Macksom Lee<\/a>
\ndos Santos \u2014 was a tribute from his father to his idol, Bruce
\nLee.<\/p>\n After becoming the Brazilian Sanda champion for two consecutive
\nyears, Maksom convinced his fatherto let him pursue his dream of
\ntransitioning to MMA.<\/p>\n
“He even saw me win two MMA fights\u2014he was in my corner\u2014before the
\ntragedy struck when I was 17,” the young fighter said, recalling
\nthe day his father died after being struck by lightning on a beach
\nin Paran\u00e1.<\/p>\n
Following the passing of his mentor and great idol, Maksom was
\ntaken under the wing of Vale Tudo fighter Roberto “Facada” Neves, a
\nteammate of his father’s on the Sanda national squad.<\/p>\n
“I had the honor of being a friend and teammate of his father,
\nMarkine\u2014he was like a brother to me. When he passed away, Maksom
\nbecame like a son to me, and the goal of making him a champion
\nbecame mine as well,” Facada told Sherdog, expressing his
\nconviction that Maksom will win this time now that his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 is
\nfree of serious injury.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people don’t know this, but just 15 days before the
\nfight, he took a bad fall in the gym and tore his shoulder
\nligaments; he couldn’t even move his arm for nearly four days. He
\nonly fought because he\u2019s a true warrior and absolutely didn’t want
\nto miss the chance to reach the UFC.”<\/p>\n
Lee believes that, without the injury, he will be able to show his
\nfull potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t say anything so I wouldn\u2019t sound like I was making
\nexcuses, but the truth is that I basically just survived that
\nfight,\u201d he said. \u201cThat really bothered me, because one of my
\ngreatest virtues is defending takedowns. Yet, even with all those
\nissues, my opponent couldn\u2019t knock me out or submit me, and he
\nended up getting signed. Now I want to show the UFC matchmakers
\nthat, without injuries, I\u2019m fully capable of beating anyone in the
\ndivision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee doesn’t hold back when asked how he plans to defeat Tardio: \u201cIf
\neverything goes according to plan, I hope to knock the Bolivian out
\nin the very first round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Confident in his prot\u00e9g\u00e9\u2019s victory, Facada hopes that he can help
\nLee take another step toward realizing his close friend\u2019s
\ndream.<\/p>\n
\u201cMacksom works incredibly hard and has been improving rapidly; I\u2019m
\ncertain he\u2019ll soon show the world his true potential,\u201d Facada said.
\n\u201cI can say without a doubt that if my friend were here, he would be
\nextremely proud to see the man, the athlete and the warrior his son
\nhas become.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Macksom Lee hopes to prove himself to UFC matchmakers with an emphatic win at LFA 237. | Getty\/DWCS After suffering his first defeat in 10 MMA fights against Hecher Sosa on Dana White’s Contender Series last September, Macksom Lee will return to the cage on July 24 against Carlos Tardio (12-2) in the main event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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