Leandro Ataides not feeling superstitious at ONE Championship 58 despite another Eastern European foe

Leandro Ataides

Now that he’s been back in the win column for eight months, Leandro Ataides finally has a chance to put together his first winning streak in more than three years.

Ataides (9-3) takes on Michal Pasternak (12-2) in a middleweight bout on Saturday at “ONE Championship 58: Kings & Conquerors,” which takes place at Cotai Arena in Macau, China. The card streams via online pay-per-view in North America.

This past December, Ataides landed a flying knee against Mohamed Ali at ONE Championship 51 for a TKO. But most importantly for the Brazilian, he snapped a three-fight skid – the only three losses of his career after a perfect 8-0 start.

“Losses are never good,” Ataides told MMAjunkie. “The worst was the first loss after being undefeated for a long time. My loss to Igor Svirid affected me greatly. But I truly never gave up. In a fight, you either learn or you win. So through my losses, I learned not to give up. And I’m always trying to evolve.”

That loss to Svirid at ONE Championship 22 in November 2014 came in just 17 seconds. Ten months later, he was knocked out by Aleksei Butorin at ONE Championship 31. And in May 2016, he dropped a split call to Marcin Prachnio.

The bizarre thing is, all three of Ataides’ losses are to Eastern European fighters. Pasternak? He’s from Poland. But don’t talk to Ataides about bad mojo.

“I’ve had difficulties with guys from that part of the world,” he said. “But I’m not superstitious. I’ll give my best. And if we’re going to talk about superstitions, he’s already lost to a Brazilian – Roger Gracie. I don’t put much stock in things like that. I come from jiu-jitsu so this is a good opportunity for me to showcase my ground skills.”

Speaking of parts of the world, Ataides said he arrived in China several weeks ahead of the fight in order to teach jiu-jitsu. And it went well enough that it’s possible he might wind up moving there.

“I’m really happy with how well I’ve been treated,” he said. “In the near future I’ll find out if I’ll end up living here. We’re seeing if we can bring Brazilian jiu-jitsu from my team to Beijing and around China.”

If that happens, his time there would no doubt get off to a much better start with a win over Pasternak.

For more on ONE Championship 58, check out the MMA Rumorssection of the site.