We don’t mean to sand bag so we are just going to tell you flat out… this is a bad man. Ururahy Rodrigues is 18-1 as a pro but if we fight him here in the states he shows up 3-1. Most of his fights were in Brazil and over half were at 170lbs. Now exclusively at 155lbs we are taking all comers. Based out of Atlanta Ururahy has quickly made himself a local favorite by blasting through his opponents. Atlanta fight promoter Andy Stroud says “I love having him fight in our shows, he is very exciting and fearless. The crowd loves watching him fight”.

We have been approached by SHINE fights about trying to set up a fight between Ururahy and a very feared opponent in ATT’s Johnathan Jorgel. SHINE’s matchmaker said they were having a hard time finding a match for Jorgel because he is supposed to be the top new prospect coming out of that camp. While at Shine we asked Ururahy if he would step up and fight Jorgel in the next Shine and his answer was, “I’ll fight him, I’ll fight him tonight if you want”.

QUICK STATS:
Studied martial arts for over 20 years
Jiu-Jitsu (Brown Belt), submission
Muay Thay
Capoeira
Boxing
Greco Roman
Wrestling
MMA (mix martial arts).

2006 Ururahy lived in cuba where he trained boxing, wrestling, and made the Greco Roman Olympic selection.
Was an instructor teaching special techniques of self defense to brazilian police and military.

2007 World Cup of Jiu-Jitsu champion
2008 Champion of the Brazilian league
2008 3rd place in the World Championship of Jiu-Jitsu No-gi
2008 3rd place at the Pan American
2008 3rd place Grapplers Quest in Florida Champion No Gi Open Class,
2008 NAGA Champion No Gi
2008 2nd place LUTADOR Tournamnet
2008 2nd place CASA GROSSA

PAST FEATURED FIGHTERS:
IGOR ALMEIDA
ANTHONY MORRISON
NATE MOHR
FRANCOIS AMBANG

Age: 29
Height: 6’ 0”
Weight: 185
Hometown: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (currently resides in Palm Beach, Florida)
Nickname: “Isn’t Igor good enough?”
MMA Record: 10-0 (5-0 Amateur, 5-0 Professional)

A perfect MMA record is hard to come by. Finishing all your opponents in the first round is even more difficult. Winning all ten fights, all in the first round, all by submission… now that’s impressive!

That is exactly what Igor Almeida has done.

Almeida was born in Boston, Massachusetts but raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was in Brazil, at the age of 14, that Almeida started his Jiu-Jitsu training under Sergio Souza and Brazilian Top Team co-founder Murilo Bustamante. In 2001, he had his first MMA fight in a local promotion; he was hooked.

Almeida moved to Palm Beach, Florida about seven years ago to continue his MMA training. He is a Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu Black Belt under Eduardo Brigadeiro. While all of his wins have come by submission, don’t underestimate his striking. “I’ve been working really hard on my stand-up these last few years,” Almeida said.

Almeida currently splits his training between three different gyms. His Jiu-Jitsu is with Brigadeiro at BBJJ in Palm Beach. He trains his boxing at Palm Beach Boxing with Lou Martinez, and his Muay Thai at Legacy Martial Arts with Sensei Cameron. Almeida is a BJJ instructor at these gyms, as well.

With all of his fights ending in the first round, some may question whether Almeida has the conditioning to go a full fight. Not a problem he says. “I work with Wes Wright, my strength and conditioning coach. We have a real unorthodox training program based on Cross Fit. I pull sleds, flip tires, carry logs. It’s very effective”.

With such an impressive record, it is getting harder for Almeida to find a willing opponent. His next fight is in the XFO this August, but no one has stepped up to challenge him yet. I asked Almeida, if you could fight anyone, in any promotion, who would you choose? “I’d like to fight David Loiseau. I just think that would be a good match”.

Almeida tried out for this season’s “The Ultimate Fighter”. As part of the screening process the fighters are paired up by a lottery. To test their ground skills they are given one minute to grapple against their opponent. There aren’t a lot of submissions in this minute. Almeida, however, submitted his opponent five times in 60 seconds!

“Joe Silva was standing right next to me during my bout. He shook my hand after and asked if I would make the weight. I thought for sure I would make the show”. He didn’t.

“Maybe if I wore a costume or had pink hair” Almeida joked. “But I’m sure Joe Silva remembers me”.

Expect big things from Almeida and, hey Joe Silva, don’t forget Igor!

(Almeida wanted to thank his coaches and sponsors, Black I Sportswear and Roxy’s Pub).

Story by Troy “Red” Barron. Troy is a chiropractor, strength and conditioning specialist, “elderly” amateur MMA fighter and the owner of PerformanceMMA.com.

PAST FEATURED FIGHTERS:
ANTHONY MORRISON
NATE MOHR
FRANCOIS AMBANG

This month we are putting the spotlight on an relatively unknown fighter. His name is Francois Ambang. Little was known about him when he showed up on the doorstep of Combat Sports Center in Richmond, VA (Amir Sadollah’s home school). He came with a translator because he spoke no english. The translator said Francois was from Cameroon, he was a kick boxer, spoke french and wanted to be on the fight team. Kru Brian Crenshaw asked him to gear up and move around with some of the current team members to see what level he was at. It wasn’t more than 30 seconds into it before Kru Crenshaw knew something special just walked in the door. This kid was absolutely explosive! watching his speed, power and technique was was like watching a thorough bred horse burst out of the gates.

Because of the language barrier, Francois came across as quiet and serious. Back that up with a very intimidating appearance and an inability to actually understand the words, “light sparring today”, and you can guess not many people liked him at first. Francois also new nothing about any of the fighters on the team, therefore he was never intimidated by any of them. In fact when Amir Sadollah was asked who his toughest sparring partner was, in an interview with 411mania.com, he simply answered, “Francois”… and this was after the taping of TUF7!

Francois has been with Team Combat now for almost 1 year, and in that period of time he has learned english and has earned the respect and friendship of all his teammates. To hear him laughing and joking around now you can tell that he is a good natured guy.

The million dollar question is, should SuckerPunch send Francois to the TUF 9 tryouts? He has little experience in MMA but his athleticism gives anyone fits on the ground and his striking is world class. It may be too soon, but he is exciting to watch… and you never know. Carpe diem?

PAST FEATURED FIGHTERS:
NATE MOHR