The manager Eduardo Alonso followed closely the worst phase of Maurício Shogun’s career. Injuries, the output of Chute Boxe, losing to Forrest Griffin and the bad fight against Mark Coleman... Shogun was no longer pointed out by the fans as the great champion of the Pride, but that began to change on the first fight against Lyoto Machida, the UFC champion at that time. In a chat with TATAME, Shogun's manager recalled the moments of overcoming of the tough guy and showed the desire for a fight between Maurício and veteran Randy Couture

Shogun has become UFC’s champion, Ninja won again on Bitetti... This has been a perfect month for you, right?

The feeling of a mission accomplished is great, but the battle does never stop, and the feeling is not complete yet because we had a cancelation on Shine. We were very sad about Paulo Tuba, who is Shogun’s sparring and was going to make his international debut, he was very excited, was already prepared… it’s complicated for the athlete when he is on his perfect weight and is left out of the competition… That’s why things are not so perfect, we finish one challenge and there’s always another one waiting for you. There was no time to celebrate Maurício’s belt win, because Ninja had an appointment in Australia, on June 14 on a promising event with great athletes… At the same time we feel good because it’s an award after a long battle, but the battle does never stop, this is just the result of one battle, but others will come.

What was the feeling after the first fight between Shogun and Lyoto?

We were frustrated after the first fight, we really believed Maurício won, and 90% of the people agreed with us, only here in Brazil that this controversy had different opinions. We were really upset, but it was such a relief after the rematch. When Dana scheduled the revenge it was like a second chance for us, he recovered from lots of injuries, appendicitis, and we really believed in our strategy for this second fight as if it was a sequence of the first. This strategy of trying to make Lyoto come closer and try to hit him wouldn’t work if there wasn’t a first fight. The first fight made Shogun know Lyoto’s game and then manage to impose his own game, make Lyoto respect his game for being insecure. Maurício deserved the belt of the best of the world since the time of GP (Pride), when he couldn’t dispute the belt of Pride because Wanderlei is our idol, team mate and owner of the belt. It was a long battle, we overcame a lot of critics, injuries and doubts… Our team is young, no one believed in us, and for us it was a relief and we really deserved that, because we believed Maurício was the best of the world many years ago.

How was the overcoming after all the things you went through, with Shogun’s injuries, the loss in the debut against Forrest Griffin, the bad fight against Mark Coleman until a first good fight on UFC, against Chuck Liddell?

We were under a lot of pressure, a lot of doubts, since Coleman’s fight. On the fight against Chuck Liddell no one believed us. After the win over Liddell we went to fight against Lyoto for the first time, discredited, a result of slanders made from people who has their own interest and plays on the other team… A little bit of ignorance from people who don’t know our past. I know Maurício for many years and even because we started working together I was already a kind of adviser, and we always believed in Maurício’s potential and in our team. André Dida is a Muay Thai coach who is really young and has been showing his competence, Simpson is a young Jiu-Jitsu trainer who is very competent as well, and I believe I’m the youngest manager in the market and I try to make my own contribution. Working with Maurício is easy because he is talented, a phenomenon, he believed in us when people didn’t believe in him nor in us. We have a long time project, we’ve been working on it since his knee injury. He had the guts to leave a traditional team, which he owns a lot of respect and believed in a long time work. My feeling, when he won the belt, was of a mission accomplished and the credits are from him… Maurício had enough confidence and talent to fight with any strategy it’s settled.

How did you see the critics when Shogun left Sérgio Cunha, who trained him for his fight against Chuch Liddell, to train with Dida, who was considered too young to teach Shogun something, the comeback for the trainings in Curitiba, something Shogun himself pointed out as a problem?

These critics about the ending his work with Cunha did not surprised us, because we had already been criticized a lot, discouraged. Cunha had an important role on Maurício’s dedication, had credits for being open minded and working with coaches from different modalities, he was a important step on this long journey, but along with his there were several professionals working with us too, since my part until Professor Eric Haddad’s on the physical training, Lucas on his boxing, people from Demian’s team helped a lot, these people were essentials for our work. What we did when we started working with Dida and Simpson among other coaches in Curitiba, was to get the exact same model of the work we had in Sao Paulo and do it with different professors. I am aware of my merit, but the main part of the work is Maurício Shogun. He already was a world champion, a natural talent, a phenomenon, the most complete athlete I’ve ever seen in this division and working along with him becomes easy. We collaborate, but he is the locomotive of the trainings.

And how will you keep Shogun always motivated and prepared for his belt defenses?

The motivation is natural as the challenges will come. We have great fights ahead of us, we may fight against Lyoto in the future, a rematch against Forrest Griffin, a fight against Anderson in the future, it it’s UFC’s wishes… I would really like that Maurício had a chance to fight against the legendary Randy Couture before he retires… There are great fights that may become good challenges and an important financial reward, since now he is the father of littler Duda, is very happy, excited, and his career has entered a good and deserved phase.