I’ll never accomplish anything that warrants a parade on Main Street, so I can’t go too hard on Glover Teixeira, but there was something very Danbury about watching the newly-crowned UFC champ get hauled across the asphalt in the same wagon they used for last month’s Haunted Hayride.
“I’m just so happy this is happening over here,” Teixeira told his supporters (transcribed by MMA Fighting). “I come to Danbury (Connecticut) in 1999 and people just warm hearts over here, just opened their arms for me. It’s the land of opportunity. I had a dream in Brazil to be a professional athlete. Most of the people, I have a lot of people from my town here, they know how hard it is over there.”
Teixeira (33-7) fulfilled his lifelong goal of becoming light heavyweight champion with a dominant, first-round submission victory over Jan Blachowicz in the UFC 267 main event last month in Abu Dhabi, the sixth-straight win for the 42 year-old Brazilian and his fifth finish during that span.
“I couldn’t train, I couldn’t do anything and I come here and I say, ‘This is the land of opportunity, I want to be a world champion,” Teixeira continued. “[Former coach] Greg Davis is one of my guys there that trained with me. He was there when I say — I couldn’t speak much English — he asked me, ‘Why are you training in jiu-jitsu for?’ I said, ‘I want to be UFC champion.’”
Teixeira is expected to make his first title defense against Jiri Prochazka at some point in early-to-mid 2022.