Fortuna has expressed a growth in confidence following his time spent training with UFC light heavyweight champion, Daniel Cormier
Speaking with Portal do Vale Tudo recently, the grappling specialist emphasized the importance of training for an opponent’s strengths (h/t Bloody Elbow):
“There’s some great training sessions at AKA. I trained a lot with Cormier, yes. It gives me an enormous confidence boost, even more so because my next opponent will be a wrestler. Apart from that, he prefers to strike when we train, to perfect his striking. Of course he took me down a few times, but it was a great session and it got me really confident for this fight. It’s important to test yourself against a guy who can strike well and has such a rich wrestling background, because you’ll hardly be surprised during the fight.”
Following a surprising first professional KO in his UFC debut, Fortuna also expressed a new-found confidence in his ability to stand up and trade:
“That knockout gave me more confidence to keep the fight standing without feeling a need to look for a takedown. I’ll keep it standing while I’m comfortable and take it to the ground only at the right moment if there’s an opportunity, otherwise, we’ll keep it standing, because that’ll frustrate my opponent’s gameplan.”
