UFC Bantamweights Renan Barao and Brad Pickett Earn “Fight of the Night” at UFC 138

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You want to know how good Renan Barao is? Coming into his UFC 138 fight with WEC veteran Brad Pickett, Barao was unbeaten in his last 27 fights. He hasn’t seen defeat since his professional MMA debut in April of 2005. 6 years and a half years. Now, the last time we had a fighter debut in UFC on that kind of winning streak, they were manhandled (read: Jake Shields v. The People of Toronto), but this fight ended much differently.

The co-main event scrap between Brad Pickett and Renan Barao ended up as “Fight of the Night” for good reason: both fighters were eager to take home the winner’s purse. They wanted to finish the fight. Sure, Barao got the win, but both fighters won over the fans by putting on a fight worthy of the co-main event of the evening and each walked with a little extra pocket money for their efforts.

Brad Pickett never made the live broadcast in his four fights in WEC, but the knowledgeable British MMA fans showed him the respect that a man with wins over Ivan Menjivar and Demetrious Johnson (who just challenged for the UFC Bantamweight title) should receive.

Both fighters came out looking to knock one another’s head off. In the middle of the first stanza, Pickett got clipped by the Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt before Barao crushed Pickett with a knee to the head and leveled several big punches, which put Pickett on the mat and ready for the move that ended the bout: a rear naked choke.

And so, the streak continues at 28 fights and counting.

An Inside Pulse "original", SMS is one of the founding members of Inside Pulse and serves as the Chief Marketing Officer on the Executive Board. Smith is a fan of mixed martial arts and runs two sections of IP as Editor in Chief, RadioExile.com and InsideFights.com. Having covered music festivals around the world as well as conducting interviews with top-class professional wrestlers and musicians, he switched gears from music coverage at Radio Exile to MMA after the first The Ultimate Fighter Finale. He resides with his wife in New York City.