Kaik Brito returns to Europe this weekend to try and regain the Oktagon MMA welterweight title after a failed attempt to join the UFC through Dana White’s Contender Series. It was all possible thanks to career-changing advice received from Brazilian TKO teammate and MMA legend Wanderlei Silva.
“The Axe Murderer” has seen it all over decades dedicated to a historic fighting career, first winning the PRIDE title when Brito was only a 4-year-old child in Goiania, Brazil. Silva still goes to the gym to work out with the young prospects in Curitiba, sharing knowledge with the new generation.
For Brito, who grew up watching Silva help build a sport and years later became a teammate, Silva is an inspiration and mentor.
“We’ve had some private conversations and things like that,” Brito told MMA Fighting. “In the past, about six years ago, he told me something he still says today. One of the things he’s told me is to take care of my sleep and buy a high-quality bed, ‘Value your mattress, invest in a mattress and sleep well because that’s one of the main pillars for a fighter. Rest, sleep well.’”
Set to return to action Saturday to battle Ronald Paradeiser for the vacant Oktagon MMA 170-pound championship in Ostrava, Czech Republic, Brito said he bought new mattress and bed—“good enough by Silva’s standards”—after one of his first fights overseas.
“[Silva] is a simple man, very humble, and he walked the walk so we had a chance to have our own careers,” Brito said. “Wanderlei is a badass. He’s always motivating people. Look at his age today, and he’s still an example of discipline. Just him being there is already something, and then he talks and shares advice, tells us what we need to do, it’s truly something.”
Being a professional fighter for a decade has given Brito a chance to pay his mother back for all the hard work she put in raising three kids by herself in Goiania. Brito said he started working at age 13, making money in a tire shop, auto parts store, steering wheel factory and other gigs while still attending school every single day. He dropped everything at age 17 to fully commit to fighting and “give my family a better situation.”
With the money earned in previous MMA fights all around the world, Brito helped build a small snack bar on the front yard of his mother’s house in Goiania for her to run, but his ultimate goal is that she “no longer feels the need to work.”
“My mother is everything to me,” Brito said. “From the start I saw MMA as a way to improve my mother’s and my family’s situation, and that happened. The best thing in the world is being able to fulfill something that’s in your heart. I always thought, ‘God, don’t let me lose my mother or let something happen to me before I can give her some comfort, because she deserves so much.’ She raised me, my sister and my brother by herself. I know the struggle.”
Brito became MMA champion early in his career on the Brazilian regional circuit and eventually joined Oktagon MMA in 2021, knocking out David Kozma to win the title a year later. He relinquished the belt to try for a UFC contract at DWCS, but lost a majority decision against Oban Elliott.
Brito returned to the European promotion and failed to regain the belt, losing to Ion Surdu, and rebounded with a quick knockout over Joilton Lutterbach. Brito was scheduled for non-title fights in November and December, but Oktagon MMA selected him as one of the men competing for the now vacant belt since opponents kept pulling out from fighting him.
“I’m going back to the same place where I became champion, so this was meant to be,” Brito said. “I saw somewhere that [Surdu] said I wasn’t ready for him. I was winning the fight against him and unfortunately it was his night and I got caught, a kick landed and he won, but I was winning up to that point. For him to say I wasn’t prepared… to me, he ran away. There’s nothing else to say.”
“To me, [Paradeiser] is more skilled and more complete than Surdu,” he continued. “I think he’s the toughest fighter I’m going to fight. I see this fight ending by knockout or submission. There’s a big chance of that happening. I hit very hard when I land on the button people go lights out, you know? If it doesn’t end there, I tap them on the ground. I’m going in very determined to show all my weapons.”
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