Mauricio Ruffy had some special inspiration for the highlight-reel kick that dispatched Bobby Green at UFC 313.
In an interview with Sherdog.com, The Fighting Nerds representative confirmed that Brazilian soccer idol Neymar Junior motivated him to unleash that maneuver.
“Neymar always does a sequence of dribbling that confuses his oponents. I just thought how it could be applied in MMA, and that’s the movement I did with Green, a sequence of hand feints that confounded him and permitted the kick to enter,” Ruffy said. “I´ve been practicing that movement alone for a long time.