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Nino Schembri makes his return to BJJ competition this weekend By Eduardo Alonso In the past five years Nino "Elvis" Schembri has been dedicating himself exclusively to MMA competitions. His MMA career started with promising wins, defeating names like Johil de Oliveira, Daiju Takase and even Kazushi Sakuraba in his first three bouts, but later started to face a tough road, suffering a streak of losses -- one of which was in a rematch against Sakuraba himself, and most recently against Olympic silver medallist wrestler Matt Lindland. People say that sometimes when things are tough it's wise to go back to your roots, and that's what Schembri did as he got his gi back again, and trained as hard as ever to make his much anticipated comeback to jiu-jitsu competition, where he is considered by many one of the most impressive athletes ever to compete in the "gentle art," and has captured many fans all over the world due to his exciting style that's always in search of submissions. Since his early Gracie Barra days, jiu-jitsu, gave Nino his excellent reputation, a number of titles that even included the same BJJ world championship he is heading back to again, and now, only two days before facing an intriguing challenge of seeing where he will stand right now, against competition such as World Champions Marcelo Garcia and Andre Galvao, after such a long hiatus from his gi in tournaments, the biggest fan of Elvis Presley in fighting sports, and one of those responsible for the ground game of the Chute Boxe team, took some time to speak with Full Contact Fighter in a very honest interview about what was behind his return to BJJ, his plans for the future and his views about MMA and the path that his career has taken and will take in the years to come, enjoy! FCF: Okay, let's start the interview... Schembri: Let's go Eduardo! You can start it brother, I'm not Ronaldinho [famous Brazilian soccer player] but I'm Nino Schembri! [Laughs] FCF: [Laughs], that's good enough! You have been away from jiu-jitsu competitions for quite a while, only dedicating yourself to MMA in the last few years. What have made you come back to jiu-jitsu tournaments now? NS: Man, I'm coming back to gi competitions even to test myself, as I think there are some great names competing nowadays, mostly at my weight, as I think that Andre Galvao and Marcelo Garcia are two phenoms. So this has been motivating me a lot to want to compete, and to find out if I'm still a top player in this weight class. I'm going to give my best to prove that I'm still a top player. I don't know if I'll win, but I'll go to try to submit everybody, to give my best and despite the fact that I may win or not, I intend to be among the top at my weight class. FCF: Do you think it's tough to train at high level for both, jiu-jitsu and MMA competitions at the same time, or is it possible? NS: Look Eduardo, I had this view that it was possible to do both at the same time, but in my case I stopped for three months now to just dedicate myself to jiu-jitsu. I thought I was well trained, but in fact I realized I wasn't as trained as I was in the past. As a matter of fact, only now I believe I'm as trained as I was in my days, when I was 20 years old... Oh, my twenties! [Laughs]. But what I want to say is that, jiu-jitsu is a very technical sport. Mostly nowadays, with the competition level increased a lot, as I have been seeing. So I took three months of lots of dedication to be able to comeback to my old level, or at least get close to it, and I think I'm at a very good level right now even because of the weight, as I lost a lot of weight, weighing 80 kg right now! I lost 12 kg and I'm in great shape, as I think now I reached my best shape again. FCF: Do you think there is also difference in preparing for jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling, or in that case it is about the same? NS: I don't see any differences personally in that case. Like, if I had to compete at submission wrestling this Saturday, I would fight without any problems. I always had an easy time adapting to submission wrestling, so for me it's about the same. It's even strange ‘cause there are a lot of people that feel some problems when they put the gi back on, or take the gi out. I don't have this kind of problem, I'm always tranquil in that sense. I felt some difficulties adapting again from MMA to jiu-jitsu, even because of the weight Eduardo. Cause in MMA I was fighting in a weight class where I didn't belong, and in jiu-jitsu I won't compete at the weight I was fighting at in MMA. In the future I intend to also fight around my real weight, such as 77 kg, or 80 kg as I'm now, in MMA. I believe the level of competition in MMA right now is turning very high, much like boxing. As you see, every top Boxer loses around 5 or 6 kg to fight, so unfortunately I think I was fighting at a wrong weight class in MMA, fighting at 86 or even 90 kg. I still intend to fight in MMA in the future, but at my real weight. FCF: You are considered by many a jiu-jitsu icon, with many titles in your resume and being considered one of the most technical athletes ever with the gi on. Are you feeling a lot of pressure to do well in your comeback? NS: There's a lot of pressure. In Curitiba everybody is talking about that, the same goes for the internet, and when I got here in Rio de Janeiro all my friends are talking about my return. So there's always a lot of pressure, even because of my jiu-jitsu style that's always looking for a submission. I always fight trying to finish the fight in jiu-jitsu, like a Boxer that is always going for the KO. Through the years, being competing for around 15 years, I acquired a lot of experience, and