Bruna Brasil debuts a new team of cornermen Saturday at UFC 304, and feels like a new fighter going into her strawweight bout with local star Molly McCann in Manchester.
Ranked UFC middleweight contender Caio Borralho worked as Brasil’s head coach in her UFC 304 camp alongside veteran fighter Felipe Douglas and Brasil’s girlfriend Vanessa Messina, helping the 30-year-old to “better digest” her recent loss to Loma Lookboonmee and bounce back in enemy territory.
“Caio is a great friend of mine,” Brasil told MMA Fighting. “It was quite different to bring a friend to my camp. He’s very strict as a coach, he demands a lot from me both physically and mentally, but at the same time he has such good energy. everything is smooth with him. Hard things are much easier with him.”
Brasil said the trio of coaches broke down her strategy down to tiny details, making this her most physically demanding camp to date, “but I was willing to pay the price to become stronger and better.”
“Doing the same thing over and over isn’t enough sometimes,” Silva said. “You have to challenge yourself, and they helped me a lot in that part of the challenge.”
Like Borralho, Brasil is a longtime member of Fighting Nerds in Sao Paulo, but admits that the team’s recent UFC success with the likes of Borralho, Vinicius Oliveira, and Jean Silva, has made things more complicated in the gym.
“The team has grown so much over the last year that it has taken the attention of our coaches, Pablo [Sucupira] and Flavio [Alvaro],” Brasil said. “This is the most important fight of my life and it’s a moment I need attention. I need people that are 100 percent with me, people that undoubtedly believe 100 percent on the win. It was hard to make this decision but it was necessary.”
“They’re having their moment with the team,” she continued, “but I need this attention personally right now, to think what’s best for my development and for better performance, better camp, better energy focused 100 percent on me. I wanted that priority for this fight. This is a big challenge, and also a crucial moment in my career. What I really want was to have people that are 100 percent with me, no distractions.”
McCann is a big star in Europe and Brasil said “UFC is very excited about this fight.” McCann is a fan-favorite in the United Kingdom and one of the most popular athletes on the UFC 304 card, and Brasil vows to prove “I’m capable of facing this challenge and win.”
“We’ve planned good counters,” Brasil said of how she beats McCann in Manchester. “Maybe I can end the fight with a knee. That’s what I’m looking at. I’m sure I’ll land that knee and I hope she goes down. If she doesn’t go down, we’ll continue hurting her the entire fight.”
