Antoine Jaoude :: TATAME

Without fighting since 2007, when fought for the IFL title, Antoine Jaoude is back on training to prepare himself to fight again in 2009. In an exclusive chat with TATAME, Jaoude spoke about the rumors about a possible fight in Sengoku’s January 4th edition, and is excited about it. “I’m running after fights. For now there’s nothing right yet, but Marco is taking care about the and maybe I can fight there in January… Murilo (Bustamante) got a fight for me at Dream, but then I had some problems with my daughter and had no conditions”, said Antoine, who commented Brazilian Top Team Wrestling training, the fight between Rousimar Palhares and Dan Handerson at UFC and Pedro Rizzo’s next fight in Affliction.

There are some rumours about the possibility to at Sengoku in January. Is that true?

I’m running after fights. At first there is nothing right, I expect that your rumors are better than my (laughs). For now there’s nothing right yet, but Marco is taking care about the and maybe I can fight there in January… Murilo (Bustamante) got a fight for me at Dream, but then I had some problems with my daughter and had no conditions. I don’t have anything right.

How do you see the MMA market back to Japan?

I’m think it’s great, after the interview with Rogério Nogueira saying that is very nice there. This is very good, they have that thing of Samurai, despite of I like also United States. I want to fight in Japan.

You stayed two years without fight and went to IFL, where you won four fights, but lost in the GP final. How did you face the end of the event?

In fact, it was a little sad, because we did not expect. The event looked to be very well, investing in many things, new teams, then they reduced the expense with others teams, but they said that it was to attend better the others, and then broke. We had a contract with them and we don’t know how it is now, we weren’t expecting that. Looking for the bright side it was good, because at least we don’t stay anymore attached to them and we will look for bigger purses.

IFL closed the doors, then HCF, where Nogueira used to fight, EliteXC also broke, and now Affliction had already to postpone the second edition. How do you see this instability in the events?

I almost fought there (HCF) too, and then it broke. I think people starts a thing not very solid and try to brake the Ultimate’s supremacy, and invest a lot in the beginning, and fall in traps of MMA. It takes a time to the event consolidate. I think this is one of the main reasons, beside world economic reasons. It was sad.

Are you still commanding the wrestling trains in BTT? How they are?

They are very well. There will be Fury FC now with Maurício, Palhares is in negotiation with UFC, but there’s nothing set yet. Those are the main focus, we are working hard. People of BTT is very humble, I am very well received there also because of Pedro Rizzo, Pimentel is my physical trainer and of Murilo, who I know for more than seven years.

What do you think happened at Palhares’ fight against Dan Henderson? What go wrong on the plans for the fight?

I think that did not lack anything, he did the best he could. We prepared a strategy, but didn’t put that is practice and I think this confused. Murilo said that loking for the bright side, we saw Toquinho’s game better to do not repeat the more mistakes. He had a broken a toe two days before the fight, but continued to train like a crazy man, and we didn’t know that. We saw him limping and we asked him, he had a broken toe, and if we knew that we wouldn’t have trained anymore.

It looks like Pedro Rizzo will face Ben Rothwell in the next edition of Affliction… How do you think it will be the fight between them?

Affliction motivates still more to train focused, so that gives me rhythm too. I saw that in the internet just after the first event and I think that it’s a good matchup for him, he has the same style of Pedro, kicks, punches, don’t know anything of ground. I already saw him fighting IFL and I think it is a good fight. Pedro is very well, he’s already training for the October event, more motivated. We’re seeing a lot of good things. He wants a rematch with (Josh) Barnett, I think that he wasn’t 100%, he wasn’t fighting for a log time…

What do you think he has to do to be back between the heavyweight tops?

I think he has to fight more, get rhythm again. He is from Muay Thai school and used to live fighting in Holland and all the world representing K-1, he used to have a good rhythm. He is training very well now, in the gas, and I think that he will arrive very well in this fight.