Mauricio Ruffy won’t have the Fighting Nerds in his corner as he heads to Australia for his octagon comeback – but guarantees he continues to be on the team.
The Brazilian crew entered 2025 riding the high of all highs, before being brought back all the way down to earth with a string of embarrassing defeats. Ruffy suffered his first loss contained in the octagon against Benoit Saint-Denis last day out, and now returns against Rafael Fiziev at UFC 325.
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With the intention to properly acclimatise to the Australian timezone and climate, he has spent camp in Australia where he’s training with legendary featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski. And while he claims his old team might be back in future, he won’t have them with him this time around.
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Mauricio Ruffy opens up about rumoured Fighting Nerds split
After a difficult 12 months for the Fighting Nerds through which all the team lost their unbeaten UFC streaks, Mauricio Ruffy is changing things up. He claims to still be a member of the team, and can return in future, but won’t have them in his corner for UFC 325.
“I’m still on Fighting Nerds but on this fight Flavio [Alvaro] and Pablo [Sucupira] is not going to be in my corner,” he told Ariel Helwani via a translator on tonight’s episode of his Uncrowned show.
“One week before Pablo has Jean Silva’s fight, then after the fight he must go stay one month with Caio Borralho in Vegas.
“He’s a dad straight away, he has a baby so I understand this moment of his life. So I’m here [in Australia], Volk helps me and I actually have two corners training with me. I can have another corner who’s training here with Volk and the boys on the gym.
“The fellows is not going to be in my corner for this fight… I’m grateful to God since it’s good to understand how it really works on the side of the story whenever you lose. The media and all of these things is just good when you recognize success.
“Now I understand how it really works within the bad moment. I keep in my mind that God is with me on a regular basis so I’ll turn into higher and higher.”
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