A victorious Cleber Sousa (photo via SFT)

By press release

Fighters in SFT’s stable, according to MMA Premium, dominated May’s Brazilian National MMA Rankings.

In the male pound-for-pound ratings, SFT stable fighters captured three of the top four positions: 2, Marcos “Babuino” de Santos (33-13-1, SFT: 3-0-), 3. Wellington “Predador” Prado (11-2-0, SFT: 5-1-0), 4. Thiago “Manchinha” Silva (19-9-0, (SFT: 0-1-0).

“Babuino” and “Predador”, respectively, are also the top 2 ranked featherweights, while Junior and Acacio “Pequeno” dos Santos (13-3-0, SFT: 2-0-0) finished one-two in the light heavyweight division.

SFT women also placed second and third in the women pound-for-pound ratings, respectively, with strawweights Julia Polastri (8-2-0, SFT: 1-0-0) and Karine “Killer” Silva (13-4-0, SFT: 2-0-0).

SFT swept the top three positions in female bantamweight rankings, in order, with Karine “Killer,” who was SFT’s 2020 Submission of the Year recipient, Gisele “Gi” Moreira (9-4-0, SFT: 1-0-0) and Sidy Rocha (12-8-2, SFT: 0-1-0).

“SFT was established in 2018 by our film and production company,” SFT president David Hudson said. “Two events were produced, but then we were on hold for five years, and back then, I had nothing to do with SFT. When events were resumed in 2018, I wondered why a country that played a major role in the creation of MMA and UFC didn’t have a world-class promotion. After analyzing what was being done and attending SFT 4 in Brazil, I was sure the problem was how things were being done. I decided to walk away from the film industry and dedicated my life to MMA.

“Under my leadership, SFT has had a whole new way of promoting MMA. Each decision I made, I was told that by many that I was wrong, and it would result in the end of SFT. Numbers don’t lie and thanks to God, I I have the numbers that prove I was correct., However, as innovative and even crazy my ideas may have been, I knew that at the end of the day our fights had to be top notch. I had a 3-year plan and my goal was to have top 10 Brazilian fighters in each weight class in SFT, excluding those who had contracts outside of Brazil.”

SFT is tentatively prepared to return July 10th with SFT 27 in Brazil.

“We were on track to reaching our goal, but the pandemic caused us to pause at the year of year too,” Hudson explained. “Due to inactivity, many of our fighters dropped out of the top 5 and 10 in national rankings. We still have a lot of the best of the best in Brazil in our stable and in July we will return with our monthly events. I am sure that in a year, things will be back on track, and we’ll be closer to our goal.

“Part of our strategy was to have events in the United States, but there are still travel restrictions for Brazilians going to the USA. As soon as we are able to bring our fighters to the United States to fight, we will, and then we will be one step closer to attaining my goal.”