UFC on Fuel TV 3’s Jeff Curran Believes Eduardo Took the Wrong Road to the Octagon
Team Curran leader Jeff Curran will go into UFC on Fuel TV 3 striving to get his first win in the Octagon in Virginia. Curran will meet Nova Uniao’s Johnny Eduardo, a veteran of the sport who is also looking for his first UFC win.
The veteran has seen his ups and downs in the sport. In his last fight, he lost a decision to bantamweight contender Scott Jorgensen. Coming out of that fight with Jorgensen, Curran has new motivation in life, to lead by example and show his students how it’s done.
Now heading into the Patriot Center, Curran isn’t at all impressed with Eduardo’s 25-9 record. The 34-year-old believes that Eduardo has had an easy path to the UFC and makes no secret about how he feels that Eduardo’s record was padded.
“He’s tough no doubt, I respect him a lot, but I don’t let the record get to me,” Curran told MMAWeekly Radio.
“I’ve had those moments a few times in my career where I was on those kind of rolls. But he was fighting a lot of guys that only had a couple of fights that are like 1-2, 0-3, 0-4, and 6-7 and a lot his crazy record was on Shooto Brazil, which is owned by Andre Pederneiras (Eduardo's coach). He built himself properly and maybe took the wrong road to get to the UFC.
“I don’t discount him at all. I’m thinking anything can happen in this fight as far as how he’s going to approach me, so I’ll be just as ready for him to shoot a double on me as I am for him to try and kick my leg off. I respect him. I’m prepared for him and I’m ready to meet him in the middle and show the UFC and the fans that this is how I fight, this is what I’ve always done and I’m not changing.”
Make no mistake about it, Curran is taking Eduardo seriously. Curran has prepared for a tough fight, but he’s seen it time and time again where a fighter has faced easier competitors to build a long resume.
“Believe me, I’ve researched every fight of his going back two to three years, not to study the actual fight, but to see who they are and to who they lost to and try to find footage of the people he’s fought. There wasn’t a whole lot of impressive guys. Not that there wasn’t some key guys that made Johnny Eduardo world known. There’s definitely got to be those elements in there where he fight the good named guys.”
At the end of the day, Curran isn’t wrong about the Nova Uniao pupil's record as seven of Eduardo’s last 11 opponents have subpar records. And Come fight time, Curran has prepared for a well-disciplined attack for a dangerous opponent and hopes to foil Eduardo’s plans.
“It’s no different than a boxer building their record. They knock everyone out for their first 30 fights and once they start fighting top contender fights and every one goes to a split decision once that bar gets raised. When Aldo fights high-level guys like you see in UFC Brazil, he fights different. Every time he fights somebody that’s dangerous, he fights them different. It’s been a pretty good pattern for me to study and I’m hoping to continue that pattern and exploit whatever it is I see.”
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