While teammates Felipe Costa and Victor Hugo gear up for ADCC, Rafael Lovato Jr. is taking a different path this year.
At this stage, Lovato is no longer interested in absorbing the physical toll of a two-day bracket against much younger opponents without proper compensation:
No more ADCCs, man.
I’m not competing against anybody in their 20s for free any more. That’s 100%.
Beyond the financial angle, Lovato said he’s been searching for something that would genuinely reignite his motivation to compete:
I haven’t had a super fun, inspirational challenge in the game in a while.
Not that Masters Worlds isn’t fun and all that kind of stuff, but it’s not the professional stage.
Lovato also explained why masters competition specifically appeals to him at this point.
Younger competitors, he noted, often fight with career stakes in mind, which can lead to more cautious, guarded performances:
When you’re that young, maybe the career kind of comes first and the wins and the losses. You feel like they make or break you.
Maybe you fight a little extra strategic, you don’t really want to lose, maybe you don’t open up enough.
As a master, you’re still out there at that stage because you truly, truly love it.
You’re just battling because it’s who you are. The passion, it’s pure.
Training alongside Victor Hugo and Felipe Costa has kept him sharp, but at 43, he’s realistic about what it takes to compete with elite adults half his age without the right framework behind it:
Whenever I’m at my best, I’m really hard to beat for anybody in the world at any age.
It’s just not about being at that level every day of camp.
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