Murilo “Ninja” Rua is one of the most enigmatic characters in the world of MMA, from his days in Pride FC where he became known for his fearless attitude, even fighting at HW when his team needed someone in the HW GP, to winning the Elite XC middleweight title he has exhibited his skills the world over.
Now Ninja finds himself back in the UK where he holds 3-0 record from fighting in these isles. This time he’s in line for a title again, taking on the UK’s Tom “Kong” Watson for his BAMMA middleweight title at BAMMA 6. Watson has stated that he expects his title to remain in the UK and as his star rises with his name being mentioned as a possible UFC prospect he faces a stern test in Ninja who very much wants to take the BAMMA title back to Brazil with him and return to winning ways with an emphatic victory on the 21st May. With that in mind we caught up with the man from Brazil to welcome him back to ask how he plans to remove King Kong from his BAMMA middleweight throne. How does it feel to be fighting in the UK again? it’s been a while since we saw you here with Cage Rage. It feels awesome! I really love the UK, I had great times in the country fighting in Cage Rage, winning all my fights, and also doing seminars. I have good friends in England such as Robbie Olivier and it’s a blast to be able to return to the UK after such a long time. Last time I have been around was in Scotland after my brother’s fight with Coleman at UFC 93. Can’t wait for May 21st! BAMMA are now the top UK promotion, with the demise of EliteXC, the Japanese MMA promotions seemingly in trouble and Strikeforce becoming part of Zuffa, how important do you feel it is to have strong promotions outside the UFC monopoly? I think the UFC is doing a great job for the sport, and in the end, despite the fact that they are fighting for their product they are also growing the cake for everybody! We are achieving things with MMA that were only a dream years ago. With that said, it’s very important to have other big promotions mostly in other countries, and serious promotions! We can’t allow con artists to take over our sport as it happened in other promotions I fought for, we have to work hard and BAMMA is rising in the perfect timing. You’re going to be fighting Tom “Kong” Watson, when we spoke with he he said he thinks you’ll try to take him down, how do you see the fight going? Whenever I fight I give my best in the cage, and I prepare myself to fight in any situations. Tom is a great fighter, but this is MMA. It can be a stand up war, a ground war, or both! You never know until you fight. I go in there with my mind empty and ready to follow the fight as it goes. If you watch my fights you’ll see that I always bring it anywhere, and it’s going to be a great fight. Tom says that his belt “isn’t leaving this country” do you see his having the home country advantage being a factor in the fight? It can be both, an advantage and a responsibility. I’m experience and I’m used to fight Japanese fighters in Japan, American fighters in the U.S., or British fighters in the UK, etc. From my experience after the fight starts, the course of the fight dictates how the crowd goes. I respect the UK fans a lot though, and I’m sure the atmosphere will be great.This fight at BAMMA will be for Tom’s middleweight title, is that your preferred weight these days? It was reported recently that you were intending to stay at light heavyweight. People have this idea that I should fight at light heavy based on the past fights in Pride, but the sport has evolved a lot! Guys are cutting too much weight, and nowadays my walk around weight when I’m training is about 90 kg. I’m more suited for middleweight and even though I can do occasional fights at other weights, this is truly my right weight class. Chute Boxe has always been one of the most feared camps in all MMA, now you run your own training camp with your brother, is it run in the same way? Not exactly the same way, cause as I said, the sport changed a lot. You got to take what was good and add more elements. Being in Chute Boxe was awesome, and it’s our roots. We will always carry that style, and how we learned how to fight and to be a man back there. But training now has to be a bit more modern, include more strategy and other elements.
How is your training for the fight going? Are you doing anything differently to prepare for Watson? Training is going very well. I’m doing my general, training a lot in all areas, and doing work both at UDL and outside of it to improve my game. You were on a 4 fight win streak before you lost last time out to Roy Boughton, he missed weight by a massive 5.5lbs for that fight though, did that play a large factor in the defeat? I don’t like to give excuses. I took the fight, and since we took the fight it wouldn’t be fair to say anything. I didn’t like his attitude and his approach, and believe it or not the local commission said they would suspend my license if I didn’t take the fight with the 20% penalty, as the promoter was willing to go with the fine. I thought that was extremely unfair, but the decision to take the fight was mine and my team’s, so props to Roy. He is a talented kid. Should be fighting more. Your brother sadly lost his UFC title recently, has that affected the mood in the camp? A loss always brings time to think about things and improve. I think it’s a good opportunity to makes us stronger and seek improvements for our team, as this is a young and always evolving sport. Phil Baroni is due to be fighting on the BAMMA 6 card too, you were meant to fight him at one point, is that a fight you can see happening in future? Baroni is also a great fighter and yes, we almost fought each other back in EliteXC. However, now all I care is Tom Watson. I can’t think of anyone else right now, as we got to take this step by step. *BAMMA 6: Live at Wembley Arena, Saturday 21st May. Buy tickets from:
Ticketmaster.co.uk UK FANS: Watch Live Exclusively only on Syfy at 9pm Sky/HD 114, Virgin TV
135 and TalkTalk 22 INTERNATIONAL FANS: Watch on http://bammatv.com/ Interview supplied by HALO PR MMA