Coming off three consecutive victories, Gregory
Rodrigues has already arrived in Las Vegas to headline his
first UFC card against Jared
Cannonier at the UFC Apex.
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“The camp couldn’t be better,” Rodrigues told Sherdog.com. “I
arrived in Las Vegas Monday night with Vicente
Luque and my boxing coach, Dietter
Navarro. Tonight [Gilbert
Burns] is coming and tomorrow, Henri [Hooft]. Now I´m 100%
focused on the weight cut and recovering even better.”
The Brazilian known as “Robocop” theorized as to why he received
such a prominent name despite not being in the UFC’s middleweight
rankings.
“I think the UFC likes to recognize hard workers,” he said. “After
I accepted a short-notice call to face Leroy Duncan in Manchester,
they offered me Ikram
Aliskerov in December. I said yes, but he refused. I asked for
[Paulo
Costa], but he didn’t want the fight. Then they offered
Roman
Dolidze. I accepted; he didn’t. When the UFC came up with
Cannonier, who has already been part of five main events, I
couldn’t think of any better recognition for my hard work.”
Rodrigues is optimistic as he prepares to face the toughest test of
his career to date.
“Cannonier deserves all respect,” Rodrigues said. “This guy already
fought in three diferent divisions and faced champions like
Anderson
Silva, Glover
Teixeira, Jan
Blachowicz, Robert
Whittaker and Israel
Adesanya. But I believe he is naturally paying a price for all
those wars and of course, he is 40 years old. I’m prepared for a
five-round war against the best version of Cannonier, but of course
my goal is to knock him out or submit before that.”
Rodrigues also talked about the importance of sparring with some of
the top talents at welterweight and light heavyweight recently.
“The secret to evolution is to never stay in your comfort zone,” he
said. “Last year I trained with Glover and [Alex
Pereira]. It was such a great experience for me. In my own
academy I have names like ‘Durinho,’ [Shavkat] Rakmonov,
[Nassourdine] Imavov. When I train jiu-jitsu with my coach,
Vagner
Rocha, I [also] train with [Antonio
Carlos Jr. and Marcus
Almeida]. When you face challenges of that level every day, you
have no reason to fear any opponent.”