Renan Barao tried to regain his title earlier this year, but a slip up in the weight cut ended those dreams.

Renan Barao will fight for the first time off a big card since losing his title, but he will be able to fight for the first time in front of his home crowd in a long time.

Renan Barao will have to not fight in the main event in a long time, and he will be facing off with a hungry Canadian in his home country. UFC Fight Night 58 takes place in Barueri, Brazil on December 20th. Barao will not be in the main event, because another former champion has slid into that spot. Lyoto Machida a former Light-Heavyweight champion who just fought for the title at Middleweight. He will have to take on a hungry CB Dollaway who is on a roll as of recently. Dollaway is 4-1 since two straight knockout losses in 2011. His only loss is a contentious split decision to Tim boestch in which most people believe he won.

Even though this is a free card, the fans will have another former champion to watch compete. Renan Barao lost his title in an upset loss to current champion TJ Dillashaw. Before that loss, Renan Barao had won 32 straight fights which included defending the title three times regardless of if it was an interim title or not. Those three title defenses were all finishes which did not help him as he was stopped in the fifth round by Dillashaw. Lets not hope he has a weakness to finishing up and comers because his next challenger is just that.

Barao will be taking on Mitch Gagnon who has won four straight fights after losing his debut to Bryan Caraway. In his next four fights he finished three of them by submission. Those three wins came in the first round as well. This makes him potent for barao who has yet to be faced off with on the ground and all of Gagnon’s preceding fights have showed a penchant for the ground game. He will have to get there since Barao is still a sniper on the feet. Who will come out on top and take on step closer to the title?