‘I’m never going back to 205’: Vitor Petrino celebrates heavyweight debut at UFC Nashville
Vitor Petrino is living his best life after getting rid of weight cuts, and expects it to reflect in a better performance when he enters the octagon Saturday to face off with heavyweight Austen Lane in the main card portion of UFC Nashville.
The 27-year-old had a great start in the UFC, knocking out Rodolfo Bellato at Dana White’s Contender Series and then going 4-0 in the promotion with a pair of finishes and bonuses. Petrino stumbled hard next in 2024, losing quickly as a massive favorite over Anthony Smith and then suffering a third-round knockout defeat to Dustin Jacoby.
Petrino decided to leave the 205-pound division and get a fresh start at heavyweight, and laments taking so long to make the move.
“If I knew it would be like this I would have done it before,” Petrino said with a laugh during an interview with MMA Fighting. “I’m eating well, sleeping well, recovering well, taking the medication I need without worrying about the weight. It’s a whole other life. The performance is different.”
Petrino said he has gotten bigger since joining the UFC due to better supplementation and superior training, and suffered with a 33-pound weight cut during a regular UFC fight week.
“205 never again. No doubt,” Petrino said. “Now I say I won’t go down to 205 anymore. I know I won’t perform [there], man. I wasn’t performing anymore. It was very painful to make 205. So regardless of everything — and I believe I will win, I have the potential for that and believe in my technique —, I’m never going back to 205.”
“Truth is, I wasn’t even worried about the fight itself. I was worried whether or not I would make weight and perform well,” he continued. “The strategy in the fight, take him down or trade on the feet or whatever. In my head I was like, ‘Can I take him down? Will I have the strength? Can I follow the strategy?’ That’s what’s sucks about the weight cut.”
The plan is to enter the octagon Saturday weighing around 250 pounds, Petrino said, so he doesn’t feel too heavy and slow.
“I do all the rounds [in training] and feel f*cking strong, and I don’t gas out,” Petrino said. “I don’t feel heavy because it’s the weight I usually trained at. I’m not trying to get too heavy. I want to feel strong. My goal in this division is to be in my best shape possible, faster and more agile, while living life as an athlete.”
The original plan for Petrino’s heavyweight debut was a all-Brazilian clash with Jhonata Diniz in March, but Petrino was forced off the UFC 313 pay-per-view with double elbow injury. He now faces Lane, a 37-year-old with only one victory — a decision over Robelis Despaigne — in five octagon appearances.
“Diniz is more of a kickboxer so you already knew what he would bring to the fight,” Petrino said. “He was more predictable than Austen Lane. Austen Lane is not a specialist in anything, but he does a bit of everything. He’s more unpredictable. I think it’s a bit more complicated than Jhonata because he has variations and more resources in terms of MMA.”
Petrino’s job could be at risk since he’s lost his past two by stoppage, but he won’t carry that extra pressure over his shoulders when he enters the eight-sided cage in Tennessee. Now a part of the heavyweight division, one of the shallowest weight classes in the UFC today, Petrino knows he could easily flip the script and be a win or two away from a top-ranked opponent.
“There are 25 heavyweights in the UFC, if I’m not mistaken,” Petrino said. “For the world’s biggest organization, that’s really not much, so I believe my rise can be quite fast in the division. But I’m also not worried about that. My focus is and will always be fight by fight. My work will slowly show where I stand in the division.”