Outside Source
Retired from MMA since May, Rodriguez left active competition behind her on the heels of five losses in six fights. While she did finish Michelle Waterson-Gomez during that rough stretch, the straw the broke the proverbial camel’s back was likely a knockout defeat to Gillian Robertson. Rodriguez spoke with Sherdog on Wednesday about a topic of paramount importance for every MMA athlete: planning for the end of their career.
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“A fighter has to keep in mind that they won’t fight forever,” the Thai Brasil athlete revealed. “I was lucky to have my master’s support in planning my entire career, so it was easy for me. I decided to open an athlete agency. It was a natural path.”
With coach Marcio Malko’s encouragement, she decided to go a step further, venturing into event promotion. While they are not currently independently operating a league, they co-promoted with local league Brothers Fighting Champion to launch.
“We partnered with BFC, which is already in the 4th edition, and we’re already holding [our] first [event] here in Florianopolis on Dec. 4,” said Rodriguez,
Coming up in Sao Jose and the aforementioned Florianopolis—all five of her first pro appearance came in those two cities—Rodriguez wants to give back to the community that got her started. Additionally, she wishes to help build new avenues for female fighters to make their start in MMA.
Rodriguez’ main objective is to hold an event specifically created to discover new female MMA talents. She hails “Victory,” a project inspired by Mecca World Vale Tudo, which was promoted by Chute Boxe leader Rudimar Fedrigo between 2000 and 2020, as something she would like to develop further. That series helped introduce the world to talents like Anderson Silva as well as brothers Mauricio Rua and Murilo Rua.
The Focus Will Be Primarily on Women
“Here in Santa Catarina, we have many undiscovered talents,” the former fighter remarked. “It’s impossible that today we only have two athletes from here in the UFC, Nicolle Caliari and Saimon Oliveira. Our idea is precisely to pave the way for new talents here in southern Brazil.”
Rodriguez, who has taken on the role of manager for some athletes including the aforementioned Caliari, wants to keep her focus directed towards women’s mixed martial arts.
“Men have many more opportunities,” she said flatly, “there are eight men’s divisions and only three women’s. ‘Victory’ will have a total focus on women. There will be 11 women’s fights and, at most, three men’s fights.”
Once ranked among the top five in her division, while celebrating past victories over Mackenzie Dern and Natalia Silva, the ex-strawweight broke down how she thinks things could play out in a prospective matchup between the two as well as other bouts for them.
“[Former strawweight champion Weili] Zhang seemed unbeatable, but we saw last week that she wasn’t. I believe that if Mackenzie can connect her striking game and bring her to the ground, just like [flyweight champion] Valentina [Shevchenko] showed, she can complicate things for the Chinese fighter,” Rodriguez analyzed.”
Rodriguez remains the last woman to have beaten Silva in the cage, doing so on the regional scene in 2017. Since Silva’s decision loss to the Thai Brasil representative, Silva has strung together a win streak of 13 straight that includes triumphs over Jasmine Jasudavicius, Jessica Andrade and Alexa Grasso.
“When I fought Natalia, eight years ago at strawweight, she was a different fighter,” Rodriguez explained. “Very skinny. Today, she has gained muscle, speed and technique, and I believe that, with the right tactics, she can win. But she has to keep in mind that Valentina is one of the most dominant athletes in the UFC; it’s not just touching the belt, she has to take the belt from the champion to bring the title home.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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