The Brazilian Beat
Brazilian Top Team ready for action, Busta ready for Hendo, Brazil ready for another wave of MMA shows and Belfort ready for TV!

The Brazilian Beat:
      We're sailing through the year of 2004 and as we enter the month of July the second half of our run has already started. As one might guess, all the focus in Brazil is now geared towards Pride Bushido 4, mostly on the Brazilian Top Team camp as the team is having an extremely busy period, with almost all of their professional fighters competing in shows everywhere. Well, since the very end of May BTT had two fighters at Jungle Fight 2, two fighters at Meca 11, two fighters at the last Pride show, five fighters at Gladiator FC in Korea and will now feature four fighters at Pride Bushido 4! Pretty impressive if you ask me, and with Rodrigo Minotauro preparing for his tough task ahead at the final leg of the Pride Heavyweight GP, training is going berserk in the academy. Because of that, most of this column is dedicated to news regarding the Brazilian Top Team, as lots of things are taking place in Rio de Janeiro. However, this is not all, winter has brought more than cold for Brazil as plenty of minor MMA shows are giving fighters a chance to keep active, and, as always, we'll report on that and a bit more, so pick-up your blanket and fight the cold of the strange Brazilian winter as FCF warms things up with a melodious Beat straight from Brazil!
  • The Brazilian Top Team headquarters are totally busy right now with Pride Bushido 4 coming up, featuring the BTT vs. Japan challenge. Four members of the team will be competing, as Paulo Filho and Rogerio "Minotoro" Nogueira are both coming from wins in Korea and giving rematches at Bushido to Akira Shoji and Kazuhiro Nakamura. His teammates Luis Firmino "Buscape", a veteran of M-1 in Russia, and Fabio Mello, a veteran of Deep in Japan, will be making their Pride debuts completing the BTT team in the show. Training is going strong in the academy and hopes are high for a great outing from all fighters and mostly eagerly awaiting the Pride debut of "Buscape" as he has been unstoppable at his weight in Brazil and is bound to make some noise in Japan.

  • Contrary to recent Internet rumors, former UFC champion Murilo Bustamante won't be taking part at Pride Bushido 4 fighting against Japanese star Hayato Sakurai. Word has that this fighting won't take place and is nothing but a rumor. Bustamante is, however, helping his team preparation for the show and starting his own preparation for a rematch against Team Quest's own Dan Henderson, at the August Pride show. Although it's not official yet, chances are very high that this match-up is going to take place.

  • Staying on the BTT subject, Brazilian Top Team fighter Fabio Mello will have a tough task as red and hot Takanori Gomi will be standing on the other corner at this Pride debut. Meca 11 winner Milton Vieira was cogitated as Gomi's opponent, and due to weight reasons was the favorite on the BTT camp to take this task. However, DSE liked the idea of having Mello against Gomi better, and some are concerned about the weight difference between the two fighters. But since everything in life has its positive side, word has that Mello got a two fight deal with DSE so despite the outcome of his fight against Gomi he will return to the Pride ring. Also, if both Gomi and "Buscape" both win their fights, there's a big chance that a fight between the two will be promoted by Pride in the near future.

  • In the middle of his likely future training with the Chute Boxe team, Jungle Fight veteran Fabricio Werdum is reported to have closed a deal with Pride to fight in the Japanese event up until the year of 2007, in a multiple fights deal. With this opportunity appearing it's not clear at this point whether he will eventually go to Chute Boxe to train or not, either way word also has that he will be training with Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic in Croatia this coming September, where he will help the striker in his ground training and try to improve his own Muay Thai. Brazilian press also reported that Fabricio's likely Pride debut will be on December of 2004.

