The Road Back for Big Nog

Minotauro Back to Light Training

Twelve days after undergoing surgery on his right arm, having had it snapped by Frank Mir at UFC 140, Rodrigo Minotauro was already back to light physical training. According to his trainer Luis Dórea, the former heavyweight champion is already pedaling away on an ergometric stationary bike in the United States, where he is recovering from a surgical procedure to correct a fractured humerus.

Frank Mir's Box of Toys

"Box of Toys" was allegedly Jack the Ripper's chilling reference to his victims during his reign of terror in 1888.

In a twisted way, Frank Mir's reference to the breaking of Nogueira's arm as a "bag of chips" almost felt like a civilized version of same.

Mir Talks Nogueira Injury

UFC 140 Judo Chop: Frank Mir Uses a Kimura to Break Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's Arm

Nog Wants Mir Next

Nogueira Says Knockout Over Schaub was "Surprising", Wants Mir Next

Before the fight, you had a #FinalizaMinotauro (Submit Minotauro) campaign in Twitter, but you won while standing up. Was your game plan to take him down or did you use it to mix him up and trade punches with him?

I was ready to fight anywhere, I was ready for everything. I was huge in the ground, feeling fine. I guess it was my best camp of all, with names like De La Riva coming up to help me. He spent the whole time with me. I also had the support of Ramon Lemos, who’s a coach at Atos, and he came down to help me on the last days of training. I trained with five black belts and they all tapped out twice, man. I was really huge on the ground game.

I called Josh Janousek in for Wrestling... I really spent a lot of money on this camp, bringing down here a good American wrestler so that I could be good with my Wrestling, besides the work I did with (Luis Carlos) Dorea and Erivan Conceicao, who’s a Boxing coach. I’ve worked the encounter Boxing.

Before going to the fight, Junior (dos Santos) kept telling me to ‘use this one, this one’. It’s like a punch, a jab and a powerful left hand. I got Schaub with his back at Dorea, Rogerio and Junior. And the guys kept yelling ‘do it now, now, now’... When they yelled ‘go’, I moved my head and punched him (laughs). It was automatic, it was the right timing. I guess he thought I would grab his legs and I fit an upper punch. He didn’t know I’d strike as much, It really was a surprising knockout.

Friday Night Fights: Roleta v. Minotauro

Nogueria Brothers Passing Guard Drills

Sherdog Mini Big Nog Interview

Catch up on the latest with Rodrigo Antonio Nogueira in this "5 Questions" interview from Sherdog.com.

In this exclusive interview with Sherdog.com, “Minotauro” discusses his recent knee surgery, Chael Sonnen’s derogatory comments towards him and his twin brother and the upcoming matchup between his longtime training partner, UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, and Vitor Belfort.

Read the complete interview here.

Judo Chop: Nogueira and the Deep Half

I've sung the praises of Bloody Elbow's Judo Chop series before.

Time to break into song once again:

Judo Chop: Nogueira v.s. Brilz: The Deep Half Guard Sweep, Part 1

Well here we go sports fans. I was so enamored of Antonio Rogerio "Little Nog" Nogueira vs Jason Brilz that only a special three-part, round-by-round Judo Chop could do it justice.

If you've never read a Judo Chop from Bloody Elbow before, stop, do not pass go, go directly to the link above.

Los Bros Nogueira

Sharing a birthday with Marilyn Monroe and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band does not suck.

But what sucks even less is being born one day before the twin brothers of jiu jitsu in mixed martial arts: Antonio Rodrigo and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

Memories of Minotauro

Jordan Breen just made a great point about how Cain Velasquez in many ways did to Nogueira what Nog himself did to Mark Coleman in terms of a new generation of heavyweights making a major step-up in competition.

I watched this match before the Minotauro-Velasquez fight. It's worth seeing again for a whole host of reasons.

Nogueira!!!

A thousand apologies ...

In all my weeping and teeth-gnashing over the defeat of Demian Maia, I have not given proper due to the current king of jiu jitsu in MMA: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira a.k.a Minotauro, for his epic battle and great victory over the legendary Randy "The Natural" Couture.
Nogueira Too Much for Couture at UFC 102

It was a dominating performance for the Brazilian heavyweight, who dropped Couture and looked close to submitting him with a D’Arce choke in the first round.

Though Nogueira controlled the majority of the match, Couture had his moments. The future Hall of Famers engaged in multiple wide-open exchanges with both fighters landing heavy blows in the center of the cage and along the fence.

Minotauro Speaks

When people say you can’t do it any more, you have to go back and prove you are still in the game and put on a great fight. That’s what I did. I worked hard, I’d never trained as much as I did for this one. I have a lot of respect for Randy, so I trained a lot.

Sherdog Grappling Forum Thread on Nog's great sweeps.

Amaury Bitetti Interview with GracieMag

A Chat with Amaury Bitetti

Portal das Lutas – What is different about the Minotauro to fight Couture compared to the one who lost to Frank Mir?

Amaury Bitetti – The difference is that in the other fight he was injured and I think he wasn’t as focused as he is now. This time we did a lot of work and I’ve even been telling him to not overdo it in training. Now it’s time to rest, assimilate what he’s trained and brush up on some details based on what may happen in the fight. Rodrigo likes training a lot, but in this final stretch things have to be done in such a way that he won’t get worn out and will be more objective.

PDL – And what’s the word on the fight?

AB – He has to keep in the middle of the ring. The fencing is Couture’s place and he can’t get taken there. To work on the ground, the middle of the octagon is where it’s easier to sweep or go for submissions, triangles and armbars, which he does really well. At the fencing the guy circles and pummels well, so he’s dangerous. We’ve told him that, Anderson Silva was there too and agreed. We have to make things as hard as possible for Couture and not use force, just skill.

