BRASILIA, Brazil — Capoeira means more than just a nickname for Brazilian welterweight Elizeu Zaleski.
A member of CM System, a Curitiba-based gym leaded by jiu-jitsu icon Cristiano Marcello, Zaleski has displayed his ground skills in the past, but never shied away from putting on an exciting stand-up war inside the Octagon.
Capoeira is an acrobatic martial art created hundreds of years ago in Brazil, and Zaleski became a capoeirista before turning into other forms of combat sports and entering the MMA world.
When he returns to the UFC cage on Saturday, battling former M-1 Challenge champion Alexey Kunchenko in Brasilia, Zaleski vows to show how going back to his roots and training more capoeira over the past few months helped his “reflexes and agility” as he attempts to back on track following a TKO loss to Jingliang Li.