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Roberto de Souza on AJ McKee bout “I want finish”
Roberto de Souza tests skills with AJ McKee at Bellator vs Rizin on December 31st.
Satoshi appeared on Bowks Talking Bouts ahead of this historic cross-promotional main event bout on New Year’s Eve. Excerpts from our chat are below.
Roberto de Souza
Overall thoughts on opponent AJ McKee and de Souza’s goals for this contest
“I’ve seen him fight. He starts so strong. He give strong kicks, strong spinning kick, high kick too. I think for this fight, it’s harder on his cardio. He have a good cardio. Not a lot but he makes some fights go to referee decision and he still has good cardio. He’s not the guy to start strong and in the second or third round, lost the power or make a lot of mistakes… Him smart. He fight a long time, he’s young too. Has a good coach, his dad; good team. Yeah, I think it’s going to make like in the first round, I think it’s harder. I think the first round, I need be careful with him.”
“For sure for this fight, I want finish. I don’t want to go to referee decision. This has happened in all my fights. All my fights never go to referee decision. For sure I want finish. Whatever, in the striking skills or the grappling skills, whatever for me. But I want to give a good show for everybody.”
Bellator vs Rizin
Avenging his lone pro-MMA loss to Johnny Case in defending his Rizin belt last time out and working with Case this camp after evening up their series
“This is funny too, you know. Again, he’s here to help me, Johnny Case. He stay with me I think two months to help me. He’s long too. Not the same but a little bit the reach. He’s long too you know and he’s an American wrestler too. He helped me. I think he for sure helped me in the skills, western American wrestling skills, helping me a lot. But I think my confidence is better now. I think for this fight, the confidence to start good for this fight is more important.”
Kleber Koike being a longtime teammate at Bonsai Jiu Jitsu and the feelings with both fighting on this historic card while representing the highest levels of Rizin
“Yeah, this is funny too you know because when you start. When MMA start, you don’t represent yourself, you don’t represent your team, you represent your sport. Like when Rickson Gracie fight, when Royce Gracie fight, they represented jiu-jitsu. The other guys represented Karate, boxing. Now it’s funny like for sure, we have peoples want me and Kleber won. But I think now, people start think more about the event. People’s gonna (be) happy for the event, not just for the guy. This is so fun, I so happy for that.”
