Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL-

When you go to visit an academy such as BTT is, your first wish is to look for MMA stars like Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira, Ricardo Arona, Rogerio "Minotoro" Nogueira, Paulo Filho, Murilo Bustamante and many others. However, the academy is more than that and with a very well shared way of conducting all kinds of training, the good people behind the scenes and coaches don't appear much like the fighters do.

So how to show this, if you are used to visit the academy often (like I do), and have deep access to the structure of the BTT's academy?

Well, I used my own strategy of visiting BTT during their last training session for the Pride Bushido Welterweight GP and didn't notice any of the people that I was going. In my opinion it worked well and not so well at the same time. First because I got to discover (naturally) points to report here, and second and not good at all, because not all of the top names were training on that morning.

When I arrived early at their headquarters, I already noticed how tough these guys are, by seeing William Parrudinho and Eraldo Paes, two of the new BTT fighters, sleeping at the gym. By what they told me, this was the best way of arriving in the time to training, since they live so far from Lagoa, the district where BTT's academy is located.

The fighters were arriving one by one, and I was anxious to see Paulo Filho and Murilo Bustamante - they were going to fight at Bushido June 4th, but unfortunately while Filho didn't show up (due to a minor flu), Bustamante was in the academy just to relax and not train.

Jose Mario Sperry joined the group of fighters and started a stand-up training with boxing gloves where the people had to trade on the feet and then take the opponent down. This was the pace of the training and I asked Bustamante about his prior trainings after the fights:

"Here at BTT I work hard in all weeks before the fights, in the next-to-the last week before the fight we have the hardest trainings possible. Then in last week before the fight we put the pace a little low to avoid injuries" said Bustamante.

Due to a normal MMA training pace on that Friday, I took some pictures of Rogerio "Minotouro" Nogueira squaring-off Fabiano Capoani. When I turned my attention outside the gym, I had lucky of meeting a special person who arrived just to watch the trainings. Today wasn't the day of the Wrestling- but the phenomenal Darrel Gholar (BTT's wrestling coach) was there and I had to collect his words. Ghollar has a superb way of conducting his trainings at BTT and I got motivated on training (even if I didn't) each time I watched it.

"I coached in several schools before I joined BTT, and I never saw as many natural talents to Wrestling like I did here. The ability of the BTTers are incredible- we have here Jose Mario Sperry, Paulo Filho, Ricardo Arona, Alexandre "Cacareco" Ferreira and many others who are really excellent fighters, and their tools to learn and work over wrestling are high"

I still didn't have many chances of watching the trainings conducted by the muay thai coach of BTT, Paulo Nikolai, (and I'll go through of it in the lines below) - Nikolai wasn't in the gym that day. However when I compare the trainings I had opportunity of watching here in BTT since it was created in 2000- I can't forget to mention, the Wrestling sessions of Gholar. It is something brilliant. Not only by the professional he is, but by the enthusiasm he gives and takes to the fighters:

"This is an important point of my sessions here. If your coach has a lot of energy to unload into the trainings, you will follow. Look, if I talk to them 'do it', 'throw him' - I'd take from them 80% of their will. But if I talk to them 'do it for money, do it for your country, do it for your family'. So my words extra-motivate them and they give their best (100%, 110% ). The guy comes to train and you need to push him: 'why are you here?' He can be here by these reasons I told before, but he can be here only to not lose anymore, he needs extra motivation all the time, and I do it here. We see (and you know) people get tired with tough trainings, so they can talk: 'I'm not going to train today, I'm maimed of last training and bla, bla, bla' So you come to show him what his extra-effort can provide him, he absorb it and follow my words even he's extremely tired' explained Gholar

So I believe you understood what I meant about Gholar's training sessions, and to cause a polemic, I asked him, who's the best 'wrestler' of BTT?

"Paulo Filho is very strong, and I wish that with his talent he can compete at a Greco-Roman tournament. He has an amazing base and his throws are perfect to compete in a tournament of Wrestling" finished Ghollar


Bebeo Duarte, Murilo Bustamante and Jose Mario Sperry are the creators of BTT, Ricardo Liborio is too, but now he's the creator of ATT in America and he left BTT. So if you know the history of these guys, the little thing you certainly know about is that they are formed BJJ black belts under Carlson Gracie Sr (RIP). BTT is recognized as a MMA team that bases BJJ as their main weapon. So fans would like to know how they are training at the on the feet aspect. Since they're in the mixed martial arts competitions, they couldn't keep themselves 100% confident in ground-game. To start this explanation, I'll talk about Paulo Nikolai, one of the best muay thai coaches in Brazil and the responsible about the training on this aspect at BTT's gym. However