JDS makes kid’s dream come true
Junior dos Santos grew up in humble circumstances in a small town in southern Brazil, unaware of the riches that…
Junior dos Santos grew up in humble circumstances in a small town in southern Brazil, unaware of the riches that lay beyond the city’s limits.
Now, more than a decade later, another poor Brazilian child has left his destitute surroundings for the bright lights of Las Vegas. Nine-year-old Breno Luis Ferreira de Carvalho arrived at McCarran International Airport on Wednesday with his mother, Simone, and his older brother, Pedro Gabriel, and checked into his own room at the MGM.
“It’s just so exciting being here,” Ferreira said Wednesday upon his arrival. “Even to get to sit on an airplane was like a dream. I could see all things out of the window, big buildings and we were really high above them, flying like a dream. But I’m here to help Cigano defend his title.”
Dos Santos trained for UFC 146 at coach Luiz Carlos Dorea’s Champions Gym in Salvador, and a ragtag group of local children hung out with them.
For more than two decades Dorea has kept the doors of his gym open free of charge, as a way to give kids an alternative to using and selling drugs. Dorea is a noted boxing and MMA trainer in Brazil, but his full-time job is as a crime investigator for the civil police.
The one common denominator among the crimes, Dorea said, is drug usage.
One child in particular caught dos Santos’ attention. When school ends, Breno Ferreira appears.
“When I thought of it, I said to myself, ‘He reminds me of myself when I was his age,’ ” dos Santos said. “I was quieter, and he’s definitely not quiet. He likes to talk a lot, but he has the same curiosity I had.”
Cameras for “UFC Primetime,” the preview show for the dos Santos-Mir fight, were rolling as Ferreira blurted out a plea for dos Santos to take him to Las Vegas for the fight. The affable champion didn’t object.
The family is so poor they not only didn’t have the required travel documents, they didn’t own luggage. They live in a tiny apartment that measures about 16 feet by 23 feet, covered by a thin corrugated metal roof.
Dorea hopes that the success of local fighters such as dos Santos and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will motivate neighborhood children to avoid drugs.
“This is a good kid who needs a break,” Dos Santos said. “He had a dream. Why not do it if we can?”
We love having him in the gym,” said Dos Santos. “He’s been coming to the gym so often now he’s become a little friend. After my last sparring session before flying to the US, he asked me why I had to fight in Vegas, and when I explained he said he wanted to come to help me win.
He didn’t have a passport, his mother didn’t have a passport but I was a little guy once and people helped me. If we could make the little guy’s dream come true, if we were able somehow, why wouldn’t we?
At this point in my career, I can be a motivation and role model for these little guys from home. The kids see that all the fighters from the gym have good cars; they can see that hard work does lead to something good in life.
’Cigano’ is the strongest man in the world, Ferreira said . He can defeat anybody even though he is nice. He will beat Frank Mir on Saturday. I’ve seen him in the gym and he will win with a left hook followed by a big right uppercut. This will be in the first round.