Respected as one of the top strikers in the light heavyweight division, one tutored by the likes of Chuck Liddell and John Hackleman, Glover Teixeira could have avoided mixed martial arts altogether and made a career as a professional boxer. In fact, that was the initial plan when the Sobralia native left Brazil to begin a new life in Connecticut.
“The first time I went to the gym, it was here in the United States in Danbury, and I wanted to be a boxer,” he recalled, “but that changed three months later when my friend showed me a tape of Royce Gracie in UFC.