Dedé (center) says that Barão (right) should continue fighting among the roosters. Photo: Alexandre Loureiro/Inovafoto
Leader of the Nova União academy and head coach of Renan Barao, Dedé Pederneiras still hasn't digested the turbulent weekend he experienced at UFC 177, at the end of August. The experienced coach classified the events as the worst moment of his long career in MMA, as he had never witnessed anything like this with his athletes in the UFC.
On Friday (August 29), moments before the official weigh-in for UFC 177, Barão was removed from the fight he would have with TJ Dillashaw, valid for the bantamweight belt, after feeling ill during the weight cutting process.
“It was definitely the worst day of my career, more than losing the belt, more than anything else. I can't say it was the worst day of my life because nothing compares to losing a family member, and I already lost my father. But it was definitely the worst professional day. In my 18-year career, it was the first time this had happened to me. Since my first athlete in the UFC, Rafael Carino, I have been following athletes and every time I was there I never had an athlete who blacked out and had to be removed from a duel because he was unable to fight”, commented Dedé in a radio interview “Beat98”.
Avoiding jumping to conclusions, Pederneiras said that he will thoroughly investigate the causes of the problem faced by Barão. “Now we are going to make a series of batteries with the Renan Barao to try to understand what went wrong, since the spreadsheet was being followed correctly, as planned. A lot of people are asking if Barão changed the way he lost weight, but that was the exact formula we used in all his fights to date, except for the last one where he came in lighter, but we believe it wasn't ideal, so we came back in the old way. I think Barão needs more time between one fight and another so he doesn't do these successive training sessions and wear on the cut. But let’s do the medical tests and wait,” he said.
Comments