Glaico wins belt from Pancrese. Photo: Reproduction / YouTube
Brazil has another international champion in MMA. Santa Catarina's Glaico 'Nego' França submitted Takashi Sato with a rear naked choke in the fourth round and won the Pancrase welterweight title (up to 77,1kg) (watch the video of the fight in the player below). The fight was the main attraction of the 297th edition of the traditional Japanese event, held this Sunday, in Tokyo.
See too
With the triumph, Glaico reaches his 19th victory as a professional, his sixth consecutive since leaving the UFC and he already dreams of returning to the biggest MMA event in the world.
“I want to tell Dana White and Sean Shelby that I’m ready to come back. I'm very happy and I want the UFC again, I want to return at 77kg. Pancrase is an excellent event, it was my dream to fight at Pancrase and be champion, I followed the same path as the champion and my friend Rafael Morcego (current interim bantamweight champion)”, said Glaico, who was the winner of TUF Brasil 4 , the UFC reality show in Brazil in 2015.
The fight
The fight between Glaico and Tato started evenly. The Japanese had the advantage in the first round, working with straight strikes and scoring points. In the second round, the Brazilian balanced the fight on his feet, but ended up being knocked down on two occasions.
Sato came back better in the third round and with a hard elbow Glaico felt it. The Japanese worked good strikes and came close to ending the contest, when he took the back and tried to lock in a rear naked choke. But the Brazilian's turnaround began on the ground. He managed to reverse the position
and even grabbed Sato's neck and attacked him with an armbar, but it didn't end the dispute. France's redemption came in the fourth round. The Brazilian took the initiative, took the fight to the ground, used punches to open up space, get to the back and used a choke to finish the fight.
Comments