The New And Improved Claudio Puelles

But now, after 18 months away from competition, Puelles is fully fit and ready to return, and he’s excited to be the one in the Octagon competing, rather than sitting outside it, calling the action. 

“It’s very exciting,” he said.

“I worked with the UFC in Espanol for the past two (Noche UFC) cards, so I finally have my shot to actually fight in one of these. I’ve been waiting for that, for sure.”

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That experience working on the broadcast side hasn’t just been a distraction from his injury layoff. It’s actually developed his knowledge base and sharpened his analytical skills, which have helped him as a fighter.

“I’m around a lot more UFC events than I used to be,” he explained.

“Only when I was fighting and maybe coaching a teammate, but that was only a couple of times a year. Now I’m at UFC shows a couple of times a month, so I get to be around the whole scene, and also to study a lot of the fighters that maybe were going under the radar.”

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The time away also gave him the chance to fully heal up from a broken hand sustained in his loss to Ziam. He admitted that, while fighters usually want to bounce back as quickly as possible, he was careful to take his time and make sure he was fully recovered before launching himself back into training again.

“I did break my hand. That was February of last year. It was a good fight, but it ended up going to a split decision,” he recalled.

“So, after that, I had surgery, I took some months to recover, like, almost half a year, and then I started training... When I started training, I said to myself, I'm not gonna rush…I'm gonna take a slow process. I'm gonna actually train. Because the last fight I took, that was not short notice, but it was like five weeks, so I didn't have a lot of time to train. I was also coming off a layoff, so this time I was like, I'm not gonna rush it. I'm just gonna go through the whole process, train a lot, get better, and that's what I did. 

“It kind of took a while to get a fight, not on my end, but it finally happened, and what better than to be fighting at Noche. I’ve been putting in a lot of work since about October last year. I started training again, and I've been training non-stop. I haven't stopped for a single day.”

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Puelles will take on former The Ultimate Fighter Brazil alum Joaquim Silva, an 11-fight veteran who is making his return from a 16-month layoff. Despite his lengthy UFC tenure, Puelles admitted that he wasn’t fully up to speed on his opponent until he dug deeper into the Brazilian’s fight record.

“At the beginning, I thought he was a grappler because of his name, like he's like ‘Netto BJJ’. I thought he was a grappler, but apparently, he's not!” he grinned.

Puelles also spent time with Rafael Fiziev, who was suitably impressed with his improvements.

“He showed up three weeks ago, so towards the end of my camp I had some very nice sparring sessions with him... He's an amazing training partner, amazing guy. I love the energy with him. And yes, I got to test some of my striking, some of my training, with him, and it’s been going pretty good... He told me himself, ‘Wow, you've really gotten a lot better.’ I kind of knew it, but it's good to have that reassurance from someone in the top 10 in my weight class.”

With a new-look coaching team and the backing of one of the best strikers in the division, Puelles heads to Noche UFC confident that his improvements will shine through on fight night.

“The evolution is going to show on Saturday,” he said.

“It's not only (working on) one punch or one combo. I just want people to see my whole new game, all the new facets.”

And, despite the record books showing Puelles going into Saturday night’s fight off the back of a loss, he doesn’t view it that way, with his split-decision defeat to Ziam actually boosting his confidence, rather than diminishing it.

“To me, I don’t feel like I'm coming in on a bad moment,” he said.

“For the last fight, I felt like I was coming from an actual loss. This time, since it was a split decision, the guy was pretty tough, I didn't feel like I lost. So, instead of losing confidence, let's say I actually won confidence, even with a split decision (defeat)... I was like, ‘Oh shit! I'm back!’ I was a little nervous before that one. So, coming in here, I think I just want to keep the momentum going. I’ve been doing it in the gym, sparring twice a week, since December. So I think, think I'm pretty ready. The people are just going to see it.”