Advertisement

UFC 179's Felipe Arantes just fine if he keeps on fighting in Brazil

felipe-arantes-ufc-179

Felipe Arantes has had conversations about where he fights, and he’s had people try to convince him that it might be better for his career to branch out and fight outside of his Brazil home.

But why, Arantes counters? He’s been there, done that, and at this point in his career, he’s all about keeping things on Brazilian time.

Arantes (16-6-1 MMA, 3-2-1 UFC) on Saturday meets Andre Fili (13-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) at UFC 179 in Rio de Janeiro. Their fight opens the FOX Sports 1-broadcast prelims after additional prelims on UFC Fight Pass and ahead of the main card on pay-per-view.

All six of Arantes’ UFC fights have been in Brazil. But going deeper inside the numbers, when he’s fought outside of his home country, he’s only had success once – he’s 1-2 with a pair of no-contests in the United States.

“I don’t feel the pressure to fight overseas,” Arantes told MMAjunkie. “Everyone tells me I should fight outside Brazil. To tell the truth, fighting in Brazil is better for me. I’m Brazilian, so the fans will be rooting for me. I don’t have to deal with travel or time zone differences. … Most everyone dreams of fighting in Las Vegas, but it’s not a wish of mine.”

In Brazil, his family can more easily watch him fight. But that acceptance of his career path was a bit of a slow build.

Now, though, like the most of the rest of the world, MMA has entered the mainstream, and folks like Arantes’ mom are on board.

“At first, my family thought it was just a phase,” he said. “When my mother saw that I was serious about it, after some media coverage of my first MMA bout, she accepted the fact that this was my new path in life. There are still people who are prejudiced against the sport, but things have improved a lot. As MMA started getting more coverage on basic TV, viewers started seeing us as real people with friends, families and an education. I think that’s largely due to the UFC programming on the Globo channel.”

Now Arantes’ latest home fight will come, as they all seem to do, with a little bit of pressure.

And that’s just fine with him.

“I’ve always liked fighting with pressure,” he said. “And regarding Andre Fili, he’s a knockout artist. I also like knocking people out. So our fight will be a war, and someone is getting knocked out.”

For more on UFC 179, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

Be sure to visit the MMA Junkie Instagram page and YouTube channel to discuss this and more content with fans of mixed martial arts.

More News