The "Jason" you never knew, but should

by Matheus Aquino on Sep 4, 2010 6:21 PM EDT

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Photo from Guilherme Cruz (TATAME).

The most famous "Jason", Jason Voorhes, is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films, as says Wikipedia.

This character has a big legion of fans around the world, and one in particular has been making noises for some time in the Brazilian regional MMA circuit.

Rony Mariano Bezerra Lima, or as he is known, Rony "Jason" is a Brazilian Featherweight born in Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte. From the above picture you must understand why that's his nickname, and fighter himself tells where it came from:

The nickname came up at the time Sakuraba was at his peak. I was amazed by the way he would go to the ring, creating a great atmosphere. It was a show, a way to please the audience. I was liked that, you don't have to look to MMA as if it is something very serious, it also has the spectacle aspect.

So, someday I was passing trough a street and saw a shop with a Jason mask. By the time I was a kid Jason was one of the things that scared us the most, so I thought it would be a great idea to fight wearing his mask. Not only I bring the show to it, take all the seriousness, but also it can be used as a kind of intimidation towards my opponent.

A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt under Fabio Hollanda, orange belt in Judo and Kickboxing black belt (right now you must be asking yourself about this Kickboxing black belt, but in Brazil this kind of graduation does exist) holds a MMA record of 5 wins and 3 losses (although Sherdog has him listed as 4-3 http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Ronny-Jason-38190 ).

By only looking at his record, some might come to the question "why should I care?", and if it was any other fight sport, maybe they were right. But it's MMA, and fans have come to know that records doesn't really mean anything, as proven by great fighters over and over.

Still, the question stands: why should you care about a unknown Brazilian prospect with a 5-3 professional MMA record?

As I wanted to say time and time again after reading a Bloody Elbow article, see the answer for this question after the jump.

Ask any Jiu Jitsu fighters you've met how much matches did they have, and the answer will be "too much to count". Few of them does have a record of their matches. Fortunately, Jason does, and it makes it all even more interesting to tell his story.

In 110 Jiu Jitsu matches, he lost only 4, having an almost perfect record of 106-4. In submission, he's unbeaten in 25 matches, having won all but two of them by submission. As a Kickboxer, he became State champion.

You may question the level of his opposition, but although all of his matches were in Northeast of Brazil's regional circuit, they have a bigger meaning than you can wonder.

As talented fighters like Gleison Tibau, Patricio "Pitbull" Freire and Jussier "Formiga" da Silva made an impact internationally, people started to take a look at Northeast, specially Rio Grande do Norte, the State from where they come from, and realized that there are great talents being developed around there.

The bigger problem is the lack of sponsorship and support the fighters get, making it almost impossible for them to travel to other places in order to compete. In a place where the base salary is little more than U$ 250, a plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo -the place where the biggest tournaments happen - can cost more than U$ 500.

Because of that, the biggest tournament Rony "Jason" could compete was the 2008 Jiu Jitsu Pan American in Salvador, Bahia, where he took the third place.

A talented grappler and well versed in the stand up departament, the fighter made a great transition to MMA, having won his first 3 professional fights.

His fourth fight would be against WEC's Renan "Barão" Pegado, 5-1 at the time and big favorite to win the fight. But Jason surprised everybody, not only he did hold his own against Barão, some people argue that the judges could very well have given him the fight. They didn't, and Jason took his first career loss.

By the time I thought Barão I wasn't a Mixed Martial Artist. I was a Jiu Jitsu fighter fighting a very developed Mixed Martial Artist. But I wanted to prove I could win fights without punching anyone.

Everything I knew about striking I took from magazines, movies and videos on the internet. My stance was terrible wrong, so were my punches. I never had any kind of training on boxe or Muay Thai.

By the time of the fight, I was working 24 hours with 12 hours break, so I could have a one week vacation in order to go to Natal/RN and prepare myself for the fight. In those 12 hours break I would train, eat and sleep.

I went to Natal with only a small bag at my back. Patricio "Pitbull" Freire took me in and taught my some striking. To make things worse, I still had to worry about cutting weight.

The bigger problem to me was that I had one fight scheduled one week before Barão's, but it was postponed to one day before. Luckly I got a first round knock out, so I didn't get any injuries.

I didn't want to prove anything to anyone, I was just fulfilling my obligations not only as a fighter, but as a man.

I thought the fight was pretty good, but I still don't know what those judges were seeing. I got him with a flying triangle on the first round and spent the majority of the time with the submission locked, but the judges gave this round to him anyway. We split the other two rounds and he was awarded the decision two rounds to one. I agree with the second and third rounds results, he was better at the end, but there is no way I lost that first round.

It was only three years later that he returned to have any MMA activitie. All due to the lack of financial support to keep going as a fighter and the disappointing result against Barão. He took on seasoned veteran João Paulo, the only one to beat Renan "Barão" as of today, and was on his way to a easy decision win picking the veteran apart and even putting him on difficult submissions that a lesser man would fold, but fate took an unexpected turn.

The fight against João Paulo had a great meaning to me. I spent three years without doing anything related to MMA because I had an animal life, was eating really bad and still didn't get that decision. It was frustrating.

Patricio Pitbull called me to live in Natal and train with him, so I came. But luck is not one of my strong points. I had a back injury one week before the fight and I was told I wasn't in condition to fight, but I decided to do it anyway.

Things only got worse, though. The fight should be at 155 pounds, and five days before the fight I was told that he wouldn't be able to make weight so the fight would be at 160 pounds. I weighed in with my clothes on at 156 pounds. João Paulo weighed 160 pounds and by fight time was at 171 pounds. I still had the same weight.

I did great on the first round. Almost finished him, you could see he was really hurt. But João Paulo is known as a very tough guy with an incredible gas tank, so I knew he wouldn't be put away without putting a very difficult fight.

The second round was a nightmare. He hit me three times on my genitals but the judge wouldn't give me time to recover even though I'm pretty sure he could see the knees. He just kept pressuring me to continue fighting. Then I was hit with another knee and though the judge would stop the fight, he let it go on and João Paulo hit me again with two more knees on the genitals and took me down.

I looked at the judge asking him to give me some time to recover. I didn't want him to disqualify João Paulo or anything, just to be fair and let me recover because I received several low blows.

It was then that João Paulo hit me with a stomp to the body and I completely lost my breath and stopped fighting. So the judge gave him the TKO.

Even after another disappointing result Rony kept fighting and two wins later he was at Platinum Fight Brazil 2, as he faced another tough prospect in Genair "Junior PQD" Martins da Silva Junior.

He started well, even flurrying PQD on the initial minutes, but then everything fell apart. In one of those punches he broke his hand, and that affected his game in a terrible way. Not only he wasn't able to punch, he barely could use his hand, making the ground game too tough to implement.

Even though things did not look good he never thought of giving up. His body couldn't keep up with his will, though, and after the second round he was examined by a doctor and the fight was called due to the poor state of his hand.

Despite the bad luck, this time he keeps himself motivated with the help of his friends, and expects to have a triumphant return.

If we learned something from the movies, it's that everytime Jason comes back he's as frightenning as ever. This Jason promisses exactly that.