Davi Ramos celebrates victory in Natal. Photo: Carlos Ozório.
Following his win at the Brazilian No-Gi Natioinals, Davi Ramos headed full steam up to Natal, where he secured a spot in the under-74 kg division at the World Pro main event, after beating beasts like Helder “Bob Sponja” Medeiros. Now the Master Casquinha black belt from Top Brother team heads into a challenge in another style.
“I almost didn’t come, because I’m going to fight MMA in Mexico, at Extreme Combat. But the event was postponed till the 20th, so I decided to enter both the Brazilian No-Gi Nationals and the World Pro qualifiers,” he tells GRACIEMAG.com.
“I went in at full force. I beat Bob Sponja, a really tough opponent, for the second time and I also beat Thiago Rocha of Alliance. For me it was really great,” he says in celebration.
Davi against Cascão. Photo: Carlos Ozório.
The final was against Leonardo “Cascão” Saggioro and was evenly matched, decided by a penalty point against his opponent, who cried bloody murder.
“The final was kind of unprecedented. But the truth is, I feel he didn’t try and pass my guard at any moment. He was there stacking me the whole time and the ref could have penalized him earlier. Thank God I won and now I’m going to Abu Dhabi. I’m going to do lots of preparations and, after my MMA fight, I’ll focus solely on Jiu-Jitsu because I want to compete at the Pan as well,” he says, seeing both positives and negatives in the fact that he trained more for MMA in the lead up to his last tournaments.
“It sets you back a bit, however, your stamina improves. My physical conditioning was excellent, but I found my grip to be a bit lacking.”
Win at No-Gi Brazilian Nationals. Photo: Carlos Ozório.
In getting ready the World Pro and Pan, Davi will spend a spell with the folks at Atos, a team where he has many friends and that he even fought under at the Brazilian Team Nationals.
“I have a good relationship with the folks at Atos. Durinho even encouraged me to compete here. I believe I should be going there in February to brush up on my Jiu-Jitsu,” he says in closing.