it's funny cause with my five year absence from jiu-jitsu competitions I thought I was getting old. Being 32 years old I thought I had lost my old speed, but I found out that this wasn't the fact, it was a matter with my weight! I was at 90 kg, 92 kg, and I always competed at 78 kg, so now as I dropped weight again I'm feeling as in the old days. Another thing that motivated me a lot, is that I like to watch a lot of Surfing. I surf as well, not so well by the way [Laughs], but I have Kelly Slater as one of my idols in sports. The guy is the best Surfer of all time, and got his 7th world title, is in the run for his 8th title now, at 34 years of age! This week I bought a DVD from him, and he is owning all the 20 year old kids, having peaked at 34 years old! So I came to the conclusion that I'm not old, I was just lacking motivation and now I'm motivated and hopefully I'll do a good showing this Saturday. FCF: In your weight class, there are names like Marcelo Garcia and Andre Galvao, who are standing out right now. Do you think they are the toughest opponents you will face, or we can also see some surprises? Also, do you think jiu-jitsu changed considerably technically since you last competed? NS: Look Eduardo, it's always possible to have some surprises, even cause I haven't been following many jiu-jitsu tournaments, and usually I watch some matches from Marcelo Garcia and Andre Galvao, who are the bigger names. But I believe that everybody that competes at the BJJ world championship are top players! It's the same as in Pride, everybody that comes to that level won't be a complete bum. Even if the guy loses, you know he is not that bad. So I mentioned Marcelo Garcia and Andre Galvao because they have been standing out right now, but others can appear as well. FCF: Do you think jiu-jitsu changed considerably technically since you last competed? NS: I think the level of competition evolved a lot in terms of physical conditioning and speed. jiu-jitsu had a lot of stalling in the past, it still has some stalled fights nowadays, but I think the level of competition is better now cause it's more dynamic. I think this is even better, because a lot of people would complain that they don't like to watch jiu-jitsu cause is boring, with one guy on top of the other and nothing happening, and we know that it was true. Nowadays, although this still happens, it happens less, cause people are stronger, more fit and more flexible now, so the pace changed. FCF: If not this time, but in the near future, do you intend on competing on the absolute weight class as well? NS: At first I'll dedicate only to my weight class, and see how it goes. Without willing to be humble, I want to check out if I'm still at the top of my weight class. I believe I'm still am, and surely I'll try it all to prove that. In the future, if things improve, I intend to fight above my weight as well, but not in tournaments with absolute divisions where you need to fight 10 fights at the absolute division, even ‘cause I don't think I have the physical tools to do it anymore, as the sport evolved. However, I intend to fight above my weight class in single fights, special matches and the likes. I want to compete in special submission wrestling and jiu-jitsu matches both at my weight and above my weight, and I believe that I'm still going to submit a lot of big dudes [Laughs]. I can lose some, of course, but I think I'll get some arms of big guys every now and then. FCF: You have been teaching jiu-jitsu in the city of Curitiba for a while, and are one of the people responsible for the ground training at the Chute Boxe academy. What was it like to change from the class- teaching routine, to actually training for a top-notch competition? NS: At first I liked to change my routine a bit Eduardo. I love teaching classes, but of course sometimes it gets you bored a bit, but it's pleasant and I feel I'm a good teacher, and this will be my profession for the rest of my life. As I started to train hard again, during this past three months, I began to get stressed cause I was training a lot. I wasn't at the same shape regarding my grip, and as I like to do a lot of guard work, I feel my body wasn't adapting to the speed I used to had. I feel I only got back to my old speed recently. I think I suffered a bit with this drastic change of pace and routine, even because of the dynamic style of my jiu-jitsu. I'm in shape now, thank God, but it was extremely tough in the first two months. FCF: Speaking of Chute Boxe and jiu-jitsu, when you first got there did the grappling level of the athletes surprised you in any way, and who do you think are the best ground fighters from the famous MMA athletes in the team? NS: When I got there everybody was very tough already. People from Rio or Sao Paulo use to think that their ground game isn't good, but people are very wrong! Even my brother, who's also a jiu-jitsu black belt, and stopped by to do some training with us in Curitiba last year, and he got impressed with them both with, and without the gi. Of course, it isn't a prime academy for jiu-jitsu, as let's say Barra Gracie, which is the best jiu-jitsu academy in the world. Still, it's an academy with a lot of good talents in jiu-jitsu, and they have been forming some good champions now at purple belt, blue belt and now at Cristiano Marcelo's class there are days when we have 10 jiu-jitsu black belts training at once! When I got there it was already some very good jiu-jitsu, and after that I believe it has evolved a lot as well, not because of me, but because of everybody! Cause there's Luis Azeredo, Jorge Macaco, Gabriel Napao goes there sometimes, there's Mauricio Shogun, Murilo Ninja, Master Rafael Cordeiro, Wanderlei Silva and others, and