Former PRIDE champion and UFC , Minotauro has faced a series of injuries that forced him to undergo some surgeries in recent years. He hasn’t fought since June last year, when he lost to Fabricio Werdum – and once again he got hurt – and close to 38 years old, Minotauro is designing a two-year career plan before retiring.

Rodrigo said in an interview with Yahoo sports:

“I have four fights in the contract. I do not think much about the future. This will depend greatly on the outcome of fights. I do not want to be wasting a lot of fighting. I think I have two or three years left in me. I’m almost 38 years old and do not want to be over 40 and fighting, “

After operating his hip 2 years ago, the black belt returned to active duty and defeated Brendan Schaub at UFC Rio 1 in 2011, but soon after he suffered an elbow injury in the fight against Frank Mir at the end the same year. Again, he had to go through a surgery and returned only eight months later when he beat Dave Herman at UFC 153, also in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.

Nogueira has already fought professionally for nearly 15 years and has sustained a good amount of brain trauma to go along with other serious injuries. So, it’s good to hear that he at least has some sense of the fact that he can’t go on forever.

His last injury happened in his fight against Werdum in June of last year, UFC in Fortaleza, when they fought in the finals of TUF Brazil 2. Rodrigo, who has returned to training and hopes to fight in three months, has no set opponent as of yet, but said he would do a third fight against Frank Mir, his tormentor.

“The UFC speculated five names, but I believe that by May I should fight again. In three months I should be ready. Unfortunately I wasn’t offered Frank Mir. I’ve been wanting to fight him. In our last fight, I was giving him a beating, and he turned and grabbed my arm. “

Check out the best moments of Minotauro’s career: