Venus and Serena Williams, Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, Peyton and Eli Manning… The idea of talented siblings in professional sport has always been a huge hit with the fans.
And it’s been equally beneficial to the athletes too. Having a brother or sister as a training partner, feeding off each others’ successes to push forward, having someone to look up to, and attracting more sponsors as a star double act; those are just a few perks enjoyed by siblings in sport.
So just imagine what’s it like for twins. Antonio Rodrigo and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira are arguably the most successful brothers in Mixed Martial Arts history and it certainly helps that they share identical DNA.
They also share a first name, a knack for winning, a sense of humour and a similar nickname (Rodrigo’s is Minotauro, Rogerio’s is Minotouro).
Rodrigo is a former interim Heavyweight UFC champion, is the first Pride Heavyweight champion and is currently ranked eighth in Sherdog’s official MMA rankings. He’s believed to be one of the toughest, most resilient fighters in MMA history.
The slightly smaller twin, Rogerio, started off as an amateur boxer, twice crowned Brazilian champion, South American champion and took bronze in the 2007 Pan American Games before he moved on to MMA. He competes in the Light Heavyweight division in UFC and is ranked 10th.
Based on their respective weight divisions, Rodrigo got to be known as Big Nog while Rogerio was dubbed Little Nog. Both named after their father, the Brazilian twins have taken the MMA world by storm and whether they’re fighting in the octagon or training others in one of their many gyms worldwide, the Nogueira brothers have played a huge role in increasing the global popularity of the sport. And they did it without ever competing against one another.
Twin aim
“My father never let us fight each other. We never competed against each other,” Rodrigo told Sport360° at the opening of their gym, Team Nogueira, in Dubai this week. “Our students, we have the best MMA team in the world right now. Eighty-five professional fighters – the best in the world, they have like six world championships – but we never let them fight each other.”
Rogerio, interrupting his brother, said: “He’s my best friend, and we help each other. I know everything he’s going to do and he knows my game. So it’s perfect to train each other. I remember one time in Japan in Pride, they wanted to make us part of the same tournament amongst 16 fighters.
“And in the final, we would have a chance to fight each other so I said ‘no never, I’m never going to fight my brother’. Even if they were going to pay us millions of dollars, we wouldn’t do it,” Rodrigo continued.
For them, watching each other compete is way tougher than getting the job done themselves in the ring. Rogerio added: “For sure watching Rodrigo fight is more difficult than me fighting. Bec-ause I can’t go inside the ring and help him. That’s why I always want to be in his corner.”
The twins grew up in Bahia, Brazil and started off practicing judo at the age of four. They dabbled in all sorts of combat sports from Kung Fu to kickboxing and as they approached their teens, Rodrigo mastered the art of jiu-jitsu while Rogerio joined the Brazilian Olympic team.
Their mixed fighting backgrounds have helped them complement each other in training. “I have a very good focus on the boxing aspect of fighting and my brother is good in jiu-jitsu. So I help him in boxing and he helps me in jiu-jitsu. That’s why we exchange a lot of experience,” said Rogerio.
“He was a very good boxer, but he was also a world champion in jiu-jitsu as well. He’s been great in both. He’s humble, he doesn’t want to say that,” Rodrigo added, laughing. “Rogerio’s a really good strategic guy. He helps me in my strategic game, in my boxing game, what I should do in the fight, how will the guy react. He’s always in my corner, he’s my second mind in the ring.”
The pair still compete in UFC but at 37 years old, their prime days are behind them, particularly Rodrigo, who has been competing less and less and is currently recovering from arm surgery.
Passing on their experience
But they’ve both been investing a lot of their time in coaching and have been taking their franchise gym all around the world with Dubai being their latest addition. “My mother bought a gym when we were four years old. So we grew up hanging around the gym, watching how they operated, what they needed to get more students, so that’s why we’re involved with this because it’s nothing new to us,” explained Rodrigo.
“But it was like a fitness gym. People had this idea in their head that to train at a good martial arts gym, it’s got to be tough, rough, and it smells bad. That’s the idea people have – boxing gym, bad smell. We wanted to create something totally different from that.
“So we asked her to bring the martial arts gym to the fitness gym, so now we have the wellness aspect, it smells good, it’s clean, so we can bring in more people. “Because only three per cent of the people are interested in competing, 97 per cent are interested in wellness.”
When asked who their idols were growing up, the answer came as no surprise. “We are each others’ idols,” says Rodrigo. “My idols are my buddies. We create idols every day. That’s what we want to do in the UAE – make idols from the local guys to win the tournaments here.
“I think that’s how the sport can catch on here. In Brazil it’s the second sport. Maybe 40 per cent of the country watches one fight. You guys need a local idol.”
The Nogueira brothers are helping reshape sport in Brazil, where football remains the top sport among young boys but jiu-jitsu and other forms of Martial Arts are catching up fast. “Things are changing now,” says Rodrigo. “A lot of fathers bring their kids to our schools in Brazil and tell us ‘make him a professional’. Of our 7000 students, we have like 2000 kids between 3 and 12 years old.”
The duo seem to take more pride in coaching than in fighting. When asked to pick a career highlight, Rogerio said: “The best moment is when one of the guys from my team wins. I spend a lot of time training them so for me the most important thing is just being part of the team when my brother or one of my students are competing. That’s a highlight.”
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