Napao explains why he is boxing in October
Napao: “I’m training with the same team, but with some boxing sparring. It’s complete different from MMA, and I wanted to do something different.”
In September of last year, Gabriel ‘Napao’ Gonzaga retired from fighting, saying it would take $100 thousand to get him back in the cage. Thus there was some surprise when the 4th-degree black belt in Jiu-Jitsu and founder of Team Squared BJJ in Worcester, Massachusetts, announced he would be stepping into the professional boxing ring at age 38.
Napao will make his pro boxing debut in a four-round match against Washington D.C. heavyweight Alando Pugh, 34, (1-10-1, 1 KO) at the fourth and final 2017 installment of Rivera Promotions Entertainment’s popular professional boxing series, New England’s Future. It will be held Saturday night, October 28, at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts.
In an interview with Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting, Napao explained why. It’s not the money.
My boxing coach always wanted me to fight something, and I’m doing it for the challenge, he said. Financially, it’s pretty much zero. It doesn’t even pay the medical costs, but I’m doing it because I want to. Unlike McGregor, who said it was for the challenge, but lost and made 100 million dollars, I wanted to fight something, just like I do when I compete in jiu-jitsu and fought MMA.
Boxing is a high-level sport, and I’m fighting someone at my level. I’ve never boxed in my life. I’ve trained with coach ‘Cebola’ when I lived in Sao Paulo, and now I’m training for a new challenge. I’m training with the same team, but with some boxing sparring. It’s complete different from MMA, and I wanted to do something different.
My obligation to win is the same that McGregor had: none. It’s my first time in the sport, but the difference is that I’m going against someone at my level instead of fighting the best in the world — or I wouldn’t last one round because it’s at heavyweight. I have a good level of boxing, but not to challenge a boxing champion.
Professional has an odd structure in which prospects fight a series of what are termed “opponents” – fighters who are in all likelihood going to lose. In MMA fights are generally even from the start, which is why Randy Couture is one of the all-time greats yet has a 19-11 record. In boxing that’s is nothing.
Boxing records are complicated,” said Napao. “It’s completely different than the UFC. You can have 12 fights and no wins, but who did he fight, how tough were those fights? It’s different. Some people fight to build records and make money so they only fight bad fighters, but others fight because they want to, so they fight better opponents.
Napao doesn’t have much to say to the critics, because he’s probably not listening.
Many people say things even though they don’t know what they are talking about,” he explained. “Like when many people said McGregor had a chance to win — and still say that he was winning the fight, that he would win. Fans are emotive and have never experienced this, so I can’t judge and say they are wrong or not. I don’t pay attention to what people say, especially those who don’t know what they are talking about.
