UFC
T.J. Dillashaw has no problem with Renan Barao rematch at UFC 177: "He's the one to propel my name into greatness"
Aug 27, 2014 - 10:45:42 AM T.J. Dillashaw has no problem with Renan Barao rematch at UFC 177: "He's the one to propel my name into greatness"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

When the UFC booked the immediate rematch between T.J. Dillashaw and Renan Barao, there was plenty of head shaking given the way the first fight played out. It didn't make sense to book the rematch immediately given how decisively Dillashaw took the title from Barao.

However, the new Champ himself didn't hesitate to accept the fight, and has no problem trying to duplicate his UFC 173 results in front of a hometown crowd.

"I said instantly yes," Dillashaw said in a recent interview with FoxSports.com. "I had no question about it because now that I'm the UFC champion and that gold is there to help make me a legend and build my name up as high as possible, and to do that Renan Barao's the one to beat. He's the one to propel my name into greatness. He's the one who is ranked ahead of me in pound-for-pound, even though I demolished him. So he's still ranked ahead of me in the pound-for-pound list. I beat him, I move up the ranks."

"While the win's still fresh in his mind and in my mind, I might as well do it again. I feel like I've got his number and I'm ready to put it on him and get him scared and he knows I'm going to beat him again."

Dillashaw thinks Barao is going to break easier in the rematch, because if things start going the same way they did in May, the former Champ's going to want to get out of there quicker.

"I guarantee he's thinking in the back of his head everyday when he's training he doesn't want that ass whooping to happen again," Dillashaw said. "I'm going to put it on him and he's going to fold."

"It's a huge psychological advantage for me. For one, I've always gotten better when I've competed against someone multiple times in wrestling and in practice and fighting. The more I practice against you, the more I figure you out. Two, he took a beating and he took a lot of punishment to the head and I rocked him a bunch of times and I don't even know if he's had enough time to recover from that."

Penick's Analysis: Dillashaw hits on the other aspect of this immediate rematch to consider - namely that Barao mentally may not have had time to fully process the loss he suffered in May. There's some rebuilding to be done after a loss that brutal and decisive, especially when he hadn't lost a fight in nine years. Besides that, it's just not a fight that inspires a ton of excitement and intrigue, because we saw it play out in one-sided fashion already just a few months ago.