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Raoni Barcelos | Get Ready For A New Chapter
Veteran Bantamweight Raoni Barcelos Plans To Make His First UFC Main Event Assignment Count With The Biggest Win Of His Career.
After eight years and 15 fights in the UFC, 39-year-old Raoni Barcelos finally has his face on the poster. The Brazilian has toiled away in the talent-stacked UFC bantamweight division, since his arrival in 2018, and now, after hitting the best form of his UFC career, he’s landed his first UFC main event opportunity.
Barcelos will take on Mexico’s Raul Rosas Jr in a five-round battle at 135 pounds at Meta APEX on Saturday night, and the veteran campaigner couldn’t be happier to be at the top of the fight card with Rosas this weekend.
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“I’m very happy with this opportunity and just thrilled to be here and just taking in every moment in this,” he said. “It’s a dream come true, and I just want to enjoy it.”
Barcelos’s UFC career started fast as he reeled off five consecutive victories in his first five UFC fights. But a loss to Timur Valiev in June 2021 started a run of form that saw him lose four out of five matchups as he was defeated by Valiev, Victor Henry, Umar Nurmagomedov, and Kyler Phillips.
Full Fight | Raoni Barcelos vs Payton Talbott
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Full Fight | Raoni Barcelos vs Payton Talbott
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Those losses put Barcelos under pressure when he returned against Cristian Quinonez in February 2024, but with the prospect of three consecutive defeats staring him in the face, he produced a big performance to submit Quinonez in the third round to snap his losing skid.
Since then, it’s been wins all the way for Barcelos, who added the names of rising prospect Payton Talbott, and former champion Cody Garbrandt, plus respected 135ers Ricky Simon and Montel Jackson to put him on a five-fight win streak, and earn him Saturday night’s main event meeting with Rosas.
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“When I got the call about fighting Raul, I was already very happy,” he said. “I thought that it was a great fight. And then when I found out that we're gonna be in the main event, it's like a movie went through my head. All the struggles, everything that I went through to get here, I'm super thrilled… I think Raul’s a great fighter, great athlete, very tough athlete, and it's going to be a great fight.
“I think the fans are the ones that are going to come out winning, because I can tell you that I’m very well prepared, and I believe Raul is, too.”
Barcelos always trains for deep waters, so he said that his conditioning training didn’t need too much tweaking for Saturday night’s longer 25-minute course. But he knows that he’ll have to be more cerebral to make sure he stays on top of the rounds to keep him ahead of his opponent as the fight progresses.
“We didn’t change much in terms of the five rounds, because I usually train more rounds anyway. So it was more of a tactical change than anything else,” he said. “I'm always training to be conditioned, so we didn't have to change much.”
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With Rosas and Barcelos ranked 12th and 13th respectively in the UFC’s media rankings, it’s a fight that is likely to produce a tight, well-contested battle. And in those types of well-matched fights, it’s often the intangibles that can make the difference. For Barcelos, that means leaning on his experience.
“I think the experience counts a lot, and the maturity of being in here,” he said.“I've gone through everything. I've knocked people out. I've been knocked out. I’ve won, and lost. I've been through everything, so I think that has a lot of weight in this fight… I think it does a lot for me, and I just need to go in there and put on a great fight and win, and have my arm raised.”
And in a fight where he knows his opponent is as ready for the challenge as he is, Barcelos knows he’ll have to produce something special to make the difference on fight night. For him, that means taking the fight by the scruff of the neck in the early stages, and pushing the pace in search of an early finish.
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“I think I'm going to come in aggressive, trying to knock him out,” he said. “But I think that we're going to get into some wrestling, some jiu-jitsu. But I'm going to go in there to finish the fight.”
Victory over Rosas would be a significant moment for Barcelos, who is hunting down the division’s big fish as he looks to get as far as he can in the UFC’s talent-stacked 135-pound class. And he hopes that the manner of his victory will send a clear message to the rest of the division.
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“I want to show the division I'm coming in, and I'm coming in strong,” he said. “Get ready, because this is a new chapter.”