(Photo via Getty.)
It’s been a rough couple of years for Brazilian special forces officer turned MMA fighter Paulo Thiago. Actually, make that a rough half decade or so. After kicking off his UFC career with an improbable knockout of Josh Koscheck and wins over Jacob Volkmann and Mike Swick, Thiago has dropped six of his past eight contests since 2010, including decision losses to Diego Sanchez and Dong Hyun Kim and brutal stoppage losses to Siyar Bahadurzada and Brandon Thatch. Most recently, Thiago was outpointed by Gasan Umalatov at the TUF Brazil 3 Finale, leading us to believe that he would likely be headed for the door.
And what a shame it would have been to see him go, for his superhero-esque background and aforementioned blistering of Koscheck made Thiago a fighter to watch in many a fan’s eyes, despite the fact that he was never really able to live up to the hype generated by his impressive UFC debut. As luck would have it, however, it appears that we haven’t seen the last of Thiago, who recently informed MMAFighting that he had signed a four fight extension with the UFC despite his recent skid:
I was cool, but anxious because all of the recent cuts they did. I wasn’t that tense. Whatever they decided, I would be cool.
Yes, you *would* be cool, Paulo. Engaging in machine gun battles with drug cartels for your day job earns you that right.
Thiago’s only two wins since 2010 have come over UFC washout David Mitchell and Michael Prazeres, who has since dropped to lightweight. However, with the UFC holding their first ever Fight Night event in Thiago’s native Brasilia in September, the BOPE officer feels confident that he would be able to deliver the exciting win he has been seeking for years now.
In the meantime, Thiago has been quietly serving as riot-buster at this year’s World Cup, although if he is to believed, things have been relatively docile thus far.
It’s really calm and peaceful. Today was the second match in Brasilia and I worked on both. It’s a beautiful party, lots of different cultures gathering together. I just heard that there was like 50 thousand Colombians for today’s game. Last week, there were a lot of Swiss and Ecuadorians. It’s really peaceful, everybody having a good time. No riots at all.
So you’re telling me that you’ve combined 50,000 Columbians with lord knows how many Brazilians and there hasn’t been one brawl involving a 2×4 and a gang stomping yet? I respectfully call bullshit, Mr. Thiago.
We’ve thrown a video of Thiago’s knockout of Koscheck below, because relevant.