-
Brett Okamoto
Other than a few grainy videos either posted online or kept in the safety of his own possession, there is very little documentation of Pablo Sucupira’s career in kickboxing.
Sucupira, 45, is the founder and head coach of The Fighting Nerds, the MMA gym out of Såo Paulo, Brazil, that has had talent all over the UFC since 2021. His four most-established pupils — Caio Borralho, Jean Silva, Carlos Prates and Mauricio Ruffy — are a combined 21-1 in the UFC and 60% of their combined performances have earned postfight bonuses. The team is about to headline back-to-back cards, as Borralho (17-2) faces Nassourdine Imavov (16-4) on Saturday in Paris (3 p.m. ET, prelims at noon on ESPN+) and Silva (16-2) meets Diego Lopes (26-7) one week later at Noche UFC in San Antonio (6 p.m. ET, prelims at 3 p.m. on ESPN+). A victory could earn each fighter a title shot in his respective division.
At the core of The Fighting Nerds’ breakout is Sucupira, who enjoyed his own success in the ring nearly 20 years ago, when the sport’s record-keeping was not at its finest. His official record doesn’t exist online (he said he believes it’s 13-3), but the thing to know about Sucupira is that his one and only goal as a fighter was to become the best in the world. So much so that when he realized it might not happen, he redirected his focus entirely.
“I lost a fight by knockout, a spinning elbow,” Sucupira told ESPN. “It was in 2009. I was 29 years old and I started to think, ‘Maybe I am too old to become a world champion.’ But I loved the game so much. I thought that if I became a coach, maybe I could reach the top that way. So I stopped everything I was doing and opened my first gym, Combat Club.”
Combat Club got its start offering commercial kickboxing classes and eventually developed a professional Muay Thai team. Sucupira didn’t pivot into MMA until 2014. That is when he met Borralho — a 21-year-old prospect whose mindset reminded Sucupira of himself when he was a fighter.
“I had left my hometown, I was alone, but I had this confidence in me,” Borralho told ESPN. “And I think I just trusted [Sucupira] with my whole heart, and he trusted me. I didn’t even know how to throw a proper jab, but he was already saying, ‘I know you are going to be a world champion because you know you are going to be a world champion. We just have to work on this.'”
Together, Sucupira and Borralho began to refine their style. One of the pillars of Sucupira’s brand is his observation that humans are actually the worst species of any in a fight. As much as he admires the works of Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Anderson Silva and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (all of whom he has included in a mural on one of his gym walls), he said he believes animals offer the most insight into the intricacies of combat. So, in addition to studying the legends of his craft, Sucupira watches nature videos on YouTube and regularly has his students do the same.
“When you think about animals, they’re not going to win by decision — they are going to hunt their prey, and they are going to go for the kill,” Sucupira said. “Humans don’t train for that. Humans don’t hunt. It is natural for animals, so they understand the game better than we do.”
One of Sucupira’s favorite animals to study is the mongoose, a small mammal that is known for attacking poisonous snakes. The mongoose is somewhat resistant to snake venom, but more importantly, it uses agility and reflexes to avoid getting bitten. The instinctual intellect is what Sucupira seeks to apply to his instruction.
Borralho, whose background is in judo and grappling, said he used to feel uncomfortable moving forward and striking at close range. But in his past two fights, he’s done just that, resulting in a knockout of Paul Craig and a decision over Jared Cannonier, in which he essentially beat Cannonier at his own game in the striking realm. The keys to Borralho making those changes were hard work in the gym, of course, but also embracing this mindset of animal logic and movement.
“It’s distance control,” Borralho said. “It’s in and out, in and out — and then all of a sudden, [the mongoose] kills this snake with this crazy movement that comes forward and stays close. Pablo shows me these videos all the time.”
Sucupira calls this dance between the mongoose and snake “the invisible fight” — and his fighters practice it on a regular basis. It’s not unusual for Sucupira to run his athletes through drills in which they don’t even throw strikes at one another. It’s a practice based entirely on reading human movement, and it’s the “secret” behind The Fighting Nerds’ success.
Not only does it enable the fighters within its system to feel and dictate the range and flow of a fight, it’s where their visible confidence comes from. Sucupira invests a lot of time into growing his fighters’ minds outside of competition, which grows confidence, but within the fight itself, this ability to win the “invisible fight” is what turns them into the predator of every fight they’re in, rather than prey.
“Watch a lion hunt,” said Silva, who has finished all five of his UFC opponents. “You’re never going to see a lion trot, wandering about like a dog or a sheep. A lion is one shot directly to and seizing its prey. It knows the right movement and the right time to make it. We have studied this and now we, as human beings, have felt the search for the perfect execution of it.”
At a combined record of 21-1, it’s not out of line to suggest The Fighting Nerds have come close to mastering the execution — and they could be less than a year away from producing their first UFC champion.
When it comes to championships though, it is worth revisiting the team’s one blemish in the UFC. In April, Prates suffered a five-round decision loss to welterweight contender Ian Machado Garry, who is known for a smart, technically sound style. And here begs the million-dollar question of The Fighting Nerds’ style. The way to survive a predator is to deny him the kill, and although Prates came close to finishing Garry in the final round of that contest, he lost because Garry was able to outpoint him and turn the majority of the contest into more sport than fight.
As The Fighting Nerds reach the very pinnacle of the UFC, and face opposition that is technical, experienced, savvy, well-prepared — will the team’s artistic, knockout-friendly style still produce the same viral, violent moments it’s grown accustomed to? Sucupira admits no one can say for sure. It’s the last thing he and his team have left to prove. If they’re successful, they will have seen through a journey that really began back in 2009, when Sucupira first realized his path to the top would be in the corner instead of the ring.
“This is a life-changing moment we’re coming to, I’m going to live it right now,” Sucupira said. “We’re going to test our fighting game in the highest level of MMA and just like everyone, I am curious to see what happens. We don’t have much else to show. I know everyone is waiting on the belt. The only goal we have left is the belt. It’s like we’ve been a prospect, and now we want to see if our dreams are a reality. I am curious, but I am confident.”