I'd love to see a Minotauro victory, but I think Randy is the favorite for good reason.

Randy has struggled against larger submission wrestlers like Josh Barnett and Ricco Rodriguez - neither of whom have especially impressive striking. Potential advantage: Nog. Then again, Nog's striking has been suspect against non-K-1 caliber strikers like Heath Herring and Frank Mir. Couture outstrikes both those guys. Potential advantage: Randy.

One thing I've always disagreed with people about is that Nog's best jiu jitsu is off his back. I think he's more effective working a sweep game and getting to the top - as most jiu jitsu players in MMA tend to be. Randy is very confident ground-n-pounding from the half guard. There may be an opportunity to trap Randy in his own comfort zone.

Old Minotauro Interview

I stumbled across this old interview with Rodrigo Nogueira from Sherdog.com right after his last fight with Fedor.

And as someone who has run into his own "Fedor" - and may cross his path yet again - I have to say that there was something about this passage from Minotauro that really moved me, that really spoke to the reality of what it is to compete.

Sherdog.com: You must have watched your last fight against Fedor many times, what you can say about it?

Nogueira: I did not watch the fight very much, one or two times only. Strategically the man is good; he has a fast entrance, designed to strike and to attack the legs or give a straight punch … then I never knew when he was going for the straight punch or for the legs. So it was very difficult to defend the takedowns, which complicated the fight. He took me down some six times, very fast. He is very explosive. I was able to box with him OK, but I didn’t find myself in the first round. In second, more or less, I was not [fighting] with a good distance so I wasn’t able to take him down. In the end of the first round I had a good moment, obtaining the top position, but the round was over. He made a difficult fight and strategically he is very good. I’m going to have to train more and improve my game. Each time that I make a fight like this, I learn something. With certainty this fight was better than the first one. The second fight was good. In the third he dominated the fight, with takedowns and on the ground. He was smart, did not want to work the ground with me; you saw that he did a little ground-and-pound and then stood back up. It is difficult because he did not want to be in the ground to pass the guard, and this was pretty confusing for me. He was more worried about punching from the guard. He took me down, pounded a little and stood up. It was difficult.

Monday Night Training

First night back on the mat in about two and a half weeks. In some ways, it seemed like a very long time. In other ways - the drive, for example - it was nicely familiar. I'll be glad to get my new cheap MP3 player. I miss Beaster on the way to train and my little four-song Temple of the Dog suite on the way back.

We did some warm-up takedowns. I stuck with wrestling moves mostly: arm drags, a lot of double legs including a double leg with an out-to-in trip, and went with a good-sized blue belt who was very good to train with, attacking with a lot of different types of throws and shoots.

We finished off the Monday skills session with some triangle chokes, building on what Lindsey had been teaching in his 5 p.m. class. I wasn't doing a very good job of elevating my hips, though I did like the way that I've made catching my shin with my opposite grip an automatic part of my triangle choke attack.

I may want to include hip elevations in my 3T jiu jitsu tabata intervals. I think I could have a pretty decent stealth triangle game against guys who aren't too much bigger than me.

I rolled with Shawn, who was one-armed due to a shoulder injury. It was interesting. He caught me in a very nice loop choke after some aggressive defense in his sitting guard. Pretty impressive for a one-armed guy - Shawn's movement reminded me of how much can be accomplished with just the right hip movement. It was a very interesting roll.

After that I rolled with Rodrigo for about 15-20 minutes (I thought it was more like 8-10). He put me in the shake 'n' bake bag more than a few times, and turned my halfway decent Old School attack into a desperate attempt to avoid getting mounted in a matter of seconds. Definitely one of those sessions that Saulo calls "survival."

That said, I did more scrambling than anything else. I did manage to "scoop" against Rodrigo's rear mount. But he already had collar control and was switching to an arm attack. Still, as far as I'm concerned, every time I do the scoop to avoid getting choked from rear mount, an angel is going to get its wings if I have to hitchhike to heaven and attach them myself.

A good night of training - a great night even. I got a good standup workout, spotted a major weakness in my triangle choke game, and got to roll with a brown belt (with at least three or four stripes) and Rodrigo for nearly 30 minutes total. Even with my morning workout (Berari/Beaster), I had pretty good energy - though I was working hard to try and keep active against Rodrigo. Post-train weight was 162.2, also pretty good for a Monday after nearly three weeks off.

By the way, I was reminded of the Nogimura (the reverse kimura that Minotauro showed as one of his techniques of the day for MMA Weekly many moons ago) during sparring tonight. I need to take another look at that technique. It could be a signature type arm attack that no one is using.

Mir Finishes Nogueira: Post Fight Presser

Paulo Filho and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

Paulo Filho vs Minotauro
Uploaded by grapplingtherapy

Great Night for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at UFC 81

Three top jiu jitsu fighters in mixed martial arts competed at UFC 81: Breaking Point in Last Vegas last night: Middleweight Ricardo Almeida, and heavyweights Frank Mir and Antonion Rodrigo Nogueira.

Three fighters. Three wins. Three submissions.

Almeida and Nogueira both won with arm-in guillotines. Mir won with a kneebar. All three showed great smoothness and fluidity in moving from position to position. Mir showed some great open guard work against Brock Lesnar, manuering with the speed and balance you usually see out of much smaller fighters.


And Nogueira's half-guard sweep of Tim Sylvia was perfection. Nobody works the half-guard in MMA better than Minotauro. It was downright inspiring, for a wannabe half-guard player like meself.

If God Had Never Invented Kneebars ...

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira might be King of the World ...