Neiman Gracie went from being an undefeated Bellator title contender to solely successful two of six bouts over a span of three and a half years.
As a lot as Gracie is blissful along with his well-rounded MMA sport, specializing in his predominant weapon could possibly be the important thing to breaking out of his droop forward of his Bellator 290 conflict with Dante Schiro. Talking on this week’s episode of Trocação Franca, Gracie mentioned that taking his opponent to the bottom at Inglewood’s Kia Discussion board this Saturday night time is a no brainer.
“The plan is to return to my roots,” Gracie mentioned. “I’ve by no means let my roots go away, those that watch me coaching know I’m all the time taking the battle to the bottom. However I take pleasure in it a lot being within the cage, I find yourself brawling. My fights are all the time enjoyable, I’ve by no means had a boring battle, however this time I’ll battle extra intelligently, use my head a little bit bit and take the battle the place I’m good at. Once I can take the battle the place I would like, I’m probably the greatest on this planet in that space, and that’s what I’m going to do Saturday.
“If I can take the battle to the bottom and do my jiu-jitsu, I feel I can beat nearly all of individuals in MMA,” he continued. “That’s my plan, to take this battle the place I’m extra snug, however he’s a tricky man as properly. Everyone is aware of all the pieces today, there are not any fools, however for those who watch his final battle, he was successful properly however ended up getting caught in a loopy submission, one thing I’ve by no means seen earlier than. It’s going to be a enjoyable battle, and I’m going for the submission.”
Gracie challenged Rory MacDonald for the Bellator welterweight championship in 2019 as a part of the 170-pound grand prix, however misplaced by way of determination. He rebounded with a submission win over veteran Jon Fitch a little bit over a yr later, however then went 1-3 in his subsequent bouts, sandwiching a knockout win over Mark Lemminger between losses to Jason Jackson, Logan Storley, and Goiti Yamauchi.
“The whole lot in life is determined by the way you see it,” Gracie mentioned. “If I put an excessive amount of strain in my head and assume, ‘F*ck, I have to win this battle,’ I’ll solely make my scenario worse. It’s a possibility to show to myself that I can bounce again. I’ve bounced again earlier than, so it’s one other alternative to show to myself that I can overcome something.”
The Bellator belt is all the time the aim, however Gracie is aware of that coming off back-to-back defeats, he’ll have to tug off one thing spectacular to leap again to the highest of the burden class.
“Rankings are a bit odd, but it surely all is determined by the way you win fights,” he mentioned. “If it’s an excellent victory, I don’t know, I am going on the market and pull off a flying armbar and it goes viral and everyone sees it, they are going to rank me in a single place. If I am going there and win an excellent boring break up determination, they’ll rank me some place else.
“So I hope to win with a flying armbar.” he added with fun.
