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Arona is looking for the belt! By Eduardo Alonso 
Brazilian fighter Ricardo Arona impressed all the fighting world with a great showcase of strategy and grappling skills at Abu Dhabi wining both the absolute and his weight division at the event at 2001! However, for his teammates this wasn't much of a surprise since he had already won his weight division at Abu Dhabi on the previous year, and used to show tons of skills at every Jiu Jitsu tournament he fought in! Combining a lot of power with good strategy and great technique, Arona quickly made the transition to NHB, where he found the same success at RINGS in Japan, and rapidly drawing the attention of PRIDE! With people like Mario Sperry helping his career, it didn't take long before Ricardo Arona was finally making his debut at Japan's biggest NHB event, facing the seasoned veteran Guy Mezger at PRIDE 16. Despite being ill he won the fight, and established his name among the contenders for PRIDE's middleweight belt. After some time away from the ring, due to a rib injury suffered at his PRIDE debut, Arona is now finally returning to action against another top fighter, non other than Team Quest's own Dan Henderson! The Abu Dhabi and RINGS champion is eager to fight again, and more importantly has a close eye on Vanderlei Silva's belt! In this interview during Arona's class he shared his expectations for this fight, and his views about the future of his career as FCF continues to get more and more heated for PRIDE 20!FCF: You suffered an injury in your ribs that prevented you from training for a good period of time. How was your recovery? Don't you feel any pain right now? RA: Nowadays I'm feeling 100% recovered! I don't have any problems during training, nor do I have any problems after training! I'm 100% recovered from my rib injury. I stayed almost two months resting, because you can hardly breath correctly when you have a rib injury! But nowadays I'm 100% again! I don't feel any pain, and the recovery was great. FCF: You're finally coming back to PRIDE after your win over Guy Mezger at PRIDE 16. Was it tough to stay away from the ring all that time? RA: Without a doubt it was Eduardo! Because I had two more events to fight in, and I should already have three fights in PRIDE by now! And because of my injury I had to stay away from fighting, and wait till I was fully recovered. So it was tough for me because I wanted to be fighting regularly! But on the other hand, it was good for me because I could improve in other professional aspects that I was still lacking. FCF: Did you get anxious to fight again? RA: Yeah mean, because this time away from fighting is not really good for a fighter. You always have that adrenaline from the moment, so it's always good to be fighting regularly to be very used to this adrenaline and stuff, and to be in rhythm. But like I told you, I believe this time-off was also good for me because I could work and improve in another aspects that I was needing to work on, and now I'm coming back much more complete! FCF: How was your preparation for this fight? RA: For this fight against Dan Henderson I studied his game a lot watching tapes! I have been training a lot of Muay Thai with professor Tonico, and I also have been doing a physical preparation with Marcelinho, who is a great professional from Body Planet academy, who have been doing my physical preparation! Working a lot on my cardio, strength and power! He has been changing a lot my way of fighting, because he has been improving my physical condition and lot, and therefore I'm feeling very prepared! FCF: What about your ground game? Who has been preparing you on the ground? RA: As for the ground game, I have ten years of Jiu Jitsu, and this gives me a great background, so I don't need to have someone to direct my ground training all the time! I can do my "ground game maintenance". What I need is someone to direct my training in Muay Thai, Wrestling and physical preparation. I'm at home on the ground! FCF: How much will you be weighting for this fight? RA: Around 93 or 94KG. This is my regular weight, so there are no problems about it. FCF: A fight between you and Dan Henderson started to be rumored some months ago. What do you think of him as a fighter? RA: Dan Henderson is a very tough fighter in my opinion! A guy that loves to fight as much as I do! We're going to do a great fight for sure! But I have a great expectation to win, because I have been preparing specifically to fight him! So I'm sure I'm going to do a good fight, and I'm sure it's going to be a great fight that everybody is going to like! He is a warrior, and I believe that I can win this fight, but regardless it's going to be a great fight, and that is the most important thing! FCF: What do you expect from this fight? How do you think the fight will unfold? RA: Henderson is a guy that likes to trade standing up, and he also likes to do takedowns from the clinch, because he's a great Greco-Roman wrestler. So I think we're going to trade a lot of punches, and we're also going to trade a lot of positions on the clinch trying to take the other down! I expect it to be a great