Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza prefers to stay active over sitting on the sidelines.
The former Strikeforce middleweight champion has been on a tear. His lone defeat under the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) banner was a split decision loss to Yoel Romero back in Dec. 2015. The loss snapped Souza’s eight-fight winning streak.
“Jacare” got back in the win column with a dominant TKO victory over former UFC light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort at UFC 198. Souza earned the 19th finish in his professional mixed martial arts (MMA) career.
Souza had a chance to compete for the middleweight title at UFC 199 when Chris Weidman went down, but “Jacare” chose to nurse his knee injury. Michael Bisping took the title opportunity and captured the gold in a memorable upset over Luke Rockhold.
Now that he’s healthy, Souza will go one-on-one with Tim Boetsch this Saturday night (Feb. 11) inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. This will be the 11th time “Jacare” has entered the Octagon.
During the UFC 208 media day, “Jacare” answered some questions (via MMAjunkie.com). One of the questions asked was why Souza decided to take another fight rather than wait for his 185-pound title shot. He said it simply comes down to him performing his duties:
“I, honestly, am here to do my job. My job is not running, it’s fighting. I always say Bisping was a disaster for the middleweight division. Not because he’s the champion, because he did his job masterfully to become champion, but he doesn’t want to fight anyone at the top of the division, and that makes it difficult. He brought the division to a halt.”
The featured bout of UFC 208 will be the inaugural women’s featherweight title match. Competing for the championship will be former women’s bantamweight title holder Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie. The co-main event is going to be Anderson Silva going head-to-head with Derek Brunson.
