Gilbert Durinho celebrates win over Vinicius Bohrer at WOCS 20. Photo: Pingo de Souza/publicity.
World elite black belt Gilbert Durinho is starting to see the same success in MMA as he’s had in the gentle art. Last Saturday, August 4, the Gi and No-Gi world champion overcame Paulo Roberto via technical knockout at Champion Fight in Salvador, Bahia State, Brazil. “It was a good knockout. Truth is, I was setting up for the submission but heard the referee tell him that if he didn’t defend himself, he’d stop the fight. So I upped the volume of punches and the ref stepped in. But I prefer to get the tapout; that’s the focus when I fight,” said Durinho, who saw his win tally rise to four in MMA.
“I always try to pay attention to the details, no matter how small they may be, and I always look to correct my mistakes, even in victory. I feel that at this early stage in my career it’s common to make mistakes, and I’m trying to minimize them. I won the fight really quickly, in a little under a minute, but I know I made mistakes, and I’m trying to correct them so as to keep in constant evolution,” he remarked.
“I feel I wasn’t fully focused in the fight. I threw a low kick, wasn’t finding my range or moving well, tried a push kick to the belly and ended up slipping, falling; I got up quickly and the fight continued. Now I’m working on my mistakes, my concentration, distance and other errors,” he added.
As for the future, the priority is to continue training and helping Vitor Belfort. “Now it’s all about training. I want to learn more, evolve more, feel more and more comfortable in there. I expect to have another fight in early September. Now the focus is on Vitor’s fight. He has to be 100% for his next fight, but I’ll be training, and if it doesn’t throw his focus off, I’ll fight again in September,” said Durinho, who still isn’t putting Jiu-Jitsu competition on the backburner.
“There’s no way to put off Jiu-Jitsu. I train with and without the gi a lot. I love it. I’m practically addicted to it. There’s no way for me to not practice Jiu-Jitsu. But it’s become a bit tough to compete. I do hope to compete again this year. There are two competitions I want to be in, if I’m in Brazil. One of them is the South American Championship, which I’ll do my all to be at. If I’m in the States, I’ll do the No-Gi Worlds, which I really love a lot as well. I’ll do one or the other,” he said in closing.
Check out the complete results from last Saturday’s MMA event:
CHAMPION FIGHT
SALVADOR, BAHIA
AUGUST 4, 2012
Ewerton Teixeira defeated Raul Bazanes por KO no R2
Edilberto Crocotá subbed Manoel Conti via arm-and-neck choke in R1;
Gilbert Durinho defeated Paulo Roberto via TKO in R1;
Renato Velame subbed Rogerio Wolverine via kneebar in R1;
Bruno Menezes subbed Thomas Rô via armbar in R1;
Marcio Velaminho subbed Adão Gavião via rear-naked choke in R1;
Júnior Orgulho defeated Vicente Luque via split judges’ decision;
Fábio Monstro defeated Allan Sotozem via TKO in R1;
Isaac Silva defeated Hengel Andrade via KO in R1.