MMAJunkie.com reported three-time IBJJF World Champion Augusto “Tanquinho” Mendes, who is 5-0 with 5 finishes in his young MMA career, will be taking on Ricardo Ramos for the vacant Legacy FC Bantamweight title at Legacy FC 51 on February 5th at The Grand Casino Hinckley in Hinckley, MN. Mendes, who trains with Soul Fighters and The MMA Lab in Glendale, AZ was promised the title shot after he defeated Donald Williams with an arm-triangle choke at Legacy FC 43 this past July. Ramos, who is only 20-years old and a native of Brazil, holds a career record of 8-0 with 2 wins by KO and 7 wins by submission. The two men will be competing for the title that was vacated when Thomas Almeida was signed by the UFC in June 2014.
Tanquinho, who is 32-years old, has had a very productive 2015, where he was 2-0 in the cage and captured the 2015 IBJJF NoGi World Championship as well as the bronze at the 2015 ADCC Championships. In an interview with MMAfighting.com in July, he spoke about the difficulties of finding MMA opponents due to his world class grappling skills.
“They hear I’m a jiu-jitsu champion and think ‘there’s a lot of jiu-jitsu champions out there’, they think it’s easy, but when they find out I’m a world champion as a black belt it makes a difference. There are fighters in the UFC who call themselves jiu-jitsu world champions, but they never won the IBJJF world championship as a black belt. That’s completely different. When they find out I’m an IBJJF black belt world champion and realize the fight won’t be easy, they pull out. Since I signed for my MMA debut, I believe more than 15 guys pulled out. For my first two or three fights, I guess I had 10 different opponents. They say yes, then Google my name and that’s it. It looks like fighters with a good record don’t want to fight me. But that’s it. I want to win the belt no matter what.”
- Full Name: Ricardo “carcacinha” Ramos
- Birthday: August 1, 1995
- Affiliation: Impacto Jiu-Jitsu Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhSrMfc3aUU
