 percent with heart defect

RIO DE JANEIRO — Stefan Struve enters UFC 190 coming off back-to-back knockout losses, but feels the heavyweight clash with former champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will be the turning point of his MMA career.

After battling a serious heart condition, the Dutch heavyweight believes he will finally be able to live up to his full potential on Aug. 1 in Rio de Janeiro. Speaking of his long reach and height, Struve explained how his disease, a leaking aortic valve and an enlarged heart, prevented him from fighting at his best.

“I don’t really see a disadvantage (on being so tall), as long as you use it the way you should use it. If you use it the way you should use it, then there’s not a lot of things they can do,” Struve told the media in Rio de Janeiro. “But you need to perfect things, especially since I’ve been fighting my entire career with a heart defect, fighting at 60 percent, it was difficult for me to really utilize my body at its fullest.

“Now that my heart output has improved so much, I really plan to start doing that more and more, and really just score knockout after knockout.”

Struve found out about his condition following a rough loss to Mark Hunt in 2013, and had to postpone his return to the Octagon after fainting moments before a bout with Matt Mitrione months later.

“Because of the heart problem, they had me on a certain medication that wasn’t doing well. I was pretty much getting depressed by it, and not feeling well,” he said. “There’s always pre-fight stress, I was out for a long time, coming back from a pretty serious thing with the heart. Because of the medication, my head was a mess, so it only got worse and worse in the locker room and then I had a black out. It scared me, because I just came out of a long period of time where I was a problem with my heart, so I didn’t know what exactly was wrong. But it’s not gonna happen again. I’m on a different medication and I feel amazing, and I cannot wait for August 1st and back on track again.”

Struve will be fighting in the 12th different country during his MMA career, so facing an opponent like “Minotauro” in Brazil won’t be an issue, he says.

“He’s gonna have the support of 16,000 people, so I think he’s going to try to hunt me down, but he’s not going to be successful,” Struve said. “I’m gonna pick him from the outside, he’s gonna want to take me down, and he won’t be successful, and then he’s gonna go down himself.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, since I was 15 or 16, fighting as a pro since I was 17 years old, so it’s nothing new to me,” he continued. “It’s an opportunity for me to show that I really am back after everything that happened. I left that behind me. I just need to start winning again and climb back the rankings where I belong, at the top of the world. It’s just another opponent, in another Octagon, and I’m going to take care of business.”

Nogueira became the PRIDE heavyweight champion four years before Struve made his MMA debut, and it’s kind of surreal for “Skyscraper” to think one of his childhood idols would be calling him out a decade later.

“I always believed in myself, I always believed when I was watching those fights that I would be doing that in PRIDE or the UFC, whatever,” he said. “I never thought he would call me out, but it’s the way things go. When I heard him asking for the fight, I was like ‘why not? I’ll go to Brazil, throw down with you there’.

“He’s a living legend, and he’s and amazing human being too. All the stuff he’s doing for the people here in Brazil. He’s done so much for the sport. I think I’ve been watching his fights since I was 11, 12 years old. It’s an absolute honor to fight him here. It’s going to be an amazing experience, but I’m going to take care of business on Aug. 1st. There’s no doubt about that.”

Eight of Struve’s nine UFC wins have come by knockout or submission, and he’s hoping to finish “Minotauro” at the HSBC Arena.

“He’s an amazing Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter, he’s an artist,” he said. “I believe I can submit anybody in the world, but, of course, if I can use my reach and nobody can touch me, then why go to the ground?”

With long legs and 16 submissions under his belt, Struve sends a message to fellow jiu-jitsu expert Nogueira.

“You need to really learn how to use that. You can lock up things from different angles, from angles people are not supposed to get submitted by, and I can do that,” he said of his legs. “If you got the right teacher, if you got the right tools, then these babies are dangerous.”

RIO DE JANEIRO — Stefan Struve enters UFC 190 coming off back-to-back knockout losses, but feels the heavyweight clash with former champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will be the turning point of his MMA career.

After battling a serious heart condition, the Dutch heavyweight believes he will finally be able to live up to his full potential on Aug. 1 in Rio de Janeiro. Speaking of his long reach and height, Struve explained how his disease, a leaking aortic valve and an enlarged heart, prevented him from fighting at his best.

“I don’t really see a disadvantage (on being so tall), as long as you use it the way you should use it. If you use it the way you should use it, then there’s not a lot of things they can do,” Struve told the media in Rio de Janeiro. “But you need to perfect things, especially since I’ve been fighting my entire career with a heart defect, fighting at 60 percent, it was difficult for me to really utilize my body at its fullest.

“Now that my heart output has improved so much, I really plan to start doing that more and more, and really just score knockout after knockout.”

Struve found out about his condition following a rough loss to Mark Hunt in 2013, and had to postpone his return to the Octagon after fainting moments before a bout with Matt Mitrione months later.

“Because of the heart problem, they had me on a certain medication that wasn’t doing well. I was pretty much getting depressed by it, and not feeling well,” he said. “There’s always pre-fight stress, I was out for a long time, coming back from a pretty serious thing with the heart. Because of the medication, my head was a mess, so it only got worse and worse in the locker room and then I had a black out. It scared me, because I just came out of a long period of time where I was a problem with my heart, so I didn’t know what exactly was wrong. But it’s not gonna happen again. I’m on a different medication and I feel amazing, and I cannot wait for August 1st and back on track again.”

Struve will be fighting in the 12th different country during his MMA career, so facing an opponent like “Minotauro” in Brazil won’t be an issue, he says.

“He’s gonna have the support of 16,000 people, so I think he’s going to try to hunt me down, but he’s not going to be successful,” Struve said. “I’m gonna pick him from the outside, he’s gonna want to take me down, and he won’t be successful, and then he’s gonna go down himself.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, since I was 15 or 16, fighting as a pro since I was 17 years old, so it’s nothing new to me,” he continued. “It’s an opportunity for me to show that I really am back after everything that happened. I left that behind me. I just need to start winning again and climb back the rankings where I belong, at the top of the world. It’s just another opponent, in another Octagon, and I’m going to take care of business.”

Nogueira became the PRIDE heavyweight champion four years before Struve made his MMA debut, and it’s kind of surreal for “Skyscraper” to think one of his childhood idols would be calling him out a decade later.

“I always believed in myself, I always believed when I was watching those fights that I would be doing that in PRIDE or the UFC, whatever,” he said. “I never thought he would call me out, but it’s the way things go. When I heard him asking for the fight, I was like ‘why not? I’ll go to Brazil, throw down with you there’.

“He’s a living legend, and he’s and amazing human being too. All the stuff he’s doing for the people here in Brazil. He’s done so much for the sport. I think I’ve been watching his fights since I was 11, 12 years old. It’s an absolute honor to fight him here. It’s going to be an amazing experience, but I’m going to take care of business on Aug. 1st. There’s no doubt about that.”

Eight of Struve’s nine UFC wins have come by knockout or submission, and he’s hoping to finish “Minotauro” at the HSBC Arena.

“He’s an amazing Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter, he’s an artist,” he said. “I believe I can submit anybody in the world, but, of course, if I can use my reach and nobody can touch me, then why go to the ground?”

With long legs and 16 submissions under his belt, Struve sends a message to fellow jiu-jitsu expert Nogueira.

“You need to really learn how to use that. You can lock up things from different angles, from angles people are not supposed to get submitted by, and I can do that,” he said of his legs. “If you got the right teacher, if you got the right tools, then these babies are dangerous.”