Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports
Lightweight Carlos Diego Ferreira wants to test former champion Anthony Pettis at UFC 246.
Lightweight grappler Carlos Diego Ferreira is ready to take on the biggest step up in competition of his UFC career so far. Scheduled to take on former champion Anthony Pettis at UFC 246, the Brazilian not only feels like he is up to the challenge, but feels like testing ‘Showtime’ on the ground, just to see who is the better jiu-jitsu athlete.
In an interview with Ag Fight, Ferreira explained that he was impressed with Pettis’ grappling ever since Anthony tapped out Gilbert Melendez with a guillotine choke, back in 2014, and would like to see for himself just how good his opponent is on the mat.
“I can’t let him run alongside the cage too much,” Ferreira said. “If you put pressure on him, he stops a little bit, we trained for that, my coaches and partners are well aware of that. We will put the pressure on him in order to stop him on his tracks, he’s very acrobatic, so I’ll stop him.
“I need to really implement my jiu-jitsu, and I want to see what his jiu-jitsu is like, it’s pretty sharp. It would be cool. I’ve seen him score submissions a lot, I attended an event where submitted Melendez, he’s a dangerous guys. It would be nice to test his jiu-jitsu.”
Currently on a five-fight winning streak, Carlos Diego Ferreira (16-2) is in the best form of his UFC career, with wins over Olivier Aubin-Mercier, Jared Gordon, Kyle Nelson, Rustam Khabilov and Mairbek Taisumov. The 34-year-old’s last loss happened in April 2015, when he was knocked out by former interim champion Dustin Poirier.
Now, Carlos Diego Ferreira is expected to meet Anthony Pettis at UFC 246, on January 18, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The card is scheduled to be headlined by a welterweight match between former featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor and seasoned veteran Donald Cerrone.