Demetrin "Leandro" Veal was born August 11th 1981 in Salvador, Bahia. After playing 1 year of high school football Veal was offered a scholarship to play college football for the University of Tennessee Volunteers and was selected in the 7th round of the NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons in 2003. During Veal's NFL career he played for the Denver Broncos, Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans and also the Florida Tuskers and Omaha Nighthawks of the UFL. In 2010 Veal retired from professional football due to a knee injury.

Nate Marquardt, Brendan Schaub and Cody Donovan convinced Leandro to give MMA a shot while working out with strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow in Colorado. Veal has been invovled in Capoeira his entire life and started training MMA.

Veal made his MMA debut at Ring of Fire 43: Bad Blood against former WWE wrestler Chad Wicks. Leandro had a huge size advantage being 6'3" and weighing in at 240 pounds to Wicks' 5'9" 220 pound frame.

In the fight Veal over powered the outmatched Wicks and landed some heavy punches and getting the stoppage at 2:54 of round 1.

Leandro is scheduled for his 2nd professional MMA fight at RFA 7 on March 22nd against Carl Postma in Broomfield, CO.