Former UFC and recently retired fighter Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza plans to box this year.
MMA fighters transitioning to boxing is becoming a common occurrence in today’s combat sports meta. We’ve had former champions such as Tyron Woodley, Frank Mir, Anderson Silva, and Junior Dos Santos fight or are currently scheduled to fight.
Add retired ex-UFC fighter and former Strikeforce middleweight champion Jacare Souza to the list.
“Always loved boxing”
In a recent interview with Sherdog, Jacare expressed his plans for boxing and his love for the sport.
“I couldn’t stay away from my training routine. I began to train boxing, and I received a proposal to fight that I liked,” Jacare said.
“I cannot say the name of the event yet. What I can say is that my boxing is being sharpened already. Even though I came from jiu-jitsu, I´ve always loved boxing, and if you see my MMA fights, I’ve always had strong hands.”
Yes, the Brazilian has strong hands. He has eight KO or TKOs on his resume, but there is no doubt Jacare is a ground specialist and Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend.
He is widely considered one of the greatest BJJ practitioners of his time. He is a ADCC and CBJJ champion and has 14 career submission wins in his legendary career.
Recent skid
When Jacare retired last year, he hinted at a return to grappling, something that has slowly begun to cross over the mainstream MMA audience. CFFC put on a massive end of the year grappling show and even go it trending on Twitter, which was a first.
Although most people would have loved to see him go back to BJJ, with all of the money that is being thrown at former UFC fighters to box, it is entirely understandable for the Brazilian. However, it doesn’t look good if you look at the optics.
Jacare is on a four-fight losing streak and has not won a fight since 2018. Additionally, he had his arm snapped against Andre Muniz at UFC 262, and prior to that, he was knocked unconscious by Kevin Holland.
When?
Jacare did not give a date to when he would box or who he would be boxing for; however, if we were to guess, Triller would be the front runner.
