6-foot-9 Vitor Resende Is Ready to Showcase His Skills after Spending 2022 on the Sidelines

2022 was a rough year for Vitor Resende, but this week he plans to make up for lost time.

The last time Resende (4-0) fought was a 35-second knockout all the way back in June 2021. Since that quick finish, a number of bout cancellations have kept “Vitao” on the sidelines, polishing his skills with American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Florida. Though he enjoyed working with elite heavyweight company including Marcus Almeida and Augusto Sakai, Resende confessed he hasn’t seen his family in Brazil in a long time. For now though, the job is to make sure nothing gets between him and a Professional Fighters League contract—not even a last-minute change of opponent, as his originally scheduled opponent, Greg Velasco, was replaced by Isaiah Pinson in the last few days.

“It was a tough year for me,” he said. “I did not go back home for the holidays between ‘21 and ‘22 and stayed here training. I had something booked for January and fell through, had something booked for February that fell through, and pretty much every single month of the year, I started gearing up for something and then shortly after that it, it got taken away.”

(00:00) Intro
(01:02) Preparing his Challenger Series fight
(02:00) His sparring partners
(02:58) Training as a 6-foot-9 fighter
(03:45) His Brazilian jiu-jitsu background
(04:53) Loving striking
(06:05) Staying on the sidelines in 2022
(07:36) Being ready for five fights in 2023
(08:35) Commenting on last year’s heavyweight final
(10:02) Not wishing to comment on Brazil’s political situation
(10:35) Outro