Inside Thiago Santos’ final preparation for Jones
LAS VEGAS — A focused Thiago Santos walked through the doors of the UFC Performance Institute on Monday, just days away from his light heavyweight title fight at UFC 239 against Jon Jones. Flanked by his team of four coaches, Santos headed straight to the strength and conditioning area of this 30,000-square-foot venue.
Santos will spend the final two weeks training at the PI preparing for the biggest fight of his life. He’s used the facility in many ways since its opening in 2017, but making his change in weight class a success has been the biggest accomplishment of this effort — developed by both his personal and UFC-supported teams.
The UFC has loaded up another pay-per-view card Saturday, featuring two title fights: Jon Jones vs. Thiago Santos and Amanda Nunes vs. Holly Holm.
UFC 239: Jones vs. Santos
• Early prelims: ESPN+ 6:15 p.m. ET
• Prelims: ESPN 8 p.m. ET
• Main card: ESPN+ PPV 10 p.m. ET – Buy now | Get ESPN+ support
UFC 239 Content
• The blueprint to beating Jon Jones
• Holm ready to change her legacy
• The UFC’s 22 Hall of Fame moments
• Who else deserves to be in the UFC HOF?
• Inside Thiago Santos’ final preparation for Jon Jones
• Luke Rockhold’s dual careers
• How the UFC’s mighty have fallen? At the hands of Amanda Nunes
• Detail: Daniel Cormier on Amanda Nunes
Many fighters, not just Santos, will be in Las Vegas for UFC 239 and spend a portion of their time at the PI. It’s a space dedicated to the testing, treatment, training and recovery of mixed martial artists who fight on the UFC roster. Originating as a concept from senior executive leadership at the UFC who identified a need for their athletes to have access to high quality sports performance services, the institute — which cost $14 million to build — offers free consultation and services to rostered fighters.
In just over two full years of operation, 80 percent of UFC rostered fighters have paid it a visit. But the statistic that most pleases James Kimball, vice president of operations for the UFC, is that roughly one-third of UFC-rostered fighters engage with the institute either directly on the premises or remotely via phone, text or email on a monthly basis.
Santos is one of those fighters. As he readies for a main event matchup with Jones — who some consider the greatest mixed martial artist in history — I will spend a week at the facility shadowing Santos and his team as they make their final preparations for Saturday night.
10:30 a.m.: The morning therapy session at the Performance Institute with director of physical therapy Heather Linden begins the day. Santos says he feels good, but hungry as the effects of the dietary changes for the week are starting to make themselves known. Linden’s focus this morning is on large amplitude movements of the big joints, like the hip and shoulder. The goal is to maintain range of motion and elasticity as the fighters tend to stiffen up when they begin to cut weight.
Another UFC fighter, middleweight Kevin Holland, lies on the table next to Santos for treatment. Holland looks over at Santos and says, “Man, you were my first!”
The typically stoic Santos laughs as Holland shares that his first UFC fight — and loss — was against Santos a year ago. Santos nods in acknowledgment and notes that Holland “hugged him for a minute” during that fight and let him know he “warmed him up” for the Jones fight.
Santos returns to a state of quiet and tells Linden he is relaxing as the session progresses. When the time is up, he reluctantly gets up from the table to face the rest of his day.
11:15 a.m.: Santos and his manager and jiu-jitsu coach Tata Duarte (simply “Tata” to everyone) head to the UFC athlete check-ins/media sessions at the New York, New York Hotel & Casino. Poster signings and interviews are a necessary part of the lead-up to the fights, and the athletes spend several hours at the team hotel taking care of this aspect of the business.
7:30 p.m., Wand Fight Team Martial Arts: With more and more fighters at the PI, including Santos’ opponent Jon Jones, Santos and his team elected to conduct his final training sessions offsite.
A red minivan pulls up to the front entrance of Wand Fight Team Martial Arts, a nondescript stucco building set among other similar structures on a side street across the highway from the Las Vegas Strip.