fight! FCF: In your fight against Mezger you already showed a will to trade during the fight. Are you feeling even more comfortable now to trade punches? RA: For sure! I'm feeling very confident, and I'm sure everything will be all right! I'm very prepared both physically and psychologically. FCF: Who will be flying with you to be in your corner in this fight? RA: There's something very good about this trip, because Mario Sperry, Rogerio Nogueira and myself will be fighting! So we're going with a very big team there to support us! Who's going to be on my corner will probably be Gaviao, who's a friend of us, and Minotauro will also be on my corner supporting us! Since Mario is going to fight and can't be on my corner. FCF: Your friend and manager Mario Sperry is going to be facing Murilo "Ninja" on the same card. What do you expect in this fight between Ninja and Sperry? RA: Look, I'm not saying this because he's my friend, but from what I know about fighting I believe Sperry is going to take him down in the beginning of the fight, and will stay on top striking him, and looking for a finish! I believe Mario is going to take him down, and stay on top doing his ground game! Murilo Ninja also has some ground experience, so I believe this will make things a bit more difficult, but despite that I believe Mario is going to find a submission during the fight. FCF: Do you believe this fight is going to increase even more the rivalry between the Chute Boxe and the Brazilian Top Team? RA: Look man, in fact this is a rivalry created by them. It's a rivalry created by Vanderlei, Rudimar and the people from Chute Boxe. What I have to say about it is that I don't have a special rivalry towards anybody! But they need to know what they want, if they're going to mess with us, there's no problem. I'm here to fight too! Vanderlei, Murilo Ninja, this doesn't hinder me at all. If they want to establish a rivalry, we're going to do it also. But it's not something that we're looking for by any means! But it's something that we will respond too. FCF: You were recently announced as a character at the PRIDE videogame! Did you ever imagine that you could become a videogame character someday? RA: Man! I think this is very cool! (Laughs) I'll tell you something. I'm a 23-year-old guy, but I already have a lot of experience abroad! I already fought a lot, and I worked very hard! So I think I deserve it! I think it's very nice that they're putting my character on the game! I think it's as cool as it can be! And I think I deserve it! (Laughs) FCF: I'm sure that when you were a kid playing videogames you would never dream that you would end up in a game! (Laughs) RA: For sure! I would never imagine it (Laughs) And I'm sure they'll do a great work with the game! These guys are great at what they do! This is very cool! I'm going to see how the game is looking when I get to Japan now! FCF: What are your plans for after this PRIDE event? When do you expect to be fighting for the PRIDE title? RA: Without a doubt! Vanderlei is fighting against Cro Cop now, and this won't be a title fight! And I got very happy with it! So I think the belt is waiting for me! The belt is waiting for me to put it on my waste! I believe this fight against Henderson will decide a lot of things regarding the belt's contenders. At least I hope so! FCF: Do you have any message for your opponents? RA: I only have to say to my opponents that I'm a very professional guy; therefore I have nothing against any of them personally! But I always expect to win my fights, so I'll always give my best! FCF: By the way, is there anyone you would like to fight? RA: Look man, I want to win the belt! So if I can fight Vanderlei to win the belt, I would like to fight him. FCF: How about fighting Sakuraba for instance? RA: I think it would be good, I don't have anything in particular against him, but I would like to fight Sakuraba because he beat a lot of Jiu Jitsu guys, and people started to label him as an "Brazilian exterminator" or "Jiu Jitsu exterminator", and I think this is bullshit, because he never fought someone with my physical attributes, so I think I would do a very different fight with him! I want to fight him to prove that he didn't annul Jiu Jitsu; he just fought against the wrong people. FCF: Talking about "Brazilian exterminators", what did you think of Alex Steibling's T- shirt at PRIDE 19? RA: I thought it was great that he did it because, at least against me, he is going to fight against someone who will be wanting to kill him! Doesn't he act like he wants to kill the Brazilians? So he will find someone who wants to kill him instead! And that's me! So, if he will use this T-shirt to enter the ring to fight me, I'm going to love it! I don't know about the others, but I would love it! FCF: So you would like to fight him? RA: Yeah, because he is messing up with our honor, so he deserves to pay the price! He is very arrogant! I sincerely believe that fate is holding some surprises to this sort of people. FCF: Finally, any final message for your fans? RA: Man, I want to say to my fans that I hope they'll always be supporting me. |
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