Marcos Degli believes the UFC put him on an important mission: Get rid of Mitch Raposo.
The flyweights fight Saturday at UFC Vegas 124, and Degli expects to deliver a violent finish. Degli, a former LFA flyweight champion, is on a 13-fight winning streak with 12 stoppages, including a Dana White Contender Series rear-naked choke win over Paris Moran this past September.
Degli sees Raposo as experienced, but inferior opposition. Raposo is 2-2 in the UFC, all decisions, with wins over Azat Maksum and Allan Nascimento in his most recent fights.
“He already has some experience in the organization, but he doesn’t deliver many finishes,” Degli told MMA Fighting. “Most of his fights go to a decision, and the ones he finished early in his career were guys who had, like, four wins and over 20 losses. He had a better offensive game early in his career, but those were very inexperienced opponents.
“I believe he had a padded record, and we’re not like that. We fought the toughest guys in Brazil. The birthplace of MMA is Brazil, and we’ve been tested a lot more than he has.”
Raposo scored stoppages in five of his seven pre-UFC victories, topping opponents with a combined record of 24-28-1 at the time of their fights.
Degli’s 6-0 run in the LFA included a trio of title wins against Lincon Santos (9-2), Matheus Severino (14-4), and Luis Aguiar (9-1). “Tailandes” knocked out all three to finally earn a shot on DWCS.
“I feel like the UFC really believes in the hype of Marcos Tailandes,” Degli said. “They’re putting me up against a top-12 ranked fighter, so they see Marcos Tailandes as a superstar in the making. And we’re going to exceed their expectations. We have a champion’s profile, we’re the kind of guy who delivers in fights, and that’s what UFC guys want: a fighter who goes out there and finishes fights. And that’s what we do.”
“I believe the UFC has high expectations for us,” he added. “And they want us to send this guy packing, right? I’m going to have to beat him so he gets out of there. A guy with four fights, all four going to decisions, for God’s sake, right?”
Degli said Raposo’s style is “easy to read”, and he will ultimately crumble to his power.
“He works mostly with his hands, throws a lot of volume, but he doesn’t have the kind of punching power that catches guys,” Degli said. “He relies more on volume, and I see that when he feels pressured, he tends to shoot for a double leg. But even though he’s a black belt, he doesn’t have that effective grappling game that allows him to control opponents and finish them. He usually takes guys down, and they get back up right away.
“We did a perfect breakdown of his game. We know his main strength is the first round, when he comes out firing on all cylinders, and we’re going to neutralize his movement, hurt him little by little, and get that knockout we’re looking for.”
A teammate of welterweight contender Carlos Prates, who has claimed bonuses for every single one of his victories in the UFC and now challenges Michael Morales for the interim strap, Degli promises to match his friend’s level of excitement inside the octagon after already securing a finish on DWCS.
“Now I can go out there and break each other up,” Degli said. “There are bonuses at stake now, there’s a Performance of the Night bonus now, and that’s what I’m going after. I didn’t want to break myself on Contender Series. I was already looking to fight between December and January, and God had me scheduled to fight as early as November. How great is that? I’m going after that Performance of the Night bonus and the joy of ending the year with my pockets full, right?”
Much like Prates, Degli wants to be fast tracked on his way to a title shot in the UFC flyweight division. For that reason, he plans on calling out Brandon Moreno inside the cage Saturday night. Moreno is currently scheduled to fight Charles Johnson on Dec. 12.
“I have the knockout power to catch him and knock him out,” Degli said. “He’s had a huge rise, was already a champion, but nowadays he’s kind of nearing the end of his career. It would be a very good fight for me. It would be an honor to fight a former champion, right? That’s the path Carlos Prates took, facing former champions and now becoming a title challenger, and that’s what we want for me, a fast rise.”