The razor-thin split decision loss suffered to Paul Felder back at UFC 242 still bothers Edson Barboza.
Not only did the Brazilian and his team believe that Barboza did enough to earn the nod from the judges, but they will also appeal the loss to try and reverse the decision or make it a No Contest.
After beating Paul Felder once via unanimous decision back in July 2015 in a Fight of the Night performance, Barboza is sure he has what it takes to do it again. In fact, he believes he already has at UFC 242, but is willing to meet the ‘Irish Dragon’ one more time, just to make it clear.
“Sure, why not? I already fought and beat him twice. It would be great to beat him one more time,” Barboza told Combate. “If it’s to fight Paul, it doesn’t matter, I’ll fight him any day the UFC tells me to. I’ll be ready. Next month, October, November, December, tops. Whenever it may be, I’ll be ready. If they want me to fight him again next week, I’ll be ready to fight Paul again.”
Although the second round was the closest one of the rematch, Barboza looks at the fight’s statistics in order to prove that he still was the better fighter, claiming that Felder offered no danger to finish the match, not even when he tried to lock Edson’s arm in an armbar.
“I think that numbers don’t lie,” Barboza said. “If you look at the numbers, you’ll see I landed more shots, I had a takedown, he attacked my arm, but there was zero danger. Damn, man, there was no way he would have taken my arm there. He really did hit me with some good elbows, but how many punches did I hit him with when I was on top?
“I took him down that round. I was dominating that round until I took him down. Honestly, it’s not even up for discussion. Especially because numbers don’t lie. The only thing he tried to do in the second round was to submit me, but he wasn’t even close.”
Barboza has lost four of his last five bouts, including a knockout defeat to Justin Gaethje back in March, The 33-year-old’s last win happened in December 2018, when he TKO’d Dan Hooker at UFC Milwaukee.
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