By Guilherme Cruz

Photo Esther Lin

Boxing coach and one of the leaders of X-Gym, Josuel Distak cannot hide his happiness for the last weekend. Having three athletes fighting, the final score was perfect for the team, which had the wins of Ronaldo Jacaré, Rafael Feijão and André Galvão, guaranteeing two belts to the Brazilian squad. “We’re very happy with this historical win, I think that Brazil never had a better moment on MMA: we earned two belts, had another win and a baby”, celebrated the coach, who evaluated each win of the future champions to be.

How was it to follow, along with Rogério Camões, the wins on X-Gym on Strikeforce?

The team is to be congratulated, the whole group did a great job. We’re very happy with this historical win, I think that Brazil never had a better moment on MMA: we earned two belts, had another win and a baby (laughs).

On backstage, how was the expectation for the fights, since you knew Ronaldo Jacaré had become father?

Backstage things were great, it was a happy moment for everybody, the group gave a great present for the new “papa”, so I’m very happy. They did it all right. A baby and two belts… I think it won’t happen again in history. That 21th was very important to Brazil and I’m glad for the Brazilians, who now have three Strikeforce’s belts: with (Rafael) Feijão, (Ronaldo) Jacaré and with Cris Cyborg. We have two UFC belts, with (Maurício Shogun) and another one with Anderson Silva. We also have WEC’s belt with (José) Aldo and Sendoku’s with Marlon (Santos)… I think Brazil reached the top of the world with these belts.

What did you think of André Galvão’s over Macaco, who is a legend on MMA?

Well, André Galvão’s fight with Macaco was a very important one on André’s career because Macaco is a legendary fighter, a legend on MMA, a man who fought over 50 times, so I think it was a honor and a pleasure to André having this fight with him, because he is, in my opinion, historical in Brasil and abroad… The event chose Macaco at the last minute, so he could fight André Galvão. In name of the sport, Macaco proved that the experience is an important thing too. It was a good fight and a very important one to André Galvão… I’d like to congratulate him and Macaco too.

Do you think that the change of opponents five days before the fight, especially when the new opponent is a guy like Macaco, made it harder to Galvão to make a good performance?

Yes. We’ve been training on that same rhythm, we were training to fight a wrestler and we trained very hard, so it disturbed thing a bit. We didn’t know if he would try to bring the fight to the ground or if he would try to catch André, but we have been preparing ourselves for these kinds of situations, so things worked out just fine.

How do you evaluate the knockout the Rafael Feijão applied on King Mo Lawal, who was unbeaten until then?

We were hoping for a win, we were training hard and we proved to the world that Rafael deserves to be on the top 10. We’ve been saying it and some people laughed at us (laughs), I think it’s pitiful. He fought a really tough guy… King Mo is one of the tops of the division and Rafael wrote his name in the history of the sport with this win. Now the division has a champion and the champion is Rafael Feijão.

How did you see Ronaldo Jacaré’s win, after 25 minutes of hard work in order to win the belt?

Ronaldo is a guy who is showing his evolution on the sport each day, with no fear of MMA. He showed a wonderful stand-up technique, the Americans loved it, and they saw that he’s a fighter who can deal with any situation. It was very important not just for us, but to Brazil…

Did Strikeforce say when they might come back?

Well, the event hasn’t said anything, but we’re preparing ourselves, setting our strategy for these belt defenses. Let’s see, but I think that the hardest one is on our way… I believe it’ll be against Dan Henderson or (Gerard) Mousasi. I think both of these fighters might confront us.