Thales Leites

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1 Profile
2 Early Career
3 UFC Career
4 Mixed martial arts record
5 Gallery
6 External links

Profile

Thales "Braveheart" Leites (born September 6, 1981) is a Brazilian professional mixed martial artist and Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt under Welton Ribeiro.

He stands 6 ft. 1 in. tall and fights in the middleweight division (185 lbs.).

He is a well decorated jiu jitsu practioner who currentlly fights as a middleweight contender for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Early Career

Thales Leites made his professional mixed martial arts debut on November 23, 2003 against Felipe Arinelli in a Shooto Brazil event. He defeated his opponent with a second round arm triangle choke.

Six months later, Leites dished up another arm triangle choke victory in the opening round of one night four man tournament for the Vitoria Extreme Fighting organization. Leites followed the submission win in the opening round with a TKO stoppage of his opponent, Lucio Linhares.

After heading over to Hawaii and defeating Adam Roland via armbar, Leites returned to Brazil to take on another high level grappling competitor in Gustavo Machado. Leites showed his sublime grappling by submitting his fellow black belt in the third round.

Another trip over to Hawaii saw Leites dispose of UFC veteran, Ronald Jhun via third round TKO. That was followed by an armbar submission over future TUF 8 contestant, Jason Guida at a UWC event three months later.

Leites improved to 8-0 with a win over Osami Shibuya at a MARS event in February of 2006 before submitting grizzled PRIDE veteran, Jose "Pele" Landi-Jons in Brazil with an arm triangle choke.

UFC Career

The undefeated start to his professional career earned Leites a contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship with his debut to take place at UFC: The Final Chapter against Nate Marquardt. However, Visa problems kept Leites from making his debut at that time.

Instead, Leites would make his debut at The Ultimate Fighter 4 Finale against Danish fighter, Martin Kampmann. Leites dropped Kampmann early and scored a takedown but was unable to capitalize any further. As the fight wore on, Leites grew tired and Kampmann started to come out on top and pinched the final two rounds. The unanimous decision went to Kampmann and Leites had suffered the first professional loss of his career.

Leites bounced back from his first loss at UFC 69 when he manhandled Pete Sell for the full 15 minutes before finally being awarded the clear cut unanimous decision victory.

At The Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale, Leites was matched up against Floyd Sword on the show's undercard. Leites used his superior grappling to coax a tap out from Sword at 3:50 of round 1.

Originally not meant to fight on UFC 74, Leites replaced an injured Travis Lutter to fight tough middleweight, Ryan Jensen. Jensen offered some resistance but was eventually caught by Leites in a nifty armbar that forced the tap 3:47 into the round. The quick result earned the fight an airing on the PPV and a "Submission of the Night" bonus for Thales Leites.

At UFC 81, Leites was again scheduled to face Nate Marquardt but had to withdraw from the fight for a second after suffering an injury. The bout would actually go through a little over four months later at UFC 85 in England. In a controversial bout, Leites dropped Marquardt in the first round and had him in deep trouble. Marquardt recovered and began to take control of the fight but was deducted a point in the second round for an illegal to knee to a downed opponent and a point in the third round for elbows to the back of the head, that replays showed actually landed to the side. The fight went the distance with Leites being awarded the split decision victory.

Leites was matched up against Goran Reljic at UFC 90 but after Reljic withdrew with injury a scramble for a last minute replacement ended with Miletich brawler, Drew McFedries filling the spot. Leites' bout was downgraded to the undercard but Leites' quick rear naked choke of McFedries ensured the bout would end up on the PPV broadcast.

UFC 97, in Montreal, Canada will see Leites get the biggest test of his career when he takes on UFC middleweight champion, Anderson Silva in the main event of the evening.