Pimenta and Dentinho alongside Carwin and Schaub
Generally speaking, when watching UFC fights, we say a given athlete is either a wrestler, boxer, muay thai boxer, karate stylist… OF course, in MMA these days everyone practices a bit of each martial art and, obviously, Jiu-Jitsu is not left out. That’s why a lot of gentle art black belts have been helping out with the training of MMA fighters, even if said fighters will be facing representatives of that very Jiu-Jitsu.
The man responsible for training beasts like Shane Carwin, Brendan Schaub (Gabriel Napão’s next opponent), Nate Marquardt (Rousimar Toquinho’s next opponent) and Rashad Evans, among others, is Amal Easton, a Renzo Gracie students who has the help of a lot of black belts in performing his job.
“I’ve been here in the United States since the Worlds and Luiz Eduardo Dentinho called me up to come to Denver, where we’re helping Amal to train his crew. This opportunity has been great and we’re training really hard. I’m doing physical conditioning work with them under Jeff Suskin. I’m already weighing 76 kg! We’re teaching at Easton BJJ academy and training MMA at Grabge with all the burly fighters under Amal’s command,” reports Denílson Pimenta, a GFTeam featherweight who is a regular at the top of the winners’ podium of all the main gentle art competitions.
Pimenta and Dentinho with Marquardt
Pimenta had a chance to train with Nate Marquardt, the next opponent of BTT black belt Toquinho in the UFC.
“Nate defends really well on the ground and everyone here has good standup. We’re training defending the foot lock a lot, which is Toquinho’s strength. The guy is really aggressive on his feet and he’ll be hard to face,” he warns. Generally speaking, when watching UFC fights, we say a given athlete is either a wrestler, boxer, muay thai boxer, karate stylist… OF course, in MMA these days everyone practices a bit of each martial art and, obviously, Jiu-Jitsu is not left out. That’s why a lot of gentle art black belts have been helping out with the training of MMA fighters, even if said fighters will be facing representatives of that very Jiu-Jitsu.
Pimenta and Amal Easton