  • This last Saturday June 26th, another minor fighting show took place in Brazil giving chance for fighters who are looking for their breakthrough to advance in their careers. Entitle KK Best Strikers, the show took place on the small city of Santa Isabel, located in the state of Sao Paulo, the show featured Muay Thai bouts as well as four MMA fights, including Meca veteran Rodrigo Riscado, from Nova Uniao, who was the stand out in the show taking quick work of Mario Dias, who clearly wasn't used to ground fighting, scoring a rear naked choke in less than a minute into the fight. Here are the results from the MMA fights:

    Rodrigo Ruiz defeated Leandro Nascmiento by judges' decisionGustavo "PC" defeated Mauro "Xuxa" Ximenes by forfeit in the 1st roundRodrigo "Riscado" defeated Mario Dias by rear naked choke in the 1st roundRicardo "Rato" defeated Paulo Sergio Lage by forfeit in the 1st round

  • Yet one more minor MMA Brazilian show will take place this weekend, as former Brazilian Top Team member Luis Brito will bring his Profight FC to its second edition. Once again the show will take place in the city of Porto Alegre, on the south of Brazil, this Saturday July 3rd. The event will feature Submission Wrestling bouts, Muay Thai fights and four MMA matches to complete the card. One interesting point of the card will be the participation of Meca winner Alessandro Custodio, who has been absent from the rings for a while and will fight against Carlos Aveline.

  • A long time after his MMA show called Heroes, Master Carlson Gracie is back into promoting as he, alongside with a group of professionals, prepares to launch Real Fight, a new MMA event to take place in the city of Rio de Janeiro, this coming July 30th. Although the card is still in the works, the main event will likely be fought between Meca 7 winner Rodrigo "Riscado" against UFC veteran Alexandre "Cafe" Dantas. Names such as Roan Carneiro and Marcelo Grilo from the BTT are rumored to be on the card.

  • Well, with this wave of events taking place during Brazilian winter, the Northeast of the country couldn't be an exception as the region is finally growing in terms of MMA ever since Bitetti Combat and later HEAT FC changed the scene there forever. This coming July 29th, Natal will show once again that it countinues to be the capital of fighting sports in the Northeast of Brazil with Brazilian Challenger making its debut! Promoted by Conrado Carlos, one of the HEAT FC promoters, the show will feature a Tournament format, with eight men battling for the title in the up to 80 kg division. According to Conrado the idea for the show is to give another chance to veterans of shows such as Bitetti Combat or HEAT FC that didn't manage to break through in their careers yet. Names such as Bitetti Combat veteran Rivanio Aranha and HEAT FC veteran Sergio Junior will be taking part on the tournament, where the champion will have to win three fights in one night to be crowned.

  • A lot of talk has been made about whether former Chute Boxe fighter Anderson Silva will be heading to the Brazilian Top Team after his win over Jeremy Horn in Korea or not, since he wore the team's t shirt for this fight. However, despite any talks at this point Anderson Silva isn't a BTT member. Brazilian Top Team's own Mario Sperry explained that the T shirt Anderson wore was a matter of a sponsor's request, as well as a way for the fighter to show his appreciation for the help the team from Rio de Janeiro gave him. It's no secret at this point that Anderson Silva is now a close friend of Rodrigo Minotauro Nogueira, and in a recent interview to the Brazilian press Silva stated that as of now he doesn't represent any team anymore, not even Muay Thai Dream Team, and joining BTT in the future wouldn't be impossible. Time will tell.

  • On the other hand Alexandre "Cacareco" is now officially a Brazilian Top Team member. After "Cacareco" suddenly left Gracie Barra Combat Team with no further explanations and went straight to train at the BTT headquarters, much to most people's surprise, discussions went on whether he would be part of the team or not. Time went on and now the Brazilian Wrestler is part of the team and is training regularly at the Brazilian Top Team's camp, looking for fights under their banner in the near future. FCF had an article on the free agency era in Brazilian MMA recently, and this writer is already thinking about writing part two of that article.

  • It's about to turn six months since Priscila Belfort, Vitor Belfort sister, disappeared and still no clue has been found. This week a Brazilian TV show gave once again hopes of finding her as a girl that looked like here was brought to an hospital after being found on the streets. This caused confusion even in some Internet MMA forums, but in the end the girl wasn't Priscila and police is back on the hunt again. Meanwhile "The Phenom" keeps on training on the USA for his third fight ever against Randy Couture in the UFC, and word in Brazil has that he is negotiating with a Mainstream Brazilian TV channel to have his own show on TV! Apparently Vitor already presented a project to the channel and is waiting on their answer. His wife, Joana Prado, used to work for the same channel what likely gives them good contacts and advantages on making the deal go through. No details where presented, but everything leads to believe the TV show would be something fighting-related.