‘Unreal’ UFC 311 odds irked Raoni Barcelos before Payton Talbott upset

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Payton Talbott might have been thinking about getting into the top five some day, but it probably wasn’t this one.

Talbott (9-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) on Saturday suffered a top-five biggest upset loss in UFC history when he was dominated by Raoni Barcelos (19-5 MMA, 8-4 UFC) for a unanimous decision to close out the preliminary card at UFC 311 at Intuit Dome.

Talbott was unbeaten coming into the bantamweight bout and was a betting favorite of around -1150 in the fight. The upsets above him in the pecking order: Holly Holm over Ronda Rousey (-1600), Shana Dobson over Mariya Agapova (-1400) and Matt Serra over Georges St-Pierre (-1200).

But the way Barcelos is looking at it, those odds in Talbott’s favor never should have been that high to begin with. The whole thing put a chip on his shoulder.

“In reality, that really motivated me,” Barcelos said after his win. “It really drove me because I have such a long history in the sport. I’ve done so much in the sport that people may not even realize, and you’re just so disrespectful (with those odds). So that really made me go in there harder to get this one, including things in my camp that I wouldn’t ordinarily do because I wanted to prove to everyone that these odds are just completely insane. They were just completely overlooking me. I had to prove to everyone, and especially to myself, that that I’m here, that I can do this. The odds were unreal.”

Barcelos came to the UFC in 2018 after a run as RFA’s featherweight champion. He won his first five fights in the promotion, including when he dropped to bantamweight. But then he went on a rough run of four losses in five fights – including a knockout loss two years ato to UFC 311 title challenger Umar Nurmagomedov.

But now the Brazilian has back-to-back wins – a submission win on the road in Mexico and Saturday’s monumental upset of Talbott.

“Throughout this whole camp, it was hard seeing a lot of people not believing in me. A lot of people were saying a lot of things online,” Barcelos said. “But I knew I could do this. He’s got great standup, coming off a bunch of knockouts, so there’s no reason for me to stand up with him. I have good wrestling. I needed to go in there and take him down and control him, and that’s exactly what I did.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 311.