After Mauricio Rua’s loss to Forrest Griffin at UFC 76, Shogun gave an interview to a Portuguese online magazine. Here is the translation of the article where the MMA star speaks about his lack of preparation for the fight and his knee injury which will keep him sidelined from training and out of the UFC until 2006:

“I was Really very sad, was the worse defeat of my career”, declared Shogun.

“I had never gassed as i gassed in this fight. But he does not advance to invent excuses, the error was mine, I did not train as he would have, I did not concentrate myself, had had other things that had confused, but it also had merits. “I learned a lesson from this and now i will have to train to comeback stronger”, said the fighter.

“As i gassed, i wanted to decide on the ground, in a top position. At the beginning, the objective was to fight standing and to decide there, but as the time went by, i got very tired”, lamented.

Beyond the problems in the preparation, Shogun also blamed an injury in one of the knees as one of the problems faced for him in the last two months. “I busted the ligament during trainings, I was limited, i could not run, i could not thresh right. Still though, i trained sufficiently, but not enough”, he affirmed.

Shogun disclosed that “I will go for the surgery” already on this friday (28). “I’ll have a knee surgery on friday and must be away from training for the next three months. For what I talked with the master Rudimar (Fedrigo), I’ll only comeback to fight in January or February”. The goal, although the defeat, follows being the same one: “The goal is the belt, the fight continues”, concluded.

Source: http://portal.rpc.com.br/gazetadopovo/esportes/conteudo.phtml?bx=1&id=699545&tit=Mauricio-Shogun-desembarca-em-Curitiba-e-lamenta-lesao-no-joelho

Thursday, September 27th, 2007 | File under Breaking News, Interview Recaps, UFC