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Almiro Barros is Ready For His MMA Return
Almiro Barros spoke with MMAjunkie about returning to MMA at ONE Championship 32 and more. Check out the highlights:
It’s been a series of difficult situations keeping Barros out of the cage over the past two years.
On the two-year delay since his first fight: “My first MMA fight was a great experience. I was very well prepared. But there’s a lot of adrenaline in a first fight. So I concentrated on controlling my opponent to get the win. After that, I went back to Brazil on vacation. Unfortunately, I sustained a neck injury and had to stop training for a couple of months. I returned to training and had a fight scheduled for the following June. But I ended up having some problems back in Brazil. My father was in poor health so I ended up canceling that fight. It was a difficult time for my family. After everything was resolved, I got back to training hard and was supposed to fight in September. That’s when I had a partial tear in a shoulder ligament. That took six months to get back from. I was only able to return to training in February of this year. And I’ve only been training hard since April. I was then supposed to fight in May or June, but my opponent got hurt. So now I get to finally fight in Malaysia against Gianni Subba.”
On his fight with Subba: “He’s taller than Ruel Catalan, who I was going to face. Subba is a more interesting fight for me. I’m concentrating on takedowns against him. My goal is to cut the distance so I take him down as soon as I can.”
On wanting to fight again soon after: “Hopefully I won’t get hurt again. My plan is to fight at least three times a year. I hope to return early next year, after a one-month vacation in Brazil. My life in Singapore is excellent. I train in the morning and afternoon. At night, I teach the children’s program. I have a lot responsibility but I’m able to balance teaching and training without a problem. This has been a great experience for me. I helped Issa get ready for his last UFC fight. I’ve been training hard. I’ve evolved a lot. I feel I just need to fight more often so I can get a title shot.”