After suffering his first defeat in the bantamweight division in his last fight against Petr Yan, former flyweight champion Deiveson "Daico" Figueiredo sought reinforcements from Eastern Europe.
“A fighter can never be in his comfort zone,” Figueiredo told Sherdog ahead of his headlining bout with Cory Sandhagen at UFC Des Moines on Saturday. “I hired two ‘Russians’ to help me in this camp here at Pitbull Brothers. In fact, these two fighters brought by [Eric] Albarracin here to Natal are even taller than [Sandhagen]. Both are good at both striking and wrestling.