Celsinho in photo by Carlos Ozório
Today’s birthday boy Celso Venícius has another obstacle in his pursuit of major titles. The fighter plans to enter the big tourneys in 2011, but first he has to take care of an injured tendon in his shoulder.
“I’m injured, doing physiotherapy. I’m trying to recover but I’ll have to have surgery if I don’t get better in six weeks. So I think the beginning of the year will be pretty slow for me,” he tells GRACIEMAG.com.
However, his confidence is at a high and he couldn’t be going through a better phase. Besides it being his birthday, his wife is eight-months pregnant and Celso is excited about the challenges in store for him next season.
“I’m not going to try out for the World Pro like I wanted to, but I hope to recover in time to compete in Abu Dhabi. I already bought my ticket and I want to go. Besides that, I for sure want to be at the Worlds. Those are the competitions I have in mind right now. I’m also aching to make my MMA debut, but for that I’ll need to organize myself. I’m doing light training, and everything will work out.
So the teacher at Ryan Gracie academy in São Paulo should again face the burly competition in the lightweight division.
“I’m still at lightweight and still see every match as a final. We have Michael Langhi and Gilbert Durinho coming up now, but I’m concerned with everybody. I really do hope every match turns out to be like a final, and I plan to win them all,” he says in closing.