UFC's Thiago Tavares is running for office in Brazil -- in the Communist Party
Joseph McCarthy probably wouldn't have been a big fan of the UFC. And he definitely wouldn’t have liked Thiago Tavares very much. It's a good thing the Cold War is over.
Tavares, the UFC featherweight, is running for political office in his native country, in the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), reports MMA Fighting. Tavares, who meets Robbie Peralta at UFC Fight Night on FOX Sports 1: Bader vs. Saint Preux on Saturday (10 p.m. ET), hopes to be elected Oct. 5 in the Legislative Assembly of the State of Santa Clarita.
"I will be fighting in the UFC on Aug. 16, and I will be fighting for votes in Santa Catarina on Oct. 5 as a candidate for a seat at the Legislative Assembly," he told the website. "It was not easy. Meetings, campaign and training."
OK, so the Communist Party isn't as radical as it sounds and it's fairly regular in Brazil with more than 300,000 members and two seats in the Federal Senate. If you're thinking Stalin, you would be wrong. The PCdoB has actually been criticized for being too close to the center and its affiliation with the more mainstream Workers' Party. But it still is socialist in ideology.
Wanderlei Silva announced earlier this year that he, too, would be running for office. (Insert your "also running from drug tests" joke here.) Silva is attempting to make it into Congress under the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) banner in Parana. PSDB is far more well-known than the PCdoB. Silva's election is also Oct. 5.
We're not going to pretend to know much about Brazilian politics -- this is a sports site, after all. All we know is that the Red Scare is over and the Tavares-Peralta fight in Bangor, Maine should be pretty darn fun, regardless of political beliefs.
