Felipe Pena is making the transition to MMA eventually, something that’s been on the ADCC and IBJJF world champion’s mind for quite some time now. As of yet, there’s no concrete news on where he will end up fighting or who he will be taking on for his debut but he sat down for an interview with Tatame where he gave something of an update on how his switch to MMA is going:
“I really want to test myself in MMA. I’ve been wanting this for some time now and it’s something that doesn’t go away. I’ll definitely migrate someday, at least try, right… But I still don’t know when that will happen. I’m training from time to time, fixing things, so when it happens, I’ll be in the best shape. However, I still don’t have a forecast for that to happen.”
Felipe Pena is known as a prolific competitor, having registered over a hundred victories while winning the IBJJF world championship in the gi and out of it, and the ADCC absolute world championship with a 6-0 victory over Gordon Ryan in the final. The recent interview with Tatame was actually conducted as a result of his upcoming match with Nicholas Meregali at BJJ Bet 2, a promotion that he has already fought for in the very first event where he suffered an ankle injury while defeating Erberth Santos. Before discussing his move to MMA, Felipe Pena had this to say about the matchup with Meregali:
“This fight against Nicholas Meregali, I’ve wanted it for a long time. We faced each other once, but it was a long time ago, I was in the light heavyweight division, injured too. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the result would be different [Meregali won by submission], but I consider myself a much more complete and more mature athlete now. I really wanted this fight and I’m very happy that it’s about to happen, especially in such a good moment for me, where I’m coming from several victories.”
“The expectation is the best possible, I’m sure it will be a high level fight. Nicholas is a guy who plays forward and I like to fight with someone who trades Jiu-Jitsu. Let’s get out there and I hope to win the victory through some submission.”
