UFC Vegas 53: Francisco Figueiredo Wants to Run It Back With Malcolm Gordon

Las Vegas, NV — Flyweight Francisco Figueiredo (13-4-1, 1NC) has thus far had to live under the shadow of his brother, champ Deiveson Figueiredo, during his his brief UFC career.

That began to change at UFC Vegas 53 on Saturday, with Francisco capturing a Performance of the Night bonus-winning kneebar submission against fellow Brazilian Alex Da Silva.

Now, he’s ready to make a quick turnaround — and avenge a prior loss.

“As quick as possible. A month or two, whatever, you name it,” he told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight, speaking via translator backstage at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

As to who he’d like to fight, “I have a name,” said Figueiredo. “Malcolm Gordon, because I want to get that back. I want to make sure that I run it back, and there’s some revenge there. I wasn’t comfortable with that loss, and I want to give it a try.”

Figueiredo and Gordon first fought last year, with the Canadian winning a unanimous decision. The Brazilian believes things would go differently were they to fight again, he told Cageside Press. And he was injured early in the fight.

“There was actually an injury that happened, I had to get surgery on my shoulder. So the tip of the bone on my shoulder, I broke it in the start of the fight,” Figueiredo revealed. “And there were some mistakes during the fight that I feel I wouldn’t make now.”

On the subject of his latest win, Figueiredo was surprised, he told media outlets, that Silva opted to take him down early.

“Very surprised. He surprised me with that takedown to start the fight,” Figueiredo admitted. “I basically tried to work up his body, and just try to get an arm-lock there. And when he tried to put posture and actually just get settled, that’s when the leg came up and I was able to basically get it done. As soon as he tried to settle, he just left the guard open on that leg.”

The possibility of a kneebar was something that Figueiredo and his team had looked at during training camp. Some sharp film study paid off in the end.

“It’s something that we studied, because we saw that he does do that. He’s really strong with ground n’ pound, so he likes to basically rise up and start going for the ground n’ pound. We’d seen that we can change postures and kind of shift from the arm lock to the leg lock. So we figured that that could happen if he started to be on the offense. And he got a takedown and was on top. He leaves that open. We found it through film study.”

Watch the full UFC Vegas 53 post-fight media appearance from Francisco Figueiredo above. More coverage from the event can be found below.