Former bantamweight champion Renan Barao has decided to end his brief stint in the featherweight division and instead will drop back down to the weight class he once ruled.
‘The Baron’ had originally moved up to 145lbs due to a mixture of having had some serious difficulties making the 135lb weight limit, in addition to also having suffered two losses to TJ Dillashaw.
That latter fact was tough to take for Barao, who had remained unbeaten for a staggering 33 fights prior to first encountering Dillashaw in 2014, and so he eventually came to the conclusion that something had to change and stepped up a division.
Things didn’t quite go according to plan however, with Barao suffering a unanimous decision loss to Jeremy Stephens in his featherweight debut last year.
He has since earned a confidence boosting win over the unranked Phillipe Nover (who has since retired from the sport), but apparently that wasn’t enough to convince him to stick around in the weight class.
A featherweight fight with ‘The Korean Superboy’ Doo Ho Choi had reportedly been in the works for Barao, but that’s now been scrapped and at this stage it’s unclear who Barao will face in his return to bantamweight.
