Legendary BJJ competitor and MMA veteran Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza has just been booked to make his boxing debut against fellow former UFC fighter Vitor Belfort on April 1st, 2023 at Gamebred Boxing 4. This will be a whole new form of combat sports for Jacare to compete in, but Belfort has a reasonable amount of experience in the boxing ring already. Belfort took his first professional boxing match all the way back in 2006 but recently he faced former undisputed cruiserweight and heavyweight world champion Evander Holyfield in an exhibition match in 2021, knocking him out in the first round.
While Jacare has nowhere near that amount of experience in boxing, he’s had years of experience fighting in MMA. Although he is an incredible grappler who started out as an IBJJF and ADCC world champion long before his MMA career really took off, he never over-relied on his grappling and quickly developed a high level of striking skill too. His BJJ skills were still his most-feared weapon though, and it wasn’t even until UFC 262 in 2021 that he registered his first submission loss in MMA.
Shortly after that fight, Jacare retired from professional MMA competition and started to focus on a different career-path. He has always been vocal about the fact that his achievements in BJJ and submission grappling have meant that he could make more money as a coach than as a competitor, and that’s exactly what he did. He opened up his own gym and has spent a while building his team since then, but now it appears as though the call of combat sports has grown too strong. Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza has answered that call and agreed to take on Vitor Belfort in what will no doubt be an incredibly exciting boxing match.
The news that Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza had been booked to make his boxing debut against Vitor Belfort on April 1st, 2023 was announced in a post to the official Instagram account of Gamebred Boxing Promotions:
