Contributor: Chris Groves
On Saturday, February 16th, Renan “Barao” Pegado made several accomplishments. For starters, he defended his Interim Bantamweight Title against the lightning hot up and comer Michael McDonald. He pulled off ‘Submission of the Night’ in the process. He pushed his UFC record to 5-0 and his greater Zuffa record to 7-0. He extended his winning streak to 20 straight fights and his greater undefeated streak to 31 fights. He matched the number of UFC Title Fight Wins achieved by “actual” champion Dominick Cruz. Beyond all of that, he earned a spot on everyone’s Pound-For-Pound lists.
Michael McDonald was Barao’s opponent, and a damn good one at that. Coming into the fight McDonald had a 15-1 record, had avenged his only loss and was riding an 8 fight win streak. During that streak he finished 6 opponents, 5 of those coming by knockout. He was absolutely the most legitimate challenger for Barao’s title, and Barao wore him down en route to a 4th round submission. Speaking of Submissions, it was Barao’s 14th submission victory. In addition to 10 decision wins and 6 knockout wins…it’s evident that Barao is a triple threat. He has cardio, he can grapple, and he can strike. Sharing Nova Uniao as a camp with the likes of Jose Aldo shows the kind of support Barao has as a fighter.
His 31 fight undefeated streak(featuring 30 wins and 1 No Contest) is the 3rd longest in MMA HISTORY. Regardless of the level of talent a guy is facing, these kind of unbeaten streaks are few and far between. It absolutely takes a special individual to never let a bad day effect their performance, to never make a fight ending mistake in the middle of a fight, and to top it all off, prior to joining Zuffa, Barao was fighting ABOVE 135 pounds, against bigger guys(in theory, at least). He rode one big undefeated streak all the way to a UFC title without missing a step. No UFC fighter has ever become a champion with this type of record.
Speaking of champions…can we just stop calling him the “interim” champion? I happen to be a huge fan of Dominick Cruz…but does he really have the right to say he is STILL the #1 fighter at 135 pounds after being out for well over a year and a half? I don’t think so. As mentioned above, Barao now has just as many UFC title wins at Dominick Cruz, and here’s a zinger…Barao has actually FINISHED two of his UFC fights, while Cruz hasn’t finished a fight since 2010. After all, Barao IS the champion until Cruz comes back and says otherwise.
So in my humble opinion, the next time anyone starts contemplating who the top Pound For Pound fighters on the planet are, they need to make sure not to leave out “The Baron”.
-Chris can be reached at [email protected].
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