While Rodolfo
Bellato’s comeback victory over Ihor
Potieria at UFC on
ESPN 52 earned him a $50,000 bonus, 2023 didn’t start out so
well for the Brazilian light heavyweight.
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“If someone told me in February that 2023 would be the best year of
my life, I would think it was some kind of [joke]. After all, I had
lost to [Vitor] Petrino in September 2022 and my dream of going to
UFC looked far away,” Bellato told Sherdog.com.
After a pair of victories under the Legacy Fighting Alliance banner
earlier this year, Bellato got a second chance on Dana White’s
Contender Series this past October. This time, he earned a UFC
contract after scoring a technical knockout victory against
Murtaza
Talha Ali.
“A few weeks later, the UFC invited me to debut against Potieria, a
guy who knocked out [Mauricio
Rua] and had twice as many fights as I did. I knew it would be
a war, but I decided that the only way he was going to beat me was
to knock me out,” Bellato said.
Bellato acknowledged that referee Jacob Montalvo played a
significant role in his victory by allowing him to recover when
Potieria had him on the brink of defeat.
“The first thing I did when the fight was over was thank Mr. Jacob
Montalvo,” Bellato said. “He did a great job looking in my eyes the
entire time and allowing me to recover, turn the fight and get the
bonus in my UFC debut.”
Bellato spent more than a month training with Glover
Teixeira and Alex
Pereira in Connecticut ahead of his UFC debut. After that
experience, Bellato disagrees with Alistair
Overeem’s recent assertion that “Poatan” will not be a
long-reigning champion.
“He [Overeem] said that other fighters of the division will find
holes in his game,” Bellato said. “The fact is that he faced the
toughest guys of both divisions, former champions, and they were
not able to find [them]. What I can say is that ‘Poatan’ is such a
badass. The guy is a master in using distance, and [he] punches and
kicks really hard.
“But he is also such a great person who takes care of his sparring
[partners]. He knows how to train without hurting anyone. Also, he
helps you all the time to improve your skills. Spending this time
with him and Glover was such a wonderful experience that I intend
to repeat in my next camp.”
Bellato is in no hurry to choose his next opponent in the UFC’s
light heavyweight division.
“I’m just arriving,” he said. “I’m aware that I need a couple of
more wins before I start to call out ranked guys, but one guy I
really want to fight in the future is Vitor Petrino, who is
responsible for the only two losses on my career. I really hope we
can make that trilogy in the future with the winner getting close
to the title.”