Barboza, who recently retired from the Ultimate Fighting Championship, claims Ruffy is one of his favorite fighters to watch. Ruffy is set to face Arman Tsarukyan in the UFC 331 co-main event on Sept. 19 in Los Angeles and Barboza recently broke down the matchup, having trained alongside Tsarukyan at American Top Team.
Barboza compares Mauricio Ruffy to Anderson Silva ahead of Arman Tsarukyan fight
Barboza gave his assessment of the matchup in an exclusive interview with Sherdog. He claims Ruffy reminds him of UFC legend Anderson Silva before drawing a comparison between Tsarukyan and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
“Ruffy is one of my favorite fighters right now,” Barboza said. “He’s extremely creative and skilled, and he reminds me of Anderson Silva. He just needs one opportunity to finish a fight. I’d say he’s the improved version of me.”
While he thinks highly of Ruffy's abilities, Barboza acknowledged how good Tsarukyan is while comparing the latter to Nurmagomedov, who he faced back in 2017.
“I’ve had the opportunity to train many times with Arman at ATT,” Barboza added. “He’s impressive. If he needs to, he’ll come at you 10,000 times until he takes you down. Khabib had more pressure. He controls you more and is always one move ahead, but he doesn’t really look for the submission. Arman is different. He’s always looking to advance and find the finish.”
He then highlighted Ruffy’s finishing ability while hyping up the matchup.
“Ruffy only needs one opportunity to finish the fight,” Barboza concluded. “All I can say is that it’s going to be a fight you can’t miss — a classic striker vs. grappler matchup.”