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As he reflects on his UFC career to date, though, the 31-year-old Pedro admits it has not been an easy road.
“I’m not angry about (being in the UFC so early in my career) at all, I know I was ready to be in the UFC. There’s definitely fights that I took on in the UFC that I could have waited to take on. Shogun (former light heavyweight champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua), (Ilir) Latifi and OSP (Ovince St Preux) were already at like 40 fights each and I was on five fights.” said Pedro ahead of his fight at Qudos Bank Arena in his native Sydney. “There were definitely fights in there where me, as a person, I was just like, f*ck it, let’s have a crack – high risk, high reward. I like learning on the job, but I’ve still got plenty to do.”
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After a long break from fighting between December 2018 and April 2022 as he battled injury, Pedro entered 2023 on a two-fight winning streak.
In February, though, Pedro lost a decision to Modestas Bukauskas in Perth, Western Australia on the preliminary card of UFC 284: Makhachev v Volkanovski. Post fight, Pedro was hospitalized with a stomach bug that had struck the night before the fight. While Pedro does not discredit his opponent, that does go some way to explaining why Pedro appeared listless in the second and third rounds of the fight.