Members of Team Santos emerge from the vehicle including Tata, Muay Thai coach Phillip Lima (who owns black belts in jiu-jitsu, kickboxing and capoeira) and Gabriel de Oliveira, Santos’ boxing coach and sparring partner. His father, Servilio de Oliveira, was a boxing legend in Brazil, the first in his country to earn an Olympic medal in the sport, earning a bronze at the 1968 Olympics.
Also with them is 6-foot-5 “Montanha” (the Mountain) Antonio Paulo Branjao, a professional MMA fighter from Team Nogueira who appeared on Ultimate Fighter 3: Brazil. He’s a multidisciplinary sparring partner for Santos and has accompanied the team on this trip because he closely matches the size of Santos’ 6-foot-4 opponent, Jon Jones. Although Branjao’s reach at 82 inches does not quite duplicate Jones’ incredible 84-inch stretch, he edges Jones out in height, making him an ideal training partner in the days leading up to the fight.
They enter the building single file with Tata leading the way.
Once inside, it is clear this is a second home for Santos. This training academy, founded by Brazilian fighting legend Wanderlei Silva prior to the existence of the UFC PI, is where Santos would come with his team to train when in Vegas. The owners, Brazilian natives Leandro and Taisa Lorranco, greet the team warmly. Leandro will serve as Santos’ grappling partner tonight.
It is noisy inside the gym, the sound of legs hitting pads reverberating throughout, as a class full of students ranging from youth to adults is engaged in a training session. While his coaches banter with the trainers at the gym, Santos quietly takes a seat at the end of a row of bleachers, patiently waiting for his training session, staring at the water bottle in his hands with the same laser focus he sports any time he’s inside a gym.
As the class clears out, Santos slips off his flip-flops and steps to the mat. The first session — a series of boxing rounds with de Oliveira — begins. It is brutally hot in the gym and within what would be the first three-minute round of 12, Santos’ face and head are dripping sweat. At the end of 12 rounds, there is not a dry spot on Santos. He sits on the edge of the mat, leaning against the bleacher seats, sweat pouring off his body.
He and Tata discuss his session.
Santos: “It was good?”
Tata: “Yes, better than expected because you’re now without carbohydrates.”
Tata works to cool Santos by pouring a slow stream of water over his head.
Santos says he likes the heat because it helps him with his weight loss. Even though it makes the conditions harder for his training, it’s better for the weight cut. He points out that being here for nine days has helped him adapt to the heat, making it far easier than it would have been had he waited.
As Santos moves on to the grappling session of his training, Tata explains that this is a hard point of the week for his fighter. Having cut out carbs as of Monday, he has less energy, making the training more challenging. Tata says he feels good about where Santos is with his weight, with about 16 pounds to go before Friday’s weigh-in. The bulk of what Santos has left to lose is water.
The grappling session, while intense, is of shorter duration than the boxing. As Leandro and Santos finish, the team gathers together on the mat along with some of the staff from the facility for a photo. Handshakes and hugs are exchanged as the group files out of the academy.
Santos decides there will be no therapy session tonight, opting to go home and rest. He’ll return to the PI in the morning. There is one demanding training session remaining on Wednesday night before the aggressive weight cutting gets underway and it is time to sleep.
8 a.m.: The entire performance team of 17 gathers in a conference room to share notes from the previous week’s events and to plan for the upcoming surge of visitors — fighters, coaches, managers — who will descend on the facility this week. The meeting is led by Kimball and Duncan French, vice president of operations, with the various directors of each division — physical therapy, strength and conditioning, sports science and nutrition — along with their support team all weighing in. Highlights of the team’s recent visit to Shanghai to open the UFC’s second Performance Institute and thoughts on areas to maintain close follow-up are shared among the group. The topic then turns to recapping the services provided at UFC Fight Night in Minneapolis last Saturday (numbers of fighters who sought treatment services, nutritional consults) and any requisite follow-up management.
