Brunno Ferreira made a splash in his octagon debut in 2023, and now rematches the same opponent he floored to try and insert himself in the list of future contenders in the UFC middleweight division — and somehow erase a bad impression in his most recent fight.
Ferreira replaced Brad Tavares against five-time octagon veteran Gregory Rodrigues in January 2023 and took him out with a violent left punch at UFC 283. Victorious in five of his seven bouts since, “Hulk” enters a rematch with “Robocop” at UFC 326 riding a three-fight winning streak, which includes a pair of armbar finishes and a decision over Marvin Vettori.
“It makes total sense,” Ferreira told MMA Fighting ahead of the March 7 contest. “It’s been three years since that fight. I basically forgot about the fight that got me into the UFC. Even though I have more consecutive wins than him today, he’s ahead of me in the rankings. It made a lot of sense for me. They saw it was the only way to give me an opponent that made sense. Everyone else already had fights booked and the UFC didn’t want to give me an unranked opponent.”
Ferreira saw the Vettori bout as a chance to enter the top 10 of the UFC middleweight division, but it all changed after he stepped on the scale at 189 pounds.
“That bothered me a lot because I’ve always been an athlete who doesn’t leave loose ends,” Ferreira said. “And when you fail at your job, something has to be fixed. That same day, right after the weigh-in, I said, ‘Man, I need to deliver a fight that really makes sense.’ And not entering the rankings afterward hurt even more. I said, I’m going to change everything again.”
“Hulk” explained that he changed his diet in 2025, adding more muscle mass “to handle the pace in training,” but it proved to be too much in the end. With 14 pounds to cut in 24 hours before the Vettori match, his body shut down.
“The mistake actually wasn’t the weight cut,” Ferreira said. ”Last year I went in with the mindset like, ‘I need to be heavier and stronger.’ And we followed a protocol my body never adapted to. I struggled to make weight at UFC 313, struggled at 319. On the third one, my body couldn’t take it. I was cutting down from 216 pounds, while my normal weight, when I train and do what I like, is usually 205 pounds tops.”
Ferreira feels “much lighter and healthier now,” back to his old self, and vows to make it clear when he enters the eight-sided cage to rematch Rodrigues. He’s treating this as a new fight, as if he has never fought the fellow Brazilian before, and would advise “Robocop” to act the same way.
“Pride is something that hurts you,” Ferreira said. “This revenge feeling doesn’t help. Forget that. If you go in with that mindset, it gets in the way. To be like, ‘I’m going to get him back.’ But he’ll have to respect me now. I believe he underestimated me in the first fight and we saw what happened. And if that happens again, I’ll take advantage the same way. I’ve evolved a lot. I used to really fight for one round, looking for the knockout or submission. Now he knows the weight of my hands and how much I’ve grown inside the octagon.”
Rodrigues won five of his past six, beating Jack Hermansson and Roman Kopylov to rebound from a “Fight of the Night” main event defeat to Jared Cannonier in February 2025, and aims at the top of the weight class with a victory.
“Hulk” was hoping to earn a shot at former champion Robert Whittaker or Cannonier himself after UFC 326, fighters he called “gatekeepers of the top 10,” but Whittaker may no longer be an option since he’s voiced his intent in moving up to the light heavyweight division.
Whoever is next, Ferreira expects to go 3-0 in 2026 to close the year as a top-5 ranked middleweight.
“Either [ranked fighters] will keep avoiding me, or they’ll have to accept it one way or another,” Ferreira said. “Let this fight be a message to those ahead of me. I’m looking at them. The targets are always the ones in front of us.”
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