{"id":40585,"date":"2026-09-18T19:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T19:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Fighting-Nerds-coach-calls-Mauricio-Ruffy-the-Ronaldinho-of-MMA-202855"},"modified":"2026-09-18T19:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T19:05:08","slug":"fighting-nerds-coach-calls-mauricio-ruffy-the-ronaldinho-of-mma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/fighting-nerds-coach-calls-mauricio-ruffy-the-ronaldinho-of-mma\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Nerds coach calls Mauricio Ruffy the \u2018Ronaldinho\u2019 of MMA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

Fresh off a trip to Arizona, where he watched his fighter Jean Silva<\/a>
\nearn his seventh
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> victory, Flavio
\nAlvaro<\/a> spoke with Sherdog on Tuesday about Saturday\u2019s UFC
\nco-main event between former
\nFighting Nerds<\/a> standout Mauricio
\nRuffy<\/a> and No. 2-ranked lightweight Arman
\nTsarukyan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny enough, Ruffy was the one who brought me to the Fighting
\nNerds. He trained with me from the age of 18 to 24, then joined the
\nFighting Nerds and introduced me to Sucupira there. Today, even
\nthough he\u2019s no longer with us, he\u2019s still a brother to me,\u201d said
\nAlvaro, who worked as a ground coach with the Brazilian team.<\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Flavio Alvaro explains why he sees rare talent in Mauricio
\nRuffy<\/a> ahead of UFC 331<\/h2>\n

Alvaro has high praise for Ruffy\u2019s skills, going so far as to
\ncompare the UFC lightweight to one of the greatest Brazilian soccer
\nplayers of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I can say with confidence is that he\u2019s the most skilled guy
\nI\u2019ve ever seen in MMA. He\u2019s a genius. If I had to compare him to
\nsoccer, which is Brazil\u2019s favorite sport, I\u2019d say he\u2019s Ronaldinho,\u201d
\nAlvaro said.<\/p>\n

Despite his admiration for Ruffy, Alvaro acknowledged that
\nTsarukyan presents one of the toughest stylistic matchups the
\nBrazilian could face in the lightweight division.<\/p>\n

\u201cTsarukyan is the favorite because of his experience. He\u2019s
\nextremely tough. He has that warrior spirit, that refusal to ever
\ngive up or quit. But we need to understand where Ruffy\u2019s confidence
\nis, where his head is and how his gas tank is,\u201d Alvaro said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Ruffy is at 100%, I don\u2019t believe this fight will make it to
\nthe third round. It will be a massacre.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fresh off a trip to Arizona, where he watched his fighter Jean Silva earn his seventh Ultimate Fighting Championship victory, Flavio Alvaro spoke with Sherdog on Tuesday about Saturday\u2019s UFC co-main event between former Fighting Nerds standout Mauricio Ruffy and No. 2-ranked lightweight Arman Tsarukyan. \u201cFunny enough, Ruffy was the one who brought me to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40585","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\/40585","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=40585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}