Former Pride star Antonio Rogerio Nogueira came to the UFC in 2009 with high expectations, and made an immediate impact with a swift first round TKO of Luiz Cane at UFC 106. He was expected to follow up this initial success with a match against Brandon Vera at UFC 109, but was forced to withdraw from the fight after suffering a fractured ankle in practice. Now, in an exclusive interview with TATAME.com, he has revealed that his recovery is going well, and he has resumed training.

"I'm doing physiotherapy, treating myself, my foot is pretty much better, I'm back to train last week, I'm feeling much more secure," said the light-heavyweight standout. "After my debut on UFC, my fight with Brandon Vera was scheduled and the foot had no time to rest and I had an injury and was running; I had no time to recover. Now I started to train. I'm not running anymore. I'm focusing more on the muscle part, but I'm back to trainings and next month I'll be scheduling fight."

Rogerio hopes that the pace of his recovery will allow him to return to competition soon.

"This week I'll be in touch to know how it's gonna be with Ultimate guys," Nogueira said. "I'm anxious to do my second fight on the event. If it's God's will, I'll be back in the end of March or April. I have no idea of who I must face, because there are a lot of people hurt."

Antonio Rogerio "Minotouro" Nogueira holds an impressive career MMA record of 18-3, with wins over Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem (twice), and Kazushi Sakuraba. March and April already feature some stacked UFC events, and with Minotouro looking to add his name to the mix as well, fans should be even more excited about what is shaping up to be an epic spring for the organization.