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Brett Okamoto, ESPN Staff Writer
It is not easy to break into a top five ranking in the UFC, but Caio Borralho has made it happen in a relatively short amount of time, and without a single blemish.
Borralho, a 31-year-old contender out of Sao Paulo, Brazil, recorded the biggest win of his career on Saturday, a unanimous decision over former title challenger Jared Cannonier. The win improved his record in the UFC to 7-0 and immediately inserts his name into the middleweight title picture. Cannonier was ranked No. 5 in the division going into the UFC Fight Night main event inside the Apex in Las Vegas.
“I’ve been having amazing performances in the UFC for a long time, and it’s never been an easy road,” Borralho said. “All of my opponents were tough, and I think they all brought out the best of me in this cage and made me the athlete that I am. … I am the new face [of the division]. On Tuesday, I want to see my name ranked in the top five.”
All three judges scoring the fight had it for Borralho: 49-45, 49-45 and 48-46. It was a convincing victory for the Brazilian, but it certainly wasn’t an easy one. Cannonier, who turned 40 earlier this year, had Borralho hurt multiple times. He shot a stiff right hand through Borralho’s guard in the fourth, which opened a cut under his right eye.
Borralho took it all in stride, however, and outlanded Cannonier in total strikes 141-84, according to UFC Stats. He bothered him with leg kicks in the opening minutes, so much that Cannonier switched his stance as early as the first round. He put an exclamation point on the performance in the fifth, dropping Cannonier with a left hand and nearly finishing him with strikes on the ground.
It was another stellar performance by an athlete out of the Fighting Nerds gym in Sao Paulo, which has been steadily gaining notoriety over the past year. Carlos Prates, another one of its students, became the first man to ever knock out Li Jingliang last week at UFC 305.
“We study this game a lot and put all of our soul into this game,” Borralho said. “Everything is on the line for us. … Everybody that sees [the gym’s trademark reading glasses] must be afraid. We are the Fighting Nerds and we’re coming to take over.”
Borralho, who signed with the UFC in 2021 after winning twice on Dana White’s Contender Series, wasted no time calling for defending champion Dricus Du Plessis.
On the other side, it’s a crossroads-type loss for Cannonier, who bounced back nicely from a failed title shot in 2022 with back-to-back wins against Sean Strickland and Marvin Vettori. Since those two wins, however, he has lost two in a row.
In addition to the main event, history was made earlier in the night. Gerald Meerschaert, 36, broke Anderson Silva‘s middleweight record of 11 finishes within the division with a submission over Edmen Shahbazyan. Meerschaert secured an arm-triangle choke in the final minute of the second round, just moments after he was dropped by Shahbazyan punches. He has the most finishes in the division’s history with 12.