By Eduardo Ferreira
Photo Eduardo Ferreira

Only a year and a half with a BJJ black belt, the light heavyweight Felipe Mora (Akxe BJJ) already has a lot of titles in his resume. The last one was the Rio International Open, when he defeated Junior Santos (Gracie Floripa) by 7x0 to win the gold medal. Talking to TATAME, the black belt spoke about his plans to travel to Europe to teach Jiu-Jitsu and get experiences at MMA and fight the Abu Dhabi (ADCC) next year. Check below the complete interview.

You got the black belt just a year and a half ago and you already won a lot of competitions…

It has been a great time… With only a month of BJJ black belt i was bronze medal at the European, at , and fought against Alexandre Ribeiro, it was a good fight, and then I won the first edition of the Rio Championship. Then I fought the World Championship and got the silver medal at openweight, and later won the CBJJE Pan-American championship. Then I stopped competing for eight years because I was tired, had finished the Law School , needed some time to relax. This year I had a motorcycle accident and was three months away from the fighting, and then I heard about the Rio International and started to train three months ago. I did the final against Junior Santos, I did well and won, everything was great, I got a title that I was dreaming with.

What are your plans now?

I’m going to Europe for three months. I have some seminars to do in , , and . I want to train a lot of no gi now, because I wanna do the Abu Dhabi qualifying this year and my focus now is to be the champion there.

Do you think about fighting MMA?

Yes… I’m going to help Peter Rag]nge, that will fight at Cage Rage, England. I’ll help him on the ground game and if the opportunity shows up, I’ll debut this year.

Do you already train for MMA?

I do some Boxing… I’ll train a lot there, and at Norway there’s not much BJJ training. I’m going there to teach them and work on my preparation on other martial arts. They have a strong Wrestling, and a great Muay Thai too.

Do you teach too?

I teach at Vinny’s gym, at Rio de Janeiro, and Otávio Ratinho went to with Marcus Vinícius. Rafael Langhi and I stood here with Rodrigo and Fabio, teaching BJJ. Vinny is our master here, and he owns the gym too.

You have some great athletes now…

I follow Matheus since he’s a juvenile. Thanks God he won a lot of titles last year, and the World Champion. He won the World Championship, Brazilian, and Rio de Janeiro ’s Championship, World No Gi, CBJJE Pan-American, he won all championships he fought and submitted almost all opponents.

And the black belt? When will he earn it?

I’ll wait a little... Let’s see how he’ll do at 2009’s World Championship, he won the Worlds at purple belt. He’s 20 years old, he’s young. It’s important to stay some time in each belt to get experience, you need to have a complete Jiu-Jitsu. I believe that he’ll earn it with two years at brow belt.