Ladies Fight Night Fiasco

Currently on my way to Montana to corner an MMA fight 

How and Why?

Who knows! 

This girl got KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT. 

And I mean that with every ounce of gravity that can possibly be transmitted through capital letters and curse words.

Not only did she get knocked out. It was her second loss to the same girl. In her own gym’s promotion, a promotion known for feeding its fighters with quick wins.

When PRVT left Curitiba Priscila and I both left the team but 

We would still see each other occasionally at the boxing gym 

in my neighborhood. 

Luciana Pereira from the famed Nova Uniao team is a giant. Pleasantries aside (cause let’s keep it real she was always a bitch to me anyway) the girl looks like she’s been guzzling steroids for a couple years. Unfortunately, it didn’t help.

The much shorter, less muscular Priscila Souza ended up taking home the belt after catching Luciana with a wild right hook off. She went down. Hard.

When I went up to congratulate her on the victory she was still hyped up, wiping sweat from her forehead. She had the belt thrown over her shoulder and a bag of something that looked like Funions clutched in her arms, but none of that stopped her from giving me a huge hug when she saw me!

“You need to come to Curitiba!” she said, “Parana can get you a fight for sure!”

I’d met Priscila once when she came up to Rio with her MMA team. She trained at PRVT (Parana Vale Tudo) with Jessica Andrade from the UFC. PRVT is a shit show and that’s another story all in itself. It would be a stretch to say that me and Priscila were friends at that point, so I was shocked at her warm greeting and the fact that even in the height of her victory, she was even thinking about my fighting career in any shape or form.

It was touching and ultimately the reason I decided to leave Nova Uniao where I was training with Claudia Gadelha. It was a hard decision considering Claudia was one of the main reasons I decided to move to Brazil to train, but the fact of the matter was I wanted to fight… and Nova Uniao wasn’t making that happen.

My boxing, Coach, friend Poliana, and Me 

and my first MMA disaster... I mean fight.

I fought one time at Nova Uniao. It was a couple of years ago around Christmas time. It was finals for Claudinha and the middle of her fight camp for her UFC debut… but she managed to find some time to get me a fight. She made all the arrangement, helped me with my training camp, and advised me during my weight cut, all while preparing for her own fight and finishing her last year at college.

One of my first nights living in Curitiba. I stayed in the gym with Priscila 

for awhile. She lived there in the back and eventually brought her two daughters from 

Rio. Like I said the team was a shit show so we eventually all ended up leaving. 

She couldn’t go to my fight to corner me because she had a final, but my other coach from Nova Uniao had no excuse. He bailed on me the day of the fight. So, a couple of hours before my fight I ended up going to the pharmacy to buy tape to wrap my hands and catching a bus out to the middle of friggin’ nowhere.  In the end, Claudinha managed to get my boxing coach and another teammate to show up for me. but I was blown. Nova Uniao is like that. They’re a factory and they give zero fucks about their fighters.

Random places in Curitiba where I spent a lot of random time. 

So last week, I’m a work…  Like real work, like after 6 months of fucking around I actually have a real job… So I’m at work and I get a message.

“Yo I’m coming to the U.S. to fight. My visa got approved. If my coach can’t go you’re going to go to corner me”

Then  

“Ok what’s your full name. You’re going!”

I was shocked to say the least but this kind of last minute, drop everything and run stuff happens all the time in Rio.

Claudinha apparently got her this fight.

And when the promotor tried to tell Priscila that they couldn’t change the plane ticket and she would have to go alone… Claudinha raised hell.

Training with Claudinha and Master Claudio

So now, I’ll be working till 9. Running home to grab my trusty red suitcase, catching a bus to Jersey at 11 and then getting picked up in the morning by Claudinha and then taken to the airport to fly out with Priscila.

Priscila will be fighting Roxanne Modaferri who is one of the veterans of women's MMA. She was on the ultimate fighter and is currently signed with Invicta (I think).