Glover Teixeira helped Alex Pereira adapt to mixed martial arts in his full-time transition from kickboxing to MMA and maybe win his third UFC title later this month at the White House, and \u201cPoatan\u201d will then return the favor training Teixeira for his boxing debut.<\/p>\n
Teixeira will enter the squared circle on Aug. 29 to headline Spaten Fight Night 3 against UFC Hall of Famer and ex-champion Mauricio \u201cShogun\u201d Rua in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Pereira is a crucial part of his camp even though they no longer train as they used to when Teixeira was still an active UFC fighter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe train very lightly these days,\u201d Teixeira told MMA Fighting. \u201cBack in the day, I used to train hard with him. After I retired, I started helping him more from the coaching side. Sometimes I\u2019ll have someone grapple with him and then in the final minute I\u2019ll jump in and do some boxing with him, work on entries and things like that. But his vision, his striking, the way he approaches a fight, the feints he uses, it\u2019s all high-level. He has an incredibly high fight IQ and I\u2019m learning a lot from him. Now that I\u2019m boxing, I\u2019ll get the chance to apply some of those lessons. Right now, we\u2019re 100 percent focused on him, and after that I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll be giving me advice and helping me out as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
A former middleweight and light heavyweight champion, \u201cPoatan\u201d will co-headline UFC White House versus Ciryl Gane, a battle for the interim heavyweight strap, and Teixeira said the perfect scenario is a knockout victory for both.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the goal. That\u2019s the focus,\u201d Teixeira said. \u201cI came here to put on a great fight. I really believe in it. \u2018Poatan\u2019 is extremely well prepared. We just have to take care of the details and execute the perfect training camp. You know when you say, \u2018The cake is ready. We just have to wait for that golden crust on top, make sure it doesn\u2019t overcook, and then enjoy the result\u2019? That\u2019s where we are. And I\u2019m the same way. I\u2019m going forward. I\u2019m training with joy, I\u2019m really happy, and we\u2019re going after the knockout.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teixeira said the idea to make his boxing debut was first mentioned over a dinner in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, back in January. Weeks later, Spaten Fight Night came back with the offer to book a match with Rua and Teixeira felt \u201cas happy as I was when I made my UFC debut.\u201d<\/p>\n
They both retired on the same night at UFC 283 in January 2023, when Teixeira lost a vacant title bout to Jamahal Hill and Rua was stopped by Ihor Potieria. Teixeira, now 46, remained active as a MMA coach in Danbury since then, and he expects \u201cShogun\u201d to be in great shape at 44.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think \u2018Shogun\u2019 is going to come in training hard. That\u2019s what I believe,\u201d Teixeira said. \u201cI think he\u2019s going to train like crazy, and I hope he does. \u2018Shogun\u2019 had a great career. He\u2019s not fighting for money. Sure, money is part of it, but neither he nor I are fighting to pay bills. He has his name, his pride, and his fans. We\u2019re definitely going to see a well-prepared \u2018Shogun.\u2019 I believe he\u2019ll train extremely hard. We have three months to get ready. Neither of us wants to make a fool of ourselves. And by that I don\u2019t mean losing. Losing can happen when you fight. But we can\u2019t get in there and be completely exhausted by the eighth round or even the sixth round, like you saw with \u2018Bambam\u2019 and some of those other [influencers in Brazil].<\/p>\n
Teixeira has hoped for a fight with \u201cShogun\u201d in the UFC many times during his 23-career in the octagon, but it never came to fruition despite UFC\u2019s attempts to make it happen in 2012. They will now clash in boxing, where they both give up crucial parts of their games to focus solely on trading hands, and Teixeira feels he\u2019s in advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe I do [have better hands],\u201d Teixeira said. \u201cI believe in my perseverance and my pressure. Of course, I have to be careful with \u2018Shogun\u2019. \u2018Shogun\u2019 comes from a striking background so he\u2019s a guy I\u2019ll need the right strategy for. My style is boxing, wrestling and jiu-jitsu, but boxing was always the way for me to close the distance. \u2018Shogun\u2019 has his knees, his hands, all of that, but once he\u2019s limited to boxing, he\u2019ll lose some of the weapons that make him such a dangerous striker. I think it\u2019s perfect. If it were kickboxing, we\u2019d say \u2018Shogun\u2019 has the better chances. If it were grappling, I\u2019d have the better chances. But boxing is the perfect middle ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always wanted to fight \u2018Shogun\u2019 and \u2018Rampage\u2019 [Jackson]. Ever since the beginning of my career. I watched those guys back in PRIDE. I even had an itch to fight Vitor [Belfort] and Wanderlei [Silva] because those were the guys we looked up to. I\u2019m from the same generation as them \u2014 I\u2019m actually older than \u2018Shogun\u2019 \u2014 but he became a champion long before I did, in PRIDE. I always liked his fighting style, and it\u2019s going to be a great fight. I had the opportunity to fight \u2018Rampage\u2019, and I always wanted \u2018Shogun\u2019 because of that style. I think it\u2019s going to be a war. I like that kind of fight, moving forward, working in close range, throwing heavy shots. I like \u2018Shogun\u2019s\u2019 style. I don\u2019t want to fight him for any reason other than the legend he is, the name he carries, and the style he brings into the cage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glover Teixeira helped Alex Pereira adapt to mixed martial arts in his full-time transition from kickboxing to MMA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-736638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}