Sherdog’s Top 10: Current Corners

Andre Pederneiras has trained more than 100 Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts. | Photo: D. Mandel/Sherdog.com

8. Andre Pederneiras | Nova Uniao

Like Matt Hume, Pederneiras has been around the sport of MMA almost from the beginning. His 1-1-2 record looks underwhelming at first glance, but “Dede” beat Rumina Sato, lost to Pat Miletich at UFC 21 in a welterweight title matchup and later drew with Genki Sudo and Caol Uno. Since then, the co-founder of Nova Uniao has devoted himself fully to teaching Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts to new generations of young fighters, from B.J. Penn to Jose Aldo.

Nova Uniao has grown into an enormous operation, with talented wrestling and striking coaches to go along with Pederneiras’ command of BJJ, and hundreds of students at its various locations. One of the few real knocks on Pederneiras as a coach, however, is that his camp might actually be too big. He has trained more than 100 Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts, and his decision to manage some of his top fighters while also running the Brazilian incarnation of the Shooto promotion takes away from the time and energy he can devote to his big earners, Aldo and Renan Barao. There are also legitimate questions about the conditioning and weight-cutting practices that Nova Uniao utilizes and whether Pederneiras and his crew can adapt to ongoing changes in the landscape of the sport.

For the moment, however, Pederneiras’ track record of developing fighters, proven facility for game planning, ability to communicate his fine command of technique and generally solid organizational skills makes him one of the very best coaches in the game.

Number 7 » Their pupils display an above-average command of fundamentals and technique, and their work in the corner is calm and technical.