Renan Barao: “We had an excellent camp down here, we have an excellent strategy and obviously we benefitted from Aldo’s input,” he said through an interpreter during a Thursday teleconference. “Aldo knows how Urijah fights, and he was also able to help us devise our strategy going in to make this camp, so thank God we had an excellent camp and we’ll be very ready for this fight.”
In UFC and WEC fights, he’s gone a perfect 5-0 with three finishes, making him the obvious replacement when Cruz went down. And even though Faber acknowledged that he enjoys Barao’s aggressive style, he remains unfazed by the role of former opponent Aldo in Barao’s camp. That was made abundantly clear when he was asked if Aldo’s insight offered Barao any advantage.
Uirjah Faber: “Is he going to bring Jose in there to help fight me? If so, then yes, but we’re all individuals,” he said. “I feel like Renan, although he has a lot of similarities to Jose Aldo, he is a very different fighter. They’re different sized fighters. They’re different skill sets. It’s a different fight. Same with me and my camp.
“I don’t think that having Aldo’s input is going to change too much for me,” he continued. “He’s probably going to tell him to kick me in the leg, but I’m sure Barao was planning to kick me in the leg anyway. I’m stoked for a great fight. I really like the camp I’m fighting against. It’s kind of a fight pitting the two best light-weight camps in the world against each other, so I think we’ll take extra pride in that for sure.”
