Cigano with Minotauro in photo by Josh Hedges.
In São Paulo, Brazil, Rodrigo Minotauro recovers from surgery on an injured knee, one of the injuries that pulled him from his scheduled fight against Frank Mir at UFC 119. The other injury was to his hip, although a less serious one. He did, however, need to operate the hip in the USA, and he is only predicted to return to training in five months.
But despite his time on ice, the black belt is still keen on the goings-on in the world of MMA. On the UFC specifically, he is not suprised about Cain Velasquez’s authoritative knockout over Brock Lesnar in winning the heavyweight belt.
“I’d have been surprised if the fight had gone into the second round. Lesnar had a really rough time in his previous fight, against Shane Carwin. He got hurt and suffered. After that, getting back to hard training takes time and he didn’t have that much time to recover and be ready to fight a guy like Cain,” remarks Minotauro to GRACIEMAG.com.
Rodrigo explains that, in his opinion, it was an unevenly balanced matchup.
“Brock’s biggest strength is his wrestling, and Cain is better at that than he is. Brock doesn’t kick and Cain has better hands, as he does ground and pound. But I think the thing that did the trick was that Cain was better at what Lesnar does best. Their games don’t match up.
Minota during physiotherapy session. Photo: publicity.
Cain’s opponent for his firs title defense is Junior Cigano, Minotauro’s training partner.
“Cigano will be ready, but he has to ramp things up. If he can keep his distance, he can knock the guy out. We’re going to bring that belt to Brazil,” he bets.
“We’re going to put together a really solid camp. I’m going to help in any way I can and we’ll count on Maldonado, Anderson, Feijão… We’ll all have just one objective: Junior Cigano! The guy’s going to be champion!” he adds
Minota sports gi at new academy. Photo: publicity.
Aside from his teammate’s impending title fight, Rodrigo celebrates the inauguration of his new academy, in San Diego
“The team needed a base in the USA. We have black house, but there’s only training for us there when everyone gets together there; it’s not a daily thing. We have several trainers, the floor room is equivalent to four mat areas, surrounded by fending, and we already have one hundred students after just one month. That’s where Cigano is going to hold his camp. We’re all really excited because we’ll receive not just the athletes from my team, but the folks from Black House, as well. José Aldo, when he wants, will train there,” he says in closing.