Despite winning the bonus prize for the best fight of UFC 121, the Brazilian Paulo Thiago, who was among the tops of the division until being beaten twice in a row, is now in a complicated situation.
“What saved me was the bonus for the best fight of the evening… I think that he’s got a chance of coming back”, affirmed Ataide Jr., coach of Paulo on Constrictor Team, in Brasilia, Brazil. “He did a great first round, but then he started to decrease his performance, and Diego started to improve."
“We’ll come back to Brasilia to get the team together, watch the fight again and to understand what happened… We can’t understand, Paulo is doing great on the trainings and can’t give it all during the fight. The game plan was not to go to the floor on the bottom and attack a lot while standing up, but we couldn’t do it”.
Thiago can’t focus exclusively on his MMA training however, since he has a daily routine as a cop in the Special Operations Squad (BOPE) of Brasilia. In Alaide’s opinion, however, Thiago didn’t have to leave BOPE to be successful on the show.
“We get a wonderful support from the police, but I think that (what’s lacking) the focus on the trainings, more dedication. In Brazil we suffer a lot because of the lack of sponsorship, but we have to fix his training load."
“If he UFC gives him another shot, it might be on an undercard fight. Since he joined he’s only fought really tough guys, but I think they’ll give him another chance. They usually renew before the last fight on the contract, so we’ll see what they’ll do."
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