Barral made it past 2009's absolute champion, Tarsis Humphreys, by a score of 5 to 2. “It was a tough fight,” said the winner. Photo: Luca Atalla.
Rômulo Barral dropped out of the absolute in the semifinal, leaving the way open for Rodolfo Vieira to face Rubens Charles “Cobrinha” in the final.
From the home of “local hero” José Junior, as he calls the friend who put him up, the Gracie Barra star spoke with GRACIEMAG.com about his return after a serious knee injury.
“Returning is the easy part, the hard part is getting your confidence back,” he began. “The truth is that I’m still not 100% yet. I wasn’t even going to enter the absolute, but the gang urged me on. I thought twice. . . I thought a thousand times about it before entering the absolute, but it worked out fine. I felt a bit of pain after the quarterfinal with Tarsis; that’s why I decided to pull out and not put my recovery at risk. It’s no big deal, but I’m in the process of returning,” said Barral, to then vent.
“I know there’s a lot of folks saying Barral’s not the same anymore, but the World’s will be the proof that Barral’s back. My focus is the Worlds, in early June. I’m still getting my confidence back, and even so I’m not lagging that much – I beat a lot of tough guys, like Tarsis, Guto Campos, and Eduardo Português. But I’ll be mentally and physically 100% in California. You can expect a rock,” he said in conclusion.