LAS VEGAS – Kaik Brito let his actions in the cage Tuesday do all the talking. It turns out they were much louder than all the words and insults hurled his way in the bout's lead-up.
"You have no idea how many messages I got," Brito told MMA Junkie and other reporters through an interpreter after Dana White's Contender Series 88 at Meta APEX. "I got messages every day, all the time. I had to restrict people and block people so I could check on my Instagram normally and have it function normally. Because people were just sending them all the time. But at the end of the day, like I said, I see this as a job that you need to get done. They take it another way. I feel like I'm light on Earth and nothing is going to bother me. I'll tell you, it didn't
bother me, and there were a lot. They were all coming in all the time, messages. There were even calls they were making."
Brito (20-6 MMA, 0-0 UFC) found himself in the midst of an impromptu rivalry with Namo Fazil (10-2), a brash welterweight opponent who aimed to become the first Kurd in UFC history. After two hard-fought rounds, Brito landed a nuclear right hand, reminiscent of a prime Dan Henderson to knock Fazil out in the third.
Despite the potential to have a "told you so" moment, Brito remained humble in victory.
"I don't have words to describe how happy I am," Brito said. "For real, I'm very, very grateful to God for all that I've gotten. ... I don't put any value into that. Whatever it is, it's me and God in this one. Maybe it's us against everyone. The thing I wanted to do was do my job and get it done. I think I did my job and I got it done tonight."
Brito, a seasoned veteran from Brazil who held the OKTAGON title prior to his DWCS signing, said his self-belief never faltered before or during the fight. He remembers his confidence increasing between the first and second rounds. He was confident he'd get the job done – and he was right.
"I realized it was a war after the first round, during the first round," Brito said. "As soon as I sat after the break after the first round, I thought, 'I'm going to have to rain down on this guy and beat him up for three rounds. There's no other way. I'm going to have to finish this. That way, I'm going to break him little by little. The guy wasn't breakable. If you think about it, he was pressuring forward. He was very motivated. He got that crowd behind him. You could see what he didn't understand is that I could punch him for three rounds. I will beat him up for three rounds. From the second to the third round when the coaches said, 'Dude, you need to finish this thing. You need to go for it all. That's where you're going to end it.' That's why I came out guns blazing, immediately put out a knee, and I was going for it all. I knew I needed to finish this fight and it was a war."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Kaik Brito was inundated with Namo Fazil fan messages before DWCS knockout
