Sherdog’s Top 10: Training Camps

Jose Aldo remains one of the sport’s pound-for-pound best. | Photo: D. Mandel/Sherdog.com

2. Nova Uniao

Nova Uniao’s history as a team goes back quite a ways. B.J. Penn won his Mundials gold medal as a black belt in 2000 while working under Andre Pederneiras and the rest of the Nova Uniao crew in Rio de Janiero. However, it is only in the last seven or eight years that the camp has really come into its own as a world-class MMA gym, with the rise of its lighter-weight fighters to international prominence.

Featherweight champion Jose Aldo, former bantamweight titlist Renan Barao, Eduardo Dantas, Jussier da Silva, Thales Leites, Hacran Dias, Claudia Gadelha and now Junior dos Santos are all mainstays of the Nova Uniao team, and they represent one of the more stacked rosters in all of MMA. Even more impressive is the fact that many of these fighters, namely Aldo, have been groomed by Pederneiras and his fellow coaches since day one of their careers. As one expects from a team with roots in high-level competition Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Nova Uniao exports are all exceptional grapplers, but what makes them outstanding fighters is the almost unheard-of quality of their wrestling and slick kickboxing arsenals.

Facing a Novia Uniao fighter is not simply a matter of staying off one’s back and avoiding their trademark arm-triangle choke. Instead, you have to stay out of their striking range, somehow take them down or avoid their takedowns and deal with their excellent work in transition. Nova Uniao plays the game of MMA at the very highest level, and no fighter better embodies that ideal than Aldo.

Even more impressive than its current roster is the fact that half of the Brazilian regional circuit seems to be stocked with up-and-coming fighters from Nova Uniao, including several on the current season of “The Ultimate Fighter Brazil.” Pederneiras and company will keep on producing outstanding fighters for the foreseeable future.

Number 1 » Jackson-Wink MMA