With the recent Ultimate Fighting Championship pick-up, “Mortal Kombat” might come to mind.
About a month ago, the organization signed aggressive middleweight Joylton Luterback (38-9, one no-hitter) to face UFC on ABC 6 (12-0) on June 22. The Brazilian-born German is happy to make his promotional debut in Saudi Arabia and doesn’t expect to be overwhelmed by the bright lights, as this will be his 70th pro fight, combining MMA and kickboxing. Luterback is unafraid of the Russian’s knockout power and spoke about his upcoming debut to Sheldog on Wednesday.
“I’m better than him in every way,” Lutterbach said confidently. “Boxing, wrestling, ground fighting, I think I’m way better than him. The only thing he’s better than me at is kicking. I’m a year older than him, but I’ve done four times as many MMA fights and we have practically the same kickboxing curriculum.”
Although “Pellegrino” has a number of grappling achievements to his name, he still longs for the opportunity to take down an opponent on the stand.
“I’m a black belt in judo, jiu-jitsu and luta livre,” he said. “He showed it in his bout with Bruno ‘Brinda’.”
[Silva]”I’m clearly better than him on the ground. If I knock him down, there’s no fight. My biggest concern these days is fighting, so in my UFC debut, I want to show him that I’m better than him on the stand. He won’t make it past the second round. I’m going to crush him in the second round.”
Luterbach was born in Brazil but fights and trains in Germany and has competed around the world for many years in various martial arts organizations. Having competed in Europe many times, Luterbach felt the pressure of representing Germany instead of his home country. Things will be different in Saudi Arabia.
“Most of the events have a lot of Brazilians and my wife is of German descent so I’ve had to represent Germany a few times but everyone knows I’m Brazilian. I’m really looking forward to making my debut in the biggest organization in the world and beating a Russian wearing the Brazilian flag,” Lutterbach said.
Since the fight was announced, the support from the Brazilian public has been overwhelming. It was surprising to see Magomedov as less popular in Brazil, but the Russian’s comments about his fellow UFC star have changed the public’s opinion of him.
“I was struck by how much this guy is hated in Brazil,” he admitted, “and I think it’s because of the criticism of Michelle.”
[Pereira]”He is showing his heroic side to help the victims in southern Brazil. I received thousands of messages telling me to shut up the Russian loudmouth, which motivated me even more.”
The fight with Magomedov will take place at 185 pounds, but Luterback is 15 pounds down and would be more comfortable at his more natural welterweight, and would be happy to move down a weight class and return to the crowded 170-pound division if the opportunity arose.
“I signed a contract to fight at middleweight. [UFC matchmaker]
“Sean Shelby told me I could fight at this weight class, but if I had the choice, of course I’d want to fight at my own weight,” Luterback said.
Luterbach is a veteran of nearly 50 MMA fights who has competed in a number of prestigious leagues, including Brazil’s Shooto, Cage Warriors Fighting Championship, Professional Fighters League and KSW. In the last of those four leagues, he faced future UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis. Since losing to the South African, Luterbach has been keeping a close eye on his career, and the Brazilian offered some thoughts on the pending title fights in the current weight class.
“Dorikus has above average strength in this department, but I’ll be honest with you. [out of Israel
Adesanya, Khamzat
Chimaev, Paulo
Costa, Robert
Whittaker and Sean
Strickland]”Chimaev is the worst opponent for him,” Pellegrino concluded.
