Rafael Lovato Jr is one of the rare non Brazilians to have won the World title at black belt level. Nowadays he’s quite a bit more focussed on his MMA career. He recently had a great opportunity to talk about his heritage as well as bjj, mma and how he defines himself.
On his Heritage:
Lovato’s last name is actually Italian. He’s from a Spanish Italian family and has no Brazilian blood. Feel free to pronounce the R in his name!
Lovato’s first love was boxing where he wanted to try out for the Olympic team. Later on his father fell in love with jiu-jitsu so he shifted to it.
On The level of Non Brazilians in the sport way back when vs now:
“I’m from a different time… We’re still not at the same level as the Brazilians in the sport. Obviously a lot has changed but at that time it was way different. I mean the Worlds were still in the US and you could go to the Worlds and across all belt divisions there would be a handful of American that even reached the podium. At blue belt.. purple belt.. Across the whole tournament… And so I wanted to stay in the sport and really make my mark and win as much as I could. I won the Worlds multiple times and so I really became a focused on that and almost like just tunnel vision… “
On his first surgery:
Preparing for Metamoris 3 Lovato Jr tore his pec tendon which was very painful. That was the first surgery of his career. This had caused a big break in his bjj/mma careers.
On why bjj background makes for great mature MMA fighters:
When asked if he feels this is his prime at 34 years old Lovato responded:
“It’s different if you come up fighting early and by the time you’re in your 30s maybe you’ve been in some wars. Maybe even been knocked out a few times… I think the impact of muay thai and mma is very heavy obviously. Jiu-jitsu – there’s wear and tear obviously. I’ve been training for competition pretty much my whole life. And so there’s a lot of hard training – a lot of years of battles inside the academy…
I’m smarter, as you get older we keep training hard but we train smarter as well. I understand my body, I understand what is the best routine for me. I thought people that aspire to be world champions … not only do you want to get better with your technique and your physical training and your mental training and everything but you also want to understand your routine, your schedule…”
Lovato continued:
“(In your 30s) You’re more mature, things in life are in a good place. Good relationships, you can sort of handle the stress of the fight and everything.”
To check out the whole interview press play below.
