Giovanni prepares for title-fight rematch. Photo: Carlos Ozorio
The next Shooto Brazil event is coming up March 19. Among the attractions will be the lightweight title fight between Giovanni Diniz and Paulo Bananada. As well as his vocation as fighter, Giovanni is the boxing coach for team Nova União. Besides being a title fight, further interest to the fight is added for it being a rematch of a bout with a contentious outcome from the past.
“I’m bothered by it. I won that fight fair and square. He things he won because of a strike that I don’t even think counts, making my nose bleed. I think it was an involuntary head butt. Aside from that, he never had the advantage and, even if he did at some point, I won at least two of the three rounds. The only thing he did was clinch me, and that doesn’t win a fight,” remarks Giovanni.
“I have high expectations and am training a lot. I’ve been working on my boxing, working a lot on my ground game, where I feel I had some weaknesses in my last fight against him. I’ve got weapons to surprise him, just as I know he has been working to surprise me. I’m confident and I’m going to win again,” he adds.
A pugilist form Nobre Arte boxing academy, the fighter also sports his gi in Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, as Diniz explains:
“It gives me greater confidence, because the Jiu-Jitsu guys have a lot of weapons and we get to know them at championships. At tournaments we get in all kinds of sticky situations and that helps in MMA. That’s why I always look to participate in Jiu-Jitsu events, just as there are guys from Jiu-Jitsu participating in boxing and muay thai events,” he says in closing.