08-18-2009, 06:28 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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NPC Heavyweight
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 432
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Antonio Rogerio "Minotouro" Nogueira to sign UFC contract soon
Quote:
They're a combined 48-8-1, together they hold wins over Dan Henderson, Kazushi Sakuraba, Alistair Overeem, Guy Mezger and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. And soon, twin brothers Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira and Antonio Rogerio "Minotoro" Nogueira will finally be back together again fighting under the same banner.
"I'm excited man," Rodrigo told FiveKnuckles.com. "It excites me very much! They're still negotiating but I believe soon, by the end of the year, he will sign with the UFC. I'm pretty sure it's going to happen. It'll be like in PRIDE, we'll have the two brothers together. I had a lot of motivation to train with my brother for my fights, sometimes we fought on the same day, so it's very exciting to have my brother by my side fighting on the same show.
Rodrigo and Rogerio have trained together since they we're young boys growing up in Brazil. They've done everything together. They slapped countless submissions on one another en route to Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts. They boxed for the Brazilian national team together. They earned law degree's together and recently opened a couple of gyms together. Though they've fought under different promotions over the last couple of years, they've continued training together to reach their goals.
"He's for sure my best training partner," said Nogueira. "I have a lot of good training partners but he's my biggest motivation. To see him signed to the UFC is one of my dreams. We're going to work very hard to make it to the top of the light heavyweight division and he will soon."
The two fought side-by-side from 2002-2007 when both competed for the vaunted, now defunct, PRIDE promotion. Rodrigo believes that having his brother fight with him in the UFC will ultimately help both of them come fight night.
"One of my greatest memories is when we walk together to the locker room and I feel a lot of support. When you have your friends there, when you have your team there, when you have your brother on board, it's so much different. We do the same team together, we train for the fight in the same day and to have him involved is much better than the normal way. And we are twins, we're close, so it's very exciting."
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