Roger Gracie has decided. The 10x black belt world champion, who was considering going to competitive BJJ, chose to continue his MMA journey. Released by the UFC in 2013, the athlete has not yet signed a contract with another organization, but is preparing to enter the cage for the middle of the year. Next week, he embarks towards Holland to train with Ernesto Hoost, world champion of K-1.
He told Tatame Magazine:
“I’m going to Holland to train with Ernesto Hoost. I’ll spend four days training with him. The Netherlands is only an hour’s flight from England, where I live. I hope I can soak up all the information in his standup”
Ernesto Hoost
Gracie who lost to Tim Kennedy in his only UFC fight believes that the conditioning problem that occurred in his fight will never happen again. This is because he will fight in the light heavyweight category, in which his body is at it’s physical peak:
“I made a mistake when fighting at middleweight. I did not feel 100% in fights, was tired, and that weight was not good for me. It was a delay in my career. I talked with Joinha few days ago and, despite the will to fight Jiu-Jitsu too, I was wanted to ‘do it right’ in MMA. I want to stay 100% focused on MMA. I’m 32 years old and now is the time to do it right or it will be too late, “
He also plans to stay in England to train in MMA, which means that he won’t be moving to the States like in the past and training with Black House:
“I am deeply rooted here, my kids are in school here, I cannot abandon my gym. “
