At the weigh-ins for Saturday's Hardcore Championship Fighting show, which features a main event between Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (Pictures) and Todd Gouwenberg (Pictures), Sherdog.com had a chance to speak briefly with a gracious Nogueira:
Nogueira: Good. I was training good. I was ready for this fight for maybe five months. I was supposed to come to fight here in November, but they changed the date, and I was still training. I had a lot of time to train for this fight.
Harding: What do you think is going to happen tomorrow night? How are you expecting this fight to play out?
Nogueira: We have to be an exciting fight. He's a good standup fighter. I have good standup too. And I think I have much better jiu-jitsu than him. [I'm] more comfortable to put this guy on the ground, just fight on the ground. I think I'm going to submit him.
Harding: Can you give me a round?
Nogueira: In the second round! [laughs]
Harding: And how long have you been boxing? Is that something you've been doing as long as you've been doing jiu-jitsu?
Nogueira: I've been training in boxing for five years, but now I'm going to just train in MMA. I think I had a good experience boxing. It's good for me because I can fight with the best guys of the world … from Cuba, United States. For me, it's a big experience. But now, I'm going for MMA. I have to make money. [laughs]
Harding: It seems like a waste. You've all that jiu-jitsu skill, but you're trapped in a boxing match. It must be frustrating to not be able to use what you spent your lifetime training in. Do you find it hard when you're boxing, or do you just think of it as a sport rather than fighting, similar to a purely grappling competition?
Nogueira: Yeah. I think it's hard because the boxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu … it's totally different. But I have to train in boxing, and I have to run and to cut weight. Then to train in wrestling, I have to take a lot of weights. Now, for this fight, I did not train in only boxing or only jiu-jitsu. We can spar with big gloves, but no boxing rules … MMA rules. We mix wrestling, jiu-jitsu and boxing at the same time. I think now I'm feeling better for this fight.
Harding: For sure. It must have given you a lot of confidence, too, to have such success in boxing.
Nogueira: And Muay Thai also.
Harding: How is your Muay Thai training going?
Nogueira: We train in our gym. Team Nogueira, in Rio de Janeiro, and in West Palm Beach in Florida. We train in both places. I think we have a big team … big guys. We train a lot of Muay Thai with Anderson Silva. He's very good. Teaching me a lot. For this fight, we trained a lot together. Me and Anderson, my brother, and our team.
Harding: Did you and your brother train a lot in preparation for both of your fights? Do you have intense sparring sessions together? [jokingly]
Nogueira: [laughs] Yes. A lot of the time.
Harding: Were you always competitive in that way, growing up? Do you think it's a big advantage?
Nogueira: Yes. For us, it's good. It helped us both to improve together. His ground is very good. Very scary.
Harding: But your boxing is better, right? So you can get him back.
Nogueira: [laughs] Yeah, I don't try to put him on the mat! He tries to put me on the ground.
Harding: Any predictions for your brother's fight on Saturday night?
Nogueira: I think he's going to submit this guy … in the third round. I think so because he has much more stamina. He'll push the fight. He has more conditioning. Won't be a boring fight. Five rounds is good for him -- 25 minutes.