Coming off his first loss in nine Octagon appearances, Nova Uniao
standout Leonardo
Santos is excited to make his promotional return on Saturday
against Clay Guida at
UFC
on ESPN 31.
“I’m really motivated for this fight,” Santos said. “Guida is a
legend of the UFC who has already defeated names like Takanori
Gomi, Rafael dos
Anjos and Anthony
Pettis. The guy has almost 60 fights to his credit and despite
being nearly 40 years old — like myself — he is still giving a hard
time to many top talents of the division. It’s gonna be an honor to
share the Octagon with him.”
Santos was in camp with longtime friend and teammate Jose Aldo, who
will fight Fob Font in the UFC on ESPN 31 main event. Santos
revealed that he didn’t spend too much time sparring with the
former featherweight champion.
“Nova Uniao is such a paradise of lightweight fighters,” Santos
said. “Even when we were in close proximity, we needed to face
different styles, so we didn’t spar too much. But from what I could
see, I can tell you Aldo is in great shape, and I believe he will
finish Font before the fifth round.”
Santos uses Aldo’s resurgence in the bantamweight division as
motivation and expects his teammate to return to championship
contention once again in the near future.
“He already reached [the top of the sport]. Aldo doesn’t need to
prove anything to anybody and when I see his hard work and his
everyday evolution, it fires me up,” Santos said. “For everything
I´ve seen from him, I have no doubt Aldo will get the title shot
again.”
Considered the best lightweight in jiu-jitsu for almost 10 years,
Santos has faced the best of three different generations in gi and
no-gi competitions — squaring off against the likes of Royler
Gracie, Marcelo
Garcia, Fernando
Terere and Leonardo
Vieira. In ADCC competition, Santos submitted Georges St.
Pierre with an unbelievable flying armlock in 2001.
“Many people said I was crazy because I could have made much more
money staying in jiu-jitsu, but I’m moved by challenges and doing
MMA was my biggest challenge,” said the 41 year-old pupil of
Andre
Pederneiras.
“At the beginning I was just a one-dimensional jiu-jitsu
fighter but Aldo, B.J. Penn and GSP
helped advise me to be a complete fighter, and I trained hard to
improve my stand-up. Today, I feel comfortable in any area and I’m
going to show that once again against Guida.”
But even with all his evolution in the stand-up game, Santos
doesn’t attempt to disguise the fact that the ground game is his
primary plan for Saturday.
“I´m not going to run from a stand-up fight with Guida, but of
course I won’t miss any opportunity to showcase my skills on the
ground,” he said.
When it comes to the top of the lightweight division, Santos is
cheering for his fellow Brazilian, Charles
Oliveira, to continue his championship reign and earn the most
lucrative matchups possible. Oliveira will face Dustin
Poirier in the UFC 269 main event on Dec. 12.
“Of course Justin
Gaethje is the one who deserves the [next title shot] most, but
I wouldn’t be surprised if [Islam] Makhachev cut the line,”
Santos said. “There is a clear campaign to take him to the belt as
soon as possible. But if you ask me, I’m cheering for Charles to
win and face [Conor] McGregor in his next fight so he can provide a
better future for his family.”