Photo Eduardo Ferreira

Last week, the American news announced the return of the partnership between Maurício Shogun and Sérgio Cunha, who trained the UFC champion for the last time when he would fight Chuck Liddel, and he won that light heavyweight bout. N a chat with TATAME, Cunha denied any agreement with the champion.

“There’re lots of interviews of me on American websites… The last one was on the beginning of last week and caused a heat, because it had something about Shogun doing a camp with me. I’d like to thank the affection and the recognition of me and my work, but I believe that the reporter didn’t get it right or got too excited, because we’ve talked about many athletes whom I worked with, but I’d like to clear that up and say I didn’t said that about Shogun”, clarifies Sérgio.

Despite things are not set, Cunha tells he would work with Maurício again. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen on his next fight or again in the future. Our experience with the camp against Chuck was great for both of us, because we’re close friends and we’re always in touch”, said leaving the doors open to all other champion he have trained.

“It can be (Murilo) Ninja, (Rodrigo) Minotauro, Anderson (Silva), (Murilo) Bustamante among many others whom I had the pleasure to work with in the past and we kept in touch. All the athletes who trained with me are welcome to come and train with me again wherever I am, mainly these one that are the ones that are my friends and I have a special affection for them and a way of work which has been proved to work for them”, highlights Sérgio.

GOOD SEQUENCE OF WINS POST-SHOGUN

Since he trained Shogun to confront Liddell, Cunha has been dedicated to his new team on the United States and the success is impressive. In almost 100 fights within a year, the team got 83 wins and only 12 losses. “The results are proving the hard work we’ve been doing. When I got here, I saw many athletes coming here and I saw a great potential on them. I’ve been dedicating all my time on the camps for the high level athletes on my team”, tells the coach, who has his agenda filled up for the next weeks.

“I’m going today to San Antonio, Texas, with my athlete Travis Reddinger, to fight on Bellator on September 2. right after that, I have two other athletes who’ll fight on CFX, on the 11th, and two others will be fighting on Capitol Hill, and on the 25th two more will fight on King Of The Cage. And it keeps on going until the end of the year”, tells, highlighting some of his new athletes. “We have Mike Richman on The Ultimate Fighter and Shana Olsen on Strikeforce, and soon Mike Foster will fight on M-1. I’m finishing a camp and starting another one, it’s an endless cycle, the demand it huge”.

Happy with his new phase, Cunha celebrates. “I’m very pleased with the growth of my work and these wins. One thing when you get an athlete to train and he’s already ready, but it’s completely different when you get a guy and has to work with him from the beginning and build a new generation of complete athletes with a good base in all types of art. In my school, we have Muay Thai, Wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu, so to see these guys fighting on big events… It’s really rewarding to build and shape an athlete to compete in high level”, concluded the coach.