Alberto El Patron back in the octagon?
Former CMLL World Heavyweight Champion Alberto El Patron is not in the wrestling business at the moment and is currently focused on getting back into the octagon. Earlier this month he announced that he will be returning to MMA under 'Combate Americas' which is the promotion that he was President of at one point. During his MMA career, El Patron put together a 9-5 fight record and from 2007-2009 he put together a six-fight win streak.
El Patron stated during an interview with TMZ Sports that the tough times that he's been through has made him hungry and seeing younger guys in the gym training has also made him want to see if he can still hang.
“Everybody knows I went through some difficult times and that makes you… when you go through things like that, it makes you stronger.” He continued, “Now that all of those bad moments, bad experiences are in the past, I started feeling hungry when it comes to doing stuff that I used to do like fighting and every time I’m here doing Combates I see those young fighters going toe-to-toe, trading punches, kicks and everything. I get excited. I get goosebumps sometimes and I keep saying, ‘I’m gonna do a show’. So I finally go back to the gym. I was always training, but I was always training just to look good in front of the mirror, in front of the camera, but for the first time after nine/ten years I started doing some sparrings with my Boxing coach and my jiu-jitsu coach and I was like, ‘Damn, I think I can do this again’”. He explained.
Alberto El Patron turns 42-years old next year and his last professional MMA bout was in 2010 in-which he lost via T.K.O. He stated that when he first got back in the gym that the younger fighters scared him off but when he thought it over, he knew that he wanted to get back to fighting and with the help of his jiu-jitsu and Boxing coaches, he is more determined than ever.
“That’s a perfect question amigo because I question myself with the same one. The first day I went back to the MMA gym, I said, ‘Fu*k no’. I’m not sure if I really want to do this, but then I went home, slept it over and then the next day in the morning, I opened my eyes, got up from bed and was like, ‘Fu*k yes. I wanna go back there and I wanna…’ Those kids, moving me around yesterday, I’m gonna kick their ass today, and I couldn’t do it because I could die.” He laughed. “I couldn’t do it the second day either but after three weeks of training and getting my cardio back, my stamina back, my endurance back… just two days ago, the jiu-jitsu instructor who is also a black-belt in jiu-jitsu was the one pretty much tapping me out and me getting frustrated, I tapped him out two days ago.” Alberto said. “But I’m doing this for the right reasons - to prove something to myself. To prove [to myself] that I’m back. To prove to [myself] that I still got it. To prove to my children that daddy is a fuc*ing superhero."
El Patron was in headlines last month because he made a comment about SmackDown Live GM Paige via Instagram and Paige responded to that comment during a podcast appearance. To get caught up on that situation, click here.
If you are going to use the quotes above, please credit TMZ Sports with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
