Filed under: UFC, FanHouse Exclusive
On Nov. 13, MMA veteran Jorge Rivera will attempt to extend his three-fight winning streak against Alessio Sakara at UFC 122 in Oberhausen, Germany. But before he finds out what his future holds, Rivera took a look back at his past with us for a new feature on MMA Fighting where fighters revisit their very first professional MMA bout to tell us what they remember now, and what they’ve learned since.
The year was 2001. Jorge Rivera, then 29 years old, had come down from Milford, Mass. to Chester, W. Va. for one simple reason.
“I really just wanted to know how good I was, because I honestly had no idea. It turned out the other guy was much better.”
One of the dilemmas that increasingly seems to frustrate both MMA promoters and fans is the refusal of friends and teammates to fight each other. The guys who train with Greg Jackson don’t want to fight each other. The guys who train at American Kickboxing Academy don’t want to fight each other. The guys who train at Black House don’t want to fight each other. Babalu Sobral says he doesn’t want the Strikeforce light heavyweight title fight he just earned because he’s friends with the champion, Mo Lawal. And so on.