Four years after a controversial decision loss to then-featherweight champion Joe Warren, “Loro” meets “The Baddest Man on the Planet” for the 135-pound championship in the main event of Friday night’s Bellator 135 in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
Galvao, who won six of the past seven bouts, respects Warren’s abilities and sees himself better than him in almost every aspect of the fight.
“He has a great wrestling, Olympic level, but I believe a lot in my takedown defense,” Galvao told MMAFighting.com. “And I can take him down as well. I have the best takedown defense in my division. I train with All-American wrestlers and they have a hard time trying to take me down, but I respect his wrestling. And even if he takes me down, he won’t keep me there.”
The only part of the game where Galvao believes Warren is better than him is conditioning, and he has a theory why.
“My cardio is great, but I think that the fact that this is a five-round fight favors him because he has an outstanding cardio,” “Loro” said. “He fights hard for five rounds, and that’s why I believe he is not clean. No way a 39-year-old fights five rounds like that. You saw no the Eduardo Dantas fight. Nobody does that at 39.
“But I don’t care about it. He has two arms and two legs, and I will beat him,” he added.
In their first encounter at Bellator 41, Galvao picked Warren apart. However, that was not how the judges saw the bout that night in Arizona.
“That was my first fight in Bellator. Joe Warren was the featherweight champion and they put me there to lose,” he said. “I went in there and beat him up, took him down right in the first round, and that was the biggest robbery of 2011.”
At 6-1 as a bantamweight, including a 137-pound catchweight bout with “Loro”, Warren enters his first title defense riding a five-fight winning streak, and Galvao plans on submitting him.
“Joe Warren is not an easy guy to finish, but I’m going there to do it,” he said. “I want to submit him, but I know he’s tough. I have to be smart.”
Galvao came up short in his first Bellator title fight, losing via second-round knockout to Eduardo Dantas. “Loro” and “Dudu” both represented Nova Uniao team at that time, but a lot of things have changed since. Dantas lost his title to Warren, and Galvao left Nova Uniao.
“I represent myself now, not Nova Uniao,” said Galvao, who continues to train with Nova Uniao black belt Vitor Ribeiro in New York, but doesn’t represent the team anymore. “I had a lot of mixed feelings going on in that fight with ‘Dudu’. I have a huge heart. I started at Nova Uniao when I was a kid and I trained all those guys. I taught them a lot. But I don’t have that pressure, those feelings anymore. Joe Warren is tough and I have to be prepared for him.
“This is the best time of my career. This is my time. I can beat anyone in my weight division.”
Four years after a controversial decision loss to then-featherweight champion Joe Warren, “Loro” meets “The Baddest Man on the Planet” for the 135-pound championship in the main event of Friday night’s Bellator 135 in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
Galvao, who won six of the past seven bouts, respects Warren’s abilities and sees himself better than him in almost every aspect of the fight.
“He has a great wrestling, Olympic level, but I believe a lot in my takedown defense,” Galvao told MMAFighting.com. “And I can take him down as well. I have the best takedown defense in my division. I train with All-American wrestlers and they have a hard time trying to take me down, but I respect his wrestling. And even if he takes me down, he won’t keep me there.”
The only part of the game where Galvao believes Warren is better than him is conditioning, and he has a theory why.
“My cardio is great, but I think that the fact that this is a five-round fight favors him because he has an outstanding cardio,” “Loro” said. “He fights hard for five rounds, and that’s why I believe he is not clean. No way a 39-year-old fights five rounds like that. You saw no the Eduardo Dantas fight. Nobody does that at 39.
“But I don’t care about it. He has two arms and two legs, and I will beat him,” he added.
In their first encounter at Bellator 41, Galvao picked Warren apart. However, that was not how the judges saw the bout that night in Arizona.
“That was my first fight in Bellator. Joe Warren was the featherweight champion and they put me there to lose,” he said. “I went in there and beat him up, took him down right in the first round, and that was the biggest robbery of 2011.”
At 6-1 as a bantamweight, including a 137-pound catchweight bout with “Loro”, Warren enters his first title defense riding a five-fight winning streak, and Galvao plans on submitting him.
“Joe Warren is not an easy guy to finish, but I’m going there to do it,” he said. “I want to submit him, but I know he’s tough. I have to be smart.”
Galvao came up short in his first Bellator title fight, losing via second-round knockout to Eduardo Dantas. “Loro” and “Dudu” both represented Nova Uniao team at that time, but a lot of things have changed since. Dantas lost his title to Warren, and Galvao left Nova Uniao.
“I represent myself now, not Nova Uniao,” said Galvao, who continues to train with Nova Uniao black belt Vitor Ribeiro in New York, but doesn’t represent the team anymore. “I had a lot of mixed feelings going on in that fight with ‘Dudu’. I have a huge heart. I started at Nova Uniao when I was a kid and I trained all those guys. I taught them a lot. But I don’t have that pressure, those feelings anymore. Joe Warren is tough and I have to be prepared for him.
“This is the best time of my career. This is my time. I can beat anyone in my weight division.”
