Former Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World
Championships gold medalist Rodolfo
Vieira was one of the biggest favorites at UFC
258.
In the early moments of his bout with Anthony
Hernandez, it looked like all would go as planned, as he took
his foe down and hunted for submissions. Once Hernandez escaped, it
was an entirely different matter. Vieira quickly fatigued, and
Hernandez capitalized with a barrage of power punches.
Vieira made it to Round 2, but Hernandez remained on the offensive,
rocking his foe with a head kick and a pair of standing elbows.
With Vieira fading fast, Hernandez added a shocking punctuation to
his victory by tapping the five-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world
champion with an arm-in guillotine choke at the 1:53 mark of the
period.
“That was one of the fights that we picked to be a great fight and
it was,” UFC president Dana White said at the post-fight press
conference. “Even the commentators were talking about, nobody wants
to come in and fight this guy. Hernandez did. It was what we
thought it was gonna be.”
It wasn’t necessarily what Vieira thought it would be. The
Brazilian released a statement via Instagram after his first career
defeat in eight professional outings. Vieira called it “the worst
day of his life” and was unable to explain why he fatigued so
quickly in the bout.
The full statement from Vieira is as follows (translation via
MMAFighting.com):
“Guys, yesterday was worst day of my life, it was the worst
performance of my life. It was my son’s first time watching me,
even though he’s a baby and he doesn’t understand anything, [it] is
a good thing he didn’t see the beating his dad got LOL. It was also
the first time I fought after my grandmother passed away. She was
one of my biggest fans and watched all of my fights. I wanted to
come out victorious and dedicate it to them!
“Unfortunately, not everything happens as we want. I still don’t
understand why I got so tired so early in the first round. I had
some mistakes that I know what [they] were and I’m sure will be
fixed, but to get tired the way I got, I still can’t understand. I
had a great camp, had the best weight cut so far, everything went
well… but hats off to Anthony for the great win, I do hope he
gets the $50,000 for the ‘Performance of the Night.’
“I know I still have to get evolve a lot in everything, I never hid
that, and train hard every day in search of that evolution. Anyway,
it’s in the past. I just want to thank you all for the messages of
support that you keep sending, you really are unbelievable. I’m
thankful to God, I feel blessed for having the family and friends I
have, and fans that don’t know me but still make me feel so strong
and important and loved by all of you. Thank you from the bottom of
my heart, I love you.”