Former PRIDE FC fighter Zuluzinho suffered one of the most brutal knockouts of the decade.
After scoring back-to-back KOs in his first two appearances with PRIDE, ‘Zulu’ became an instant fan favorite. Even when he failed to see his hand raised against stiffer competition like Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and Butterbean, MMA enthusiasts still flocked to his fights to witness his imposing size and kill-or-be-killed style of competing.
He suffered a pair of brutal knockouts in his last two appearances, the worst of which came against Petr Romankevich at AMC Fight Night 114 in September 2022.
On that night, Zuluzinho appeared to have things well in hand, mounting Romankevich and fishing for a kimura late in the first round. Out of nowhere, the referee inexplicably stood the fighters up despite ‘Zulu’ being in a dominant position. Moments later, disaster struck as Romankevich landed a nasty head kick that sent Zuluzinho reeling. Romankevich followed that up with a combination punctuated by a knee that rendered the Brazilian unconscious and sent him crashing face-first to the canvas.
Ahahah he’s ready to go again pic.twitter.com/ORQHV5Pizi
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) February 23, 2021
Zuluzinho Didn’t Always Win, But That Didn’t Matter to Fans
It was Zuluzinho’s second straight loss under the AMC banner and would be his final fight with the Russian-based organization. Before that, he came up short on the scorecards against Yusup Shuaev in his promotional debut. ‘Zulu’ caught Shuaev with an overhand right in the waning seconds of the opening round and thought the fight was over after being separated by the referee.
However, that was not the case. In reality, the round had ended.
Shuaev ended up winning the bout via a majority decision.
Lil Zulu ate that kick like it was nothing #AMCFightNights pic.twitter.com/4Io9iGvz4Z
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) February 23, 2021
My GOD. Petr Romankevich brutally KO's Zuluzinho after a terrible stand up by the referee. Absolutely faceplanted #AMCFN114 pic.twitter.com/2zrwK32wS7
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) September 3, 2022
He competed three weeks following his loss against Romankevich before seemingly hanging up his gloves for good. Of course, it’s not the first time ‘Zulu’ has taken a lengthy sabbatical from the fight game only to surprise fans with a comeback.
He took an eight-year-long break between 2010 and 2018 before fighting seven more times in various promotions in Europe and South America.
Overall, ‘Zulu’ has a 14-12 record in mixed martial arts with a dozen of his wins coming by KO. He also claims to have gone 38-0 as a Vale Tudo fighter, though many of those victories are unverified.
Check out some of Zuluzinho’s glory days in PRIDE below:
