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#4 UFC Bantamweight Division: Raoni Barcelos vs. Khalid Taha

Raoni Barcelos is currently unbeaten in the UFC.

The UFC doesn’t tend to put together fights that look like showcases for one fighter, but this appears to be the exception to that rule. Taha clearly isn’t a bad fighter by anyone’s standards. The Warrior is 1-1 in the UFC, with his last victory being turned into a No Contest after he tested positive for a banned diuretic.

However, Brazil’s Barcelos is clearly one of the fastest rising talents in the UFC’s Bantamweight division. He’s currently 4-0 in the UFC, but given that the two wins that put him into the promotion came over UFC veterans Bobby Moffett and Dan Moret, he may as well be 6-0.

A genuinely talented Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, Barcelos is a fantastic grappler – but it’s his heavy strikes that have brought him the most success in his career thus far. He’s 16-1, and eight of those wins have come by KO or TKO – including two such victories in the UFC.

The Brazilian hasn’t fought in the UFC now for almost a year. But when we last saw him, he stifled the dangerous Said Nurmagomedov with his grappling, taking a decision win. Thankfully for him, Taha is also coming off quite the layoff.

He hasn’t fought since September 2019 due to that positive drug test, meaning that cage rust could be an issue for both men – or that the long layoff for both men might cancel itself out when they face off.

Overall, Taha will definitely be a somewhat dangerous test for Barcelos. He hits hard – as we saw when he KO’d Boston Salmon at UFC 236 – and he’s also got a couple of submission wins to his name, too. However, I’m not convinced that he’s close to Barcelos in any single area from a technical standpoint.

However, it’s in grappling that there seems to be the biggest talent gap. It’s true that Barcelos’ only career loss came via rear-naked choke. But that was also back in 2014, and he’s since put together a winning streak of eight fights.

Overall, as he’s 33 years old, it’s hard to see Barcelos reaching the very top of the UFC’s packed 135lbs division, but he’s definitely climbing the ladder and may well begin to bother elite-level opponents soon. Taha just doesn’t seem like the type of fighter to stop that run, and so I’m taking Barcelos via submission.

The Pick: Barcelos via first-round submission