Judo and Olympic Fight Brazilian champion, Rodrigo Artilheiro is the man behind Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira’s Wrestling preparation. Helping the champion in his training for the fight against  Frank Mir at UFC 92, Artilheiro spoke with TATAME about the trains in the Minotauro Team, the expectative for the fight with Mir and still made an analyze about a fight with Brock Lesnar, for the UF heavyweight belt. “Rodrigo is very well, strong, is well trained, with a good hand and I think he’s prepared to win, it’s what we expect. We respect Frank, he’s a big opponent, but we believe in the victory”, bets Artilheiro, who still commented about Rogério “Minotouro” Nogueira’s victory at Sengoku and still reveled that might fight MMA in 2009.

How are Nogueira’s Wrestling training?

The training are going very well. We’re training everything, Wrestling, ground, striking, almost everything…Rodrigo is very well, strong, he’s well trained, with a good hand and I think he’s prepared to win, that’s what we expect. We respect Frank, he’s a big opponent, but we believe in the victory.

Frank Mir is a good ground fighter too. What are you preparing for this fight?

We are paying attention in the leg and key lock, and he’s explosive. He has a ground that Amaury knows, because of Oswaldo Alves pupil, like Amauty, they’refrom the same school. Amaury knows it, he already has trained with Mir…We are paying attention.

Since you started to work with Minotauro, where do you believe that he has improved more in his game?

Every modality of fight has a percentage of transference to the other, so Wrestling certainly has a big transference to MMA. Wrestling improves the time and the speed of reaction, and these are two important factors to the MMA athlete. Who has time of reaction and speed and puts that in your game becomes a better athlete. I don’t train only Wrestling with him, I’m a Judo black belt and I work with him for a long time ago, since when he fought with Mark Coleman in Pride (2001) and now I are train more with him. I think he improved mainly the power, because I’m strong and heavy, I weight have 120kg, a Judo black belt, and if I train with him, I ask a lot from him.

How do you think it’ll be the fight?

It’s difficult to say, because a fight is full of surprises and what we have in mind is that we’re prepared. We have four weeks of training and we’re going to see what will happen, he’s ready for everything: striking, go to the ground with Mir, takedowns…If God wants it’ll be a victory.

Defeating Mir, how do you think it would be a fight against Brock Lesnar, who has a good Wrestling game?

It would be another kind of work. Lesnar is an excellent athlete, a guy who has showed a good work, defeated Randy, is very strong, but I think he’s limited in the ground, so it would be a good fight. Rodrigo will prepare himself to win him in the ground, because I think he’s limited there. When you come from Wrestling, you have a kind of fear of locks, because since child the wrestler fights without submissions, so it’s difficult to the guy, when become an adult, deal with it. I thought that the knee lock (applied by Frank Mir, when he finished Brock Lesnar) was possible to resist, didn’t need to tap, it was weird. (Ricardo) Arona is an example on this, when Dean Lister (in Pride, in 2005) applied the lock, but he didn’t taps. He limped a lot later, but he didn’t tap.

What did you think about his fight against Randy Couture?

I thought it was an excellent fight. He was very aggressive, Couture was lighter, weak physically, and he was stronger. Against (Pedro) Rizzo, Randy was stronger, and I thought that he was weaker now. Total merits to Brock Lesnar, who fought very well and did that great blow.

What did you think of the fight of Rogério “Minotouro” Nogueira at Sengoku?

Rogério and I train a lot together, we went I, Amary and Cigano, it was excellent…He fought very well (against Moise Rimbom), a very hard guy and who was heavyweight. Actually, he knocked the guy i fought out when I debuted in MMA, but Rogério was prepared, with a good Boxing, Wrestling and great in the ground. It was excellent, one of his best fights.

Vitor Belfort is also training in Minotauro Team…From what you have seen of his training, what is the expectation for the next fight in Affliction?

He’s very well. I saw his training and he’s very quickly, he always was like that, explosive, and I liked seeing his sparrings training. He’s in a great phase. He still has no opponent, but I think he will tear whoelse they put up, it’ll be great. He’ll win who they put, because there is a big team behind him, with Amaury (Bitetti), Rogério, Rodrigo, Luiz Alves, (Edson) Draggo…

When you trained Cro Cop in Croatia, you competed in MMA. Now that you train in Minotauro Team, do you think about fighting again?

Yes, but as I’m an Olympic athlete and I have a dream to compete in Olympics one day, and it’s a hard way to get there. To get there you have to get in other competitions, some tournaments that you have to fight. I think about fighting in 2009, if everything goes well, maybe do two fights, also by the question of money.