Jacare wants a title shot
Jacare: “My focus is not on a specific athlete, my focus is on the belt. I want the champion of this fight. I deserve it.”
Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza beat Vitor Belfort so bad Saturday night that ‘The Phenom’ pulled guard on arguably the greatest BJJ player in the UFC. It was the first time Belfort lost a non title shot since 2005.
At the UFC 198 post-fight press conference, Jacare said he wants a title shot.
“I came here to fight a really tough opponent in Belfort, he wrote his name in the history of the sport,” said Souza, as transcribed by Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting. “I was happy to be fighting him and I was confident in the victory, and I saw that the crowd was on my side. I didn’t want to let the fans down.
“Before the fight, I said that I came here to win and I would win in the name of Jesus, and that’s what happened. It was special for me. I came here to win and impose my game, hit good punches, and to me it was spectacular. It was historical for me.”
“My focus is not on a specific athlete, my focus is on the belt. I want the champion of this fight. I deserve it. And if it’s Rockhold, my goal is to train as much as I can, do the best I can, and go there and destroy my opponent.”
UFC middleweight Luke Rockhold rematches former division champion Chris Weidman at UFC 199 on June 4, 2016 at The Forum in Inglewood, California. The winner could well get Jacare. And as Rockhold took Jacare’s Strikeforce belt, the fight would have a natural storyline.