After victories in his first two promotional appearances, Caio
Borralho will return to the Octagon against Makhmud
Muradov at
UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 22.
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So far, the Brazilian middleweight has made a habit of besting
Eastern European opponents.
“In my opening fight I gave Russian Gadhzi Omargadhziev his first
defeat, and three months later UFC gave me the Armenian Armen
Petrosyan, and now, the [Uzbekistan native] Muradov,” Borralho
told Sherdog.com. “In the main event Charles [Oliveira] will be
facing [Islam] Makhachev. Definitely Russian and Eastern European
fans will not be very nice to us in Abu Dhabi. But I’m really not
worried about that. I have no doubt me and Charles will have a
Brazilian party in Abu Dhabi.”
According to Borralho, the experience of having trained with
Demian
Maia, Paulo
Costa, Sean
Strickland and having the experienced Vale Tudo fighter Flávio
Alvaro as head coach makes him pretty self confident that he can go
far in the division.
“Sparring with all those guys takes us to a point where you know
you are ready for tough challenges,” he said.
Even coming from a fight against a top striker, Caio says that his
camp has totally changed from Petrosyan to Muradov.
“Petrosyan is a world kickboxing champion that kicks a lot and
because of that I had to fight from a far range. even though I
was able to take him down five times and control the fight,”
Borralho said. “Against Muradov we have a totally different game
plan since he doesn’t use kicks very much but has a very dangerous
overhand.”
Borralho hopes to get his first submission victory inside the
Octagon at UFC 280.
“Simply winning is not enough to me,” he said.
Before becoming a professional fighter, Caio was a chemistry
teacher, and his passion for studying has motivated him to baptize
his team as “Fighting Nerds.”
“I like to represent the nerd community. If I could, I would fight
with glasses,” he said. “My main goal as a fighter is to encourage
the nerd community to see yhey can learn martial arts, like I did
and be respected by the bullies. My catch phrase is ‘It’s bully
payback time.’”