For many years, Leandro Vieira was responsible for sharpening the ground skills of American Kickboxing Academy fighters.
For the last two years, however, the brother of legendary Leonardo Vieira did not renew his contract with AKA and instead decided to focus 100% on his jiu-jitsu classes.
"The way everything finished with AKA, even still having many friends out there, I decided to not work with MMA [fighters] anymore,” the black belt said.
Vieira changed his mind upon receiving an invitation from UFC bantamweight contender Marlon Vera.
"Actually we knew each other on ‘TUF: Latin America,’ where I was the BJJ coach for [Cain] Velasquez and he was from the [Fabricio] Werdum team,” Vieira said.