Thiago Santos getting a PT session in with Heather Linden, Director of Physical Therapy at the UFC Performance Institute. This week is all about targeting optimal performance on Saturday night. Low load training and plenty of recovery.
The talk shifts to the plans for this week.
“Each year more fighters come during Fight Week,” said French, noting that 98 came through the facility during this week last year and they project 115 this week. “Be ready for every eventuality.”
While they run down the list of notable fighters — including Santos, Michael Chiesa and others on the 239 card — there is also mention of several NBA teams who will be visiting the facility at some point during the summer league July 5-15, both for training purposes for their players and learning opportunities for the staff to observe the operations of the PI. The Chicago Bulls, for example, will be learning mixed martial arts, while other teams including the Houston Rockets, New Orleans Pelicans and Sacramento Kings will be conducting training sessions. The meeting closes with a note on the importance of security at the facility to ensure the athletes’ privacy and another reminder to emphasize care and service throughout the week.
The mood throughout the meeting is light and upbeat but there is no denying the buzz of excitement and anticipation of the team’s busiest week of the year.
10 a.m.: Santos and his manager and coaches arrive at the PI. Santos routinely spends more than a week working with the staff at the PI in advance of his fights. He begins this day with a light workout under the supervision of Bo Sandoval, director of strength and conditioning. Sandoval says today is a focus on mobility and light workload, enough to get some light conditioning in without overtaxing Santos as he tapers his activity toward fight night.
“We don’t really want to put the big guys through a lot of pounding as they get close to the fight,” says Sandoval, noting that Santos is still working on training sessions this week and cutting weight.
Mobility and flexibility exercises, along with light calisthenics and some agility/coordination maneuvers constitute the bulk of the session. They work outdoors where the Vegas heat — in the 90s mid-morning — makes it easy for Santos to break a sweat and get loose.
The music playing in the indoor/outdoor workout area is turned up, but Santos remains focused throughout, especially when going through some light shadowboxing. His composure serves as a reminder that there is indeed a serious goal for him at the end of the week.
12:30 p.m.: Santos makes his first visit to the PT area, where he receives treatment from Heather Linden, director of physical therapy at the PI. Santos is well known to Linden at this point as she has seen him not only at the PI on multiple occasions, but also while traveling to UFC events. The PT team provides services to athletes on the road, not only for those who are fighting on that event’s card but also to those who live in town or who are there to do media or promotional events. Most recently, Linden treated Santos daily while in Rio for a UFC event in May.
Linden says the treatments for fighters in this week involves focusing on any areas that are particularly sore, emphasizing manual techniques to help “flush the tissue,” facilitating the removal of any lactic acid and improving recovery from training sessions. With fighters cutting weight, there is also the potential for aching and cramping so addressing the soft tissue is critical.
Even though Santos doesn’t speak much English, he and Linden have a good communication system worked out. She knows she’s touched on an area that needs work by the way he reacts; he has learned particular words that convey the difference between pain and soreness. After an hour of treatment, Santos gets a break until the evening.
7 p.m.: Santos and his team return to the PI for a training session in the Octagon. This is the most intense version of Santos all day. Sessions with his sparring partners interspersed with instruction from his coaches give the feel of an impending fight. Other fighters who are training on nearby mats or in the adjacent boxing ring pause occasionally to watch Santos in action.
A handful of training sessions remain before fight night, making every bit of feedback, every observation or tweak from a coach that much more important. At the end of the session there is a round of applause, some from the folks inside the cage and some from the outside observers. Santos is dripping sweat at the end of the session and appears pleased with the workout. He cools down by riding the Airdyne bike, keeping the body moving as his coaches circle around him sharing final thoughts.
8:30 p.m.: The final session of the day is more physical therapy. The treatment is very similar to the earlier session but the tone is different. Everyone is quieter, gearing down for the night. After an hour of releasing and unwinding his body and his mind, Santos and his team pack up to head home for the night.
When I ask him what’s left on the agenda for tonight, he smiles and says, “Dinner.”
Igor Silva also contributed to this feature.