Caio Borralho said he sent Alex Pereira a message as soon as the UFC booked his next fight, and the matchup now sends him against Pereira’s teammate Yousri Belgaroui on Saturday at UFC 334 in Madison Square Garden in New York.
Borralho said the exchange with Pereira was smooth. He told him he was a fan, said they were friends and added that the change will wait for after the fight, when things go back to normal. That matters because Borralho has trained with Pereira before, both in the United States and at The Fighting Nerds in Sao Paulo, and now finds himself opposite a fighter tied to the same corner.
The timing makes the booking a live issue for Borralho rather than just a date on the calendar. He is coming off a win over Reinier de Ridder and improved to 8-1 in the UFC, so a fight on the main card of UFC 334 is another chance to keep moving. Belgaroui, meanwhile, arrives with a very different profile: 3-0 in the UFC, three knockouts, and a run built on the kind of finishing power that can change a fight fast.
Borralho did not pretend the pairing made immediate sense. His first reaction was that it did not make much sense, and he said he asked whether anyone else was available because he would have preferred someone ranked higher. Even so, he never seriously entertained walking away from it. For him, it was a matter of accepting the assignment and getting on with it.
That is where the style debate starts. Borralho said Belgaroui is experienced enough not to be swayed by whatever Pereira knows about him, and he also pushed back on the idea that he must shoot for takedowns right away. He said people who expect that are not paying enough attention to his other fights against top strikers in the division, pointing to Michal Oleksiejczuk, Jared Cannonier and Nassourdine Imavov as proof that he has already dealt with that kind of threat.
He also made clear that this is not a case of looking past Belgaroui. Borralho called him just as tough as many top-ranked middleweights and said he has been coming off good wins and good performances. The matchup still has an unusual edge: Borralho and Pereira have shared mats and sparring rounds, while Belgaroui has joined forces with Pereira’s team as he pursues his own UFC path.
So the fight lands in New York with a familiar name in the middle of it and a simple question around it: whether Borralho’s title push can keep pace if he has to take the long way through opponents who do not fit the ranking order he wanted. On Saturday, the answer starts with Belgaroui.
