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30/11/09 - Little Nog: "I want a rematch with Shogun"
Rogerio Nogueira - the light-heavyweight brother of Rodrigo Nogueira and accordingly known as Little Nog - has spoken about arriving in the UFC and making an impressive debut with a first-round TKO of Luis Cane at UFC 106.
Little Nog had a good run in PRIDE FC and when that organisation folded, many expected him to move straight to the UFC as his heavyweight brother did. But the light-heavyweight instead fought around the world and put himself in position for a better contract than the one he was originally offered.
“We received a good proposal, that's the plan, the objective of my career. I was able to build a good record outside of Brasil and be ranked among the top 5, which meant that I could get a good contract. It's an honor to be fighting in the UFC, but it was the fruit of well-planned hard work,” he told Tatame.
On the UFC light-heavyweight division, he said, “Now there are lots of good guys in that division, including Brazilians, that are showing their strength, like Thiago Silva, Lyoto, myself, there are a lot of strong guys in the division, the Americans as well, like Jardine, Evans, the category is very strong. I hope that the Brazilians dominate the division. God willing, it will happen.”
“The guys are professionals, everything [in the USA] turns into a big affair, the sport is very professional there, they got it and said 'now that will be a big sport', they are doing a lot of work, as well as the teams, not just inside the ring like elsewhere, they all evolved, the ring is bigger, everything is tougher and more professional.”
One of Nogueira’s best-remembered fights is a clash with Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua in Pride several years ago. Nogueira lost that match, but now the two are under the same umbrella a rematch is possible.
“I would like to have the fight with Shogun again. Shogun is a great fighter, a great champion and he was in the best stage of his career till today. He has his merits, at the end of the fight I tried to take his back... If I had finished the fight there at his back, I would have been able to change the story of the fight,” he said.
That fight would be huge for the UFC and would certainly capture the imagination of the fans. But the fans are also intrigued about another potential match - Nogueira vs. Nogueira. Did the two brothers fight a lot when they were younger?
“Yes, we used to fight a lot. My brother had the upper hand, because he was always bigger (laughs),” says Nogueira, before mentioning that these days, “it depends man, there's days where one trains better than the other, it varies. Sometimes one is more tired and the other has more gas, it depends a lot.”
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