Nogueira vs. Sapp 18 Years Later: 5 Things You Didn’t Know

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira fought Bob Sapp eighteen years ago this week. A podcast documentary on Nogueira by MMA TRUFAN revealed new information on the legendary fight.

Sapp Didn’t Want to Fight Nogueira

Sapp’s trainer at the time, Josh Barnett, told MMA TRUFAN he was the one who originally came up with the idea of pairing the two together. Barnett said Sapp was shocked when he told the hulkish professional wrestler the Brazilian UFC Hall of Famer would be a great fight for him.

“He was like, ‘What are you freaking talking about? That sounds moronic. He’s Nogueira! He’s this; he’s that. He beat all of these guys.’”

“I go, ‘I know, I know, I know. But his game will not work on you, not very well. He will not triangle you. He will not be able to armbar you off his back. It just won’t work that way. You’re too big.’”

Nogueira Didn’t Want to Fight Sapp

Nogueira’s fight with Sapp is immortalized but many people forget the fact that former Pride Heavyweight Champion fought Sanae Kikuta just twenty days prior. He had no plans to fight until he got the offer with two weeks notice. Nogueira’s cousin, Wald Bloise, told MMA TRUFAN how the negotiations went.

“He said that usually the Japanese are hard to negotiate (with),” he continued. “He never (got) the price that he wanted so he ended up always fighting for less.”

Nogueira wasn’t interested in fighting Sapp. However, the people at Pride were ready to compensate him more generously than in the past.

“Instead of saying ‘no’ he said, ‘Give me twice as much.’”

Surprisingly, the people at Pride accepted his request. While Nogueira was excited for the huge pay increase, he had some regrets afterward.

“That was the only fight he said wasn’t hard to negotiate. And then he said, ‘Awe man, I should have asked for more.’”

Nogueira Slept on the Floor the Night Before the Fight

Nogueira’s longtime trainer, Mario Sperry, shared that he was very concerned going into the fight.  Sapp was nearly twice the size of Nogueira so it would make sense for him to feel worried about his close friend. However, Nogueira was so relaxed he fell asleep on the floor. Sperry shared that he had to wake Nogueira up in the middle of the night.

“I slapped him in the middle of the night and woke him up. ‘Hey man, go to your bed.’ He was so relaxed he slept on the floor!”

Nogueira Didn’t Follow the Game Plan

very clear in the directions he gave Nogueira.

“I said, ‘Nogueira, don’t try to take this guy down! He’s too heavy. You have to work a little bit around. Move around a little bit, make him move. Use your jab because your jab is good.”

Nogueira didn’t follow Sperry’s advice though. He tried taking Sapp down in the opening seconds. Sapp responded by picking Nogueira up and slamming him on his head in a powerbomb-type move.

Sperry asked Nogueira after the fight why he didn’t follow the game plan. He said Nogueira told him when he saw Sapp in front of him his game plan went out the window. 

“When I saw that guy in front of me I said, ‘No, I won’t trade punches with this beast. I’ll try to take him down.’”

Sapp Practiced the Powerbomb Before the Fight

Barnett shared that he and Sapp had anticipated Nogueira going for the takedown and wanted to use Sapp’s professional wrestling background to counteract it.

“In Japan, we tried a few things and one of them was the powerbomb because I knew Nogueira was going to shoot in on him. I’m like, ‘Well, you’re big enough Bob. You’re strong enough and you worked pro wrestling so here’s how we’re going to work this.’”

“So I’d take heavy bags and put them on the floor and have Bob snatch them up like he had a guy around the waist and slam the bag to the floor.”

Nogueira Wasn’t Listening to His Corner Between Rounds

Sperry shared that when Nogueira came back to the corner between rounds he was more concerned with what he saw on the video screen than the fight itself.

“I was talking to (Nogueira) and I saw he was looking at something behind me. He was like avoiding my eyes. He was trying to look around my head. I said, ‘What are you doing man?’ I was explaining the strategy. And he was looking at himself on the big screen. He got a cut a little below his eye. He said to me, ‘Hey Mario, do you think this cut’s going to look bad after the fight?’”

Sperry was stunned and responded comically.

“I said, ‘Come on man, you are too ugly. No need to worry about that! Focus on the fight!’”

Nogueira would go on to submit Sapp in one of the most memorable fights in the early history of mixed martial arts.