Prominent Brazilian manager Jorge Guimaraes has a lot of irons in
the fire, ranging from those in the Ultimate Fighting Championship to Bellator MMA.
With five fighters competing for belts in the UFC and Bellator in
the next three months, “Joinha” Guimaraes has quite a full dance
card. His first of those will spring into action on Saturday, when
Patricio
Freire looks to defend his 145-pound title against Adam Borics
in the main event of
Bellator 286. Guimaraes spoke to Sherdog about this fight and
several others that are coming down the line for his athletes.
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“Patricio made a perfect camp for this fight. No injuries at all,”
“Joinha” explained. “Besides being a great striker, Borics also
improved his wrestling and ground skills [at] Sanford MMA, but [the
experience of] ‘Pitbull’ will be the turning point for him to
return to Brazil with his belt.”
After Freire defends the strap, Guimaraes will need to help prepare
Alex
Pereira for his battle with Israel
Adesanya in New York. “Poatan” will fight for the UFC
middleweight crown on Nov. 12 at UFC
281.
“I was talking to him last week, what an ironic destiny. The title
fight will be in [Madison Square Garden], the same place where he
made his UFC debut one year ago. [It] will be the stage for the
most important fight of his life. ‘Poatan’ is sharper than ever, I
just don’t believe this fight going five rounds.”
For this particular camp, Guimaraes is helping facilitate Pereira’s
camp with reinforcements. Dutch striker Yousri
Belgaroui will be arriving in October to help the Brazilian
ahead of his fight with Adesanya. Belgaroui, a former top-ranked
middleweight in kickboxing, has faced Pereira three times in the
ring, winning once. In addition, the former Glory kickboxing title
challenger has fought Adesanya on multiple occasions.
“This guy is striking powerhouse,” Guimaraes said. “He fought three
times with Pereira, and in 2016, he fought twice with Adesanya. He
will be really valuable in this camp.”
Following this event, Guimaraes will travel from New York to
Chicago. Just one week later, Patricky
Freire will be putting his belt when the lightweight Champion
will put his crown on the line against unbeaten Usman
Nurmagomedov at
Bellator 288.
“There were a lot of people saying bulls— about his brother
[handing] the title shot to him. Patricky wants to shut those
mouths, and he is training really hard to do so. Unlike his cousin,
Usman
Nurmagomedov is more of a striker than grappler. The kid is
definitely tough, but I have no doubt, he never faced a strong
puncher with such knockout power as Patricky,” the noted manager
who also had all-time great Anderson
Silva in his stable in the past.
A mere two weeks after that event, “Joinha” will travel to
Connecticut for
Bellator 289 on Dec. 9. In that event, former champ Juliana
Velasquez will rematch Liz
Carmouche for the flyweight throne.
“She is training harder than ever to prove the mistake Mike Beltran
committed in the first fight,” Guimaraes stated. “That was such an
absurd [call].”
The roughly three-month whirlwind trip of Guimaraes, one he refers
to as his “belt journey,” does not have a formal date of its
conclusion yet. While former beltholder Glover
Teixeira is expected to square off with champ Jiri
Prochazka for the second time at
UFC 282, the pairing is still not official.
“That one we didn’t get the 100% confirmation of UFC yet, we are
still trying to bring that to UFC Rio in January, but Jiri is
avoiding it. Glover is really anxious to have the date and stage
decided, once he already started his camp,” Guimaraes
concluded.