Andre Pederneiras is one of the most respected coaches in MMA, as he has been leading Nova Uniao fighters to success for quite awhile now.
However, the famed MMA coach is now urging his fighters to leave the country of Brazil to make a better life for themselves.
"Brazil is going through some tough times. If I could, I would send them all abroad. I said it before, they can leave today. I see a lot more advantages outside than staying in the conditions Brazil offers today. I train them so they can change their lives. If I can't do that here, then I really want them to move away. No matter what team they join. If it were up to me, I'd send them all away today. But it's up to them. Jose Aldo is just too attached to his roots. He won't leave his neighborhood. If I tell him to move to another one, he gets upset. Aldo has financial stability, though. If I could give a piece of advice to other fighters, not only from my team, it would be to migrate to the USA, or one of those countries with better conditions than Brazil. It's too hard to be an athlete in Brazil today, training and growing financially,” Pederneiras said to AG Fight.
Pederneiras has worked with some of the best that the UFC has to offer, including current featherweight champion Jose Aldo and former bantamweight champion Renan Barao.
The coach even uses the United States as a prime example of where the Brazilian fighters should go to make it as a professional MMA fighter.
"If you take USA's history in the Olympics and other world championships, you'll see the investiment is absurd. We never had that in Brazil. You can't describe the kind of athlete we have over here. We go there and we win titles even with the structures we have. We still build good athletes, with no support. We don't do 50% of what we could be doing,” says Pederneiras.
Coach Pederneiras is going to be seen next in the corner of Jose Aldo, who battles Max Holloway in a title unification match at UFC 212.
