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Joe Giudice plans to become an MMA fighter after prison

Joe Giudice got in fighting shape in prison — and now, as he awaits a decision in his deportation case, he hopes to take his skills to the MMA ring.

“He’s a trained martial artist,” a source close to Giudice told Page Six on Wednesday. “He wants to compete and he wants to compete now, in not martial arts, but mixed martial arts.”

Giudice, 47, is currently in a detention center while his deportation case is in progress.  A judge has yet to rule whether the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” husband can be released on bond.

We’re told Giudice went into prison at 215 pounds and now weighs 165 pounds.

“According to him, he’s been doing a lot of the exercises and a lot of the routines that he learned when he got his black belt,” the insider told us. “He’s been eating right, exercising, staying in shape, getting his body right and he feels like, as far as his condition, he feels stronger than he did when he was in his 20s.”

Giudice, whose prison stint for fraud began after wife Teresa Giudice’s ended, has been behind bars for over three years, beginning his 41-month sentence in March 2016. While in custody, a judge ruled that he was to be deported to his native Italy after his release in March 2019.

He fought the decision and was released to a detention center while the case is ongoing.

“This is one of the things that he is adamant about and he has been speaking about it for quite some time. He didn’t just cook this up last night,” the insider said. “It’s one of the reasons why he’s worked so hard to stay in shape and get in shape and whatnot.”

Teresa, meanwhile, has taken up bodybuilding in recent years, saying in 2018 that she hadn’t felt so good since giving birth to her teenage daughter Gia, the oldest of the couple’s four children.

James Leonard, the Giudice family attorney, declined to comment.