“Cara de Sapato” came into UFC Sao Paulo promising a first round submission over Jack Marshman and that’s exactly what he did.
The win marked his 4th straight win at 185 pounds and Antonio now has his sight set on former middleweight champion, Chris Weidman.
While it’ll definitely be the toughest test of his career, Antonio wouldn’t have it any other way. With 3 out of his 4 wins coming by the way of submission, the multiple time world jiu-jitsu champion has a ground game that would give anyone fits.
He set himself the goal of submitting Marshman who had never been submitted before and did it with ease.
“I was working for that,” Antonio said. “He’d never been submitted before but I said I’m going to submit the guy that has never been submitted before and show that what I say is what I’m going to do.”
With 4 straight dominant wins, Antonio believes he’s earned a top tier guy in the division.
“I asked for that before,” Antonio said on fighting a top ranked guy. “I think Robert Whittaker has the longest win streak and I’m second with 4. I asked for Chris Weidman because it would be a pleasure to fight him. He beat a lot of Brazilians.”
“He’s really tough so it would be a challenge for me and that’s what I want. I want a challenge.”
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Carlos Junior who recently made the move to American Top Team along with a wave of other Brazilian fighters, is enjoying his most successful run in the UFC yet.
He’s getting the opportunity to train with world class fighters and improve his wrestling.
“American Top Team is a great team,” Antonio said. “I have a lot of great coaches, great training partners and now I have a lot of friends around. I learnt a lot, especially my wrestling. My wrestling changed a lot. Now I know how to wrestle. The wrestling in the US is pretty strong so I have a lot of tough guys to train with like King Mo, Steve Mocco, there are a lot of good guys.”
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Currently in Brazil, enjoying time off and spending time with his family, Antonio is targeting a return around March or April.
With Weidman currently sidelined due to a hand injury, his targeted date of return may be fitting. Despite the chances of Weidman accepting the fight being low, there’s a specific reason Antonio wants that fight.
“There are a lot of guys. Derek Brunson who I asked for before, Kelvin Gastelum but now he’s fighting Anderson. I respect the line but I’d like to fight Weidman because he beat my idols, a legend twice so I’d like to fight him because he’d be a big challenge for me.”
And the young Brazilian takes pride in representing his nation who has rallied behind him, dubbing him as the next big star.
“That’s my dream. This motivates me, to have my country and people behind me. I think this is great and if they believe that I’m going to be the next champ then this is awesome.”