it's a big exchange of information, as no one there envy anyone, at least I don't have any, and everybody want to help each other out, making it like a MMA university, and I think the jiu-jitsu there is very good. FCF: Do you still plan on competing at MMA again, as you briefly mentioned earlier, or will you stick mainly to grappling from now on? NS: I'm focusing at jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling right now, and you know it very well Eduardo, when you start to lose a lot of MMA fights in a row, your price goes low, and so low, that it started not to be worth it for me to fight MMA. So I'll focus on jiu-jitsu to teach classes, seminars and compete in tournaments and special matches where they have some good purses sometimes as well. But I don't intend to forget all about MMA man, even though cause I think I still have a lot to do in this sport. But as I told you, closer to my natural weight class, either at 77kg or even at 73kg, cause with the weigh-ins being one day before the fight, I can make 73kg easily, even much more esily to make 77kg. What is tough is to fight against an 84 kg guy who's cutting from 90kg. The sport has evolved and has changed, it's not like in the '70's where you would do a stomp, take the guy down and submit him. It turned like boxing, where fighters don't give one pound away to their opponent, otherwise there's no fight! I believe it's turning the same as boxing and other sports, I believe technique is all about the same everywhere right now, and what’s counting now is the weight, the heart, guts and conditioning. So, I'll focus in jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling, but as I'm still young I think I can still do a lot in MMA as well. FCF: You were once chosen as the most techincal athlete in the Abu Dhabi submission wrestling World Championship. Do you plan on returning to the show and competing there? NS: I was even going to talk about that Eduardo! I'm the only athlete that have been chosen as the most technical in Abu Dhabi without having won the championship at that edition. It has never happened before or after. I finished at 3rd place, and still was chosen as the most technical, and once again I didn't fight at my weight. I fought two Abu Dhabi editions, and both times I fought out of weight. One time I fought up to 99kg, as they gave me the chance at the last minute, when a guy said "Do you wanna fight at this weight class?" and I said "Of course! I'll even fight a Lion if I have to!" [Laughs]. In the second time, when I was considered the most technical athlete of the entire tournament, I fought up to 88kg, also out of my weight, which would be up to 77kg. It was ok, as at my weight there were Renzo Gracie and Marcio Feitosa, so I went to the heavier class at up to 88kg. So what can I say? I never competed at my own weight class in Abu Dhabi, and of course I intend to fight again in Abu Dhabi if they give me this opportunity, but man, I would really like to have the opportunity to fight at my own weight class if possible! It's the most important ground fighting championship in the world, and I only had the opportunity to be in it twice, and always fighting above my weight. I think this is something that is missing in my career, and I'm trying to take better care of it now. FCF: There's always endless comments about training with Rickson Gracie, and that subject was brought up again as BTT member Paulo Filho had a chance to recently train with him and got very impressed, so I take this chance to ask you. Have you had a chance to train with him, and what do you think of his legendary skills in jiu-jitsu? NS: Look man, I think he is the man, even because of all he already has done in the sport. He trained with Paulo Filho recently and Paulo said some great things about him, so we can only say he is a phenom. I only trained with him in '92, and I was a blue belt, so I can't even imagine how it would be to train with him now. But from what I saw then, he was submitting everybody there, and I thought his jiu-jitsu was truly fantastic. I have him as an Idol, and don't even know or imagine how it would be to train with him nowadays. I think he is great, even because of his age, being almost 50 years old, and still in great shape, very technical and very strong. Everybody has to respect the master, and he is an excellent master! FCF: Speaking of the Gracie family, since you came from their school, what about Roger Gracie? Do you think he is really a phenom? NS: Man, I think he is a phenom! For one to reach the level he has reached... He is fast, strong, and mostly he has a very good mindset. He is calm, and he is huge! He is very tall, he could be a Basketball player if he wanted to. So, a guy that's technical, fast, flexible and strong, with that height, and his level of technique, man! He is surely a phenom, as you can see that he has been submitting everybody! I think he is the man right now, and he is the man to be beaten. FCF: Any final messages for your fans that were anxious for your return to jiu-jitsu? NS: I want to say that I'm going to give my best, and I'm not putting pressure on myself. I'm going there to win, but I'm going there relaxed, to have fun and try to finish people, which is my intention. I want to say that Elvis is still alive brother, and Elvis is coming! But Elvis is coming without sideburns this time... I shaved my sideburns, do you believe Eduardo? FCF: [Laughs] Really? That won't affect your power I hope! NS: But Elvis will go without sideburns, but he is still alive, ready and strong, and more flexible than ever! FCF: That's the spirit, good luck in the tournament and thanks for the interview! NS: Thanks Eduardo. |
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