At UFC 326, Caio Borralho feels he has studied the tape closely and is braced for a very specific version of Reinier de Ridder at T‑Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The middleweight co‑main event slot pits Borralho, a 7–1 UFC fighter and leader of the Fighting Nerds team, against a 21–3 former two‑division ONE Championship champion who arrived in the UFC with a six‑fight win streak and a 14–submission record. Both men are coming off setbacks that have altered their place in the division, which adds extra weight to the outcome.
Caio Borralho Talks Reinier de Ridder Ahead of UFC 326
Borralho’s first loss in the UFC came against Nassourdine Imavov in a main‑event slot in Paris, after an undefeated run stretching more than a decade. He has framed a strong performance against de Ridder as a way to reset his title trajectory, with ambitions to fight twice more before the late summer of 2026 and push back into contention.
De Ridder, meanwhile, lost his last UFC outing to Brendan Allen at UFC Vancouver, when his corner stopped the action after a sharp decline in performance that many attributed to severe fatigue and a possible underlying medical issue. That result splintered his status as a near‑untouchable middleweight and led critics to label him a “fraud,” prompting de Ridder to describe UFC 326 as a “100% redemption” opportunity.
In the pre‑fight media window, Borralho quoted back at analysts who might expect de Ridder to entirely change his approach, saying:
“We can always take away from every fight that someone does. He can take away from my fight with Imavov, where I wasn’t 100%, but he can take something. I just think he’s kind of lying to himself or something like that. He shows a lot of patterns that he’s shown in the last fight and in all his other fights. He’s a great fighter, awkward style on the feet, a pressure fighter, very, very good on the ground, and I respect him as a fighter a lot. I’m expecting the best Reinier de Ridder the world has ever seen.”
Borralho’s confidence in his read of the Dutchman is rooted in his own resumé as a finisher; nine of his 17 wins have come by stoppage, evenly split between knockouts and submissions. His striking résumé includes notable wins over Paul Craig and Jared Cannonier, performances he invoked when breaking down de Ridder’s likely game plan. Knowing that analytics from de Ridder’s previous matches show early takedowns and grappling engagements, Borralho predicted a direct path from the opening bell:
“100% he’s going to shoot. If he doesn’t shoot, I think he’s out of his mind. He knows I’m already a striker, one of the best strikers in the division. Look at what I did to Cannonier, look at what I did to Paul Craig. 100% he’s going to try to take me down and choke me. That’s the only way he can get a win on Saturday. If you look at the data in his last five fights, he was already grappling and he shot before one minute in every fight. So 100% he’s going to shoot again.”
Borralho’s stance is that he will not pretend those patterns suddenly vanish. He’s ready. For de Ridder, the mandate is simple: win cleanly, under control, and prove over an entire fight that the “best Reinier de Ridder” Borralho is talking about is, in fact, the same version the Dutchman needs to be in order to climb back into a title window.
