Caio Borralho sees himself as the next contender for Middleweight gold if he can get his hand raised this weekend.
‘The Natural’ will face Jared Cannonier on Saturday night (August 24), at the UFC Apex, in the main event of UFC Vegas 96
Borralho enters the contest on the back of his biggest win, when he knocked out Paul Craig in the second round of the UFC 301 bout earlier this year. Now, the 12 ranked Middleweight will look to climb even further up the rankings in his showdown against the number 5 ranked Cannonier.
Prior to the bout, the Brazillian spoke to ESPN MMA and explained just what a win against Cannonier would do for his career. He said:
“Definitely. I'm the new breed of the division. Like, people already know who I am, but now people are going to start to put me in the contender mix and after a good finish against Jared, I think there will be no conversation about it, I will be the next contender. My last fight, the mantra was, I'm going to KO Paul Craig and I did it.
“In this fight, my mantra is, I'm going to show the new champ arrived, you know. So that's my mantra right now. The entire training camp, the entire training and that's my mantra coming into this fight. I’m going to show everybody the new champ has arrived in the UFC, (you’re) going to see that you're going to going to see like, oh, I think this kid is the next one, you know?”
Not only has the rise of Borralho been impressive but equally so has been the momentum the gym he represents, The Fighting Nerds, have established of late. Alongside the 31-year-old teammates Carlos Prates, Jean Silva and Bruna Brasil have all picked up big wins this year. Discussing the origins of the team, Barralho explained where the unusual name came from.
“The name came out with my coach, Pablo Sucupira, he came out with the name because we were already like nerds about fighting. We approach fighting in a different way. where We weren't just seeing the fight or cheering for the fight or anything like that, we were analysing everything. (We are analysing) Statistics, we were analysing the mechanics, we were analysing movement and patterns and all these things.
“When I watch fights, I don't see only punches, you know. So we were already the guys, the guys that put everything into the game, just to get better, not only inside the training, inside the Octagon, but outside too.”
You can see the full interview below:
