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The Fighting Nerds product earned the most signifcant victory of his career to date in the UFC on ESPN 62 headliner, as he weathered a game effort from Jared Cannonier to capture a unanimous decision triumph on Saturday night at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Borralho nearly finished the contest in the fifth round to put a stamp on his seventh consecutive promotional triumph. The Brazilian known as “The Natural” came away quite pleased with his performance against a former middleweight title challenger.
“I wasn’t there to grapple. I was there to bring fire and be comfortable in the danger, because Jared’s a very dangerous opponent,” Borralho said at the post-fight press conference. “My jab was was on point, my calf kicks were on point, and I just did the job. I almost got the finish.
“I think the ref should have finished it, should have stopped the fight [in the fifth round] because Jared was [hurt] very bad, but it is what it is. I’m very thankful to be there [for] 25 minutes with one of the best in the world — and tell me one guy that did that to Jared. Tell me. There’s no one that did that to Jared the way I did it.”
Borralho now believes he is ready to take his place among the elite in the UFC’s middleweight division.
“I think [this win] takes me to one of the best in the world,” Borralho said. “Like, I’m Top 5 right now. At least, I deserve a Top-5 spot on Tuesday. And I think I proved myself as one of the best in the division — that I can strike. That I cannot only grapple, I can strike. I have the grappling, I have the wrestling, I have the durability, I have the chin, I have the power.
“I think I showed everyone that tonight, and it’s just going to take me to my belt. The mantra of this training camp was to show the new champ arrived, and I think I showed that a little bit. If I’m not the next one [to fight for the title], at least when there’s a conversation about who’s the next one, my name is going to be around there. I know that.”
Borralho is likely behind Sean Strickland, and potentially, the Robert Whittaker-Khamzat Chimaev winner, in the middleweight championship queue. That’s fine with the surging Brazilian, who knows that he is at least part of the conversation.
“I want a title shot, that’s for sure, but I’m a company man,” Borralho said. “Whoever Hunter [Campbell] and Dana [White] send me to fight, if they’re people above me or something like that, like the fight that I deserve, the fight that’s going to put me even more close to the belt, I’m going to take it, because I’m the company man.”
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