Rafael dos Anjos and the first UFC victory

By Guilherme Cruz

Photo Josh Hedges

Rafael dos Anjos had reasons to celebrate on UFC 103. Winning for the first time in the UFC octagon, Rafael went back toBrazil with the job done, and spoke with TATAME.com about the unanimous decision victory over Rob Emerson. “The victory came on the right time. I was waiting for almost a year for it, it was very important, a decisive moment to me. I make the fight go the way I imagined in my head and it was perfect“, said Rafael, who worked the kicks really well.

“I saw he was a striker and played with a leg open. I’ve noticed that on the videos and I saw that was like that on the fights too, and when I did the first kick he felt, he had thin legs... Gordo (Roberto, his coach) was on my corner and realized he felt too, then I started kicking all the time. The strategy, at first, was to take down and finish in the ground, but I couldn’t do it, I distracted on round two and lost a position, but it was ok“, celebrates, hoping to be back on UFC this year.

“I didn’t hurt myself at all on the fight... I was thinking in one more little fight this year, in December. It would be good to fight again year. This is a very hard division, there’s a lot of people, this guy I fought came from nowhere, I didn’t know him“, said, waiting for one more victory to sign a new contract with the event. “My contract is for four fights, I still have one to make and they didn’t tell anything about resigning, but that’s with my manager“.