Spain’s The Way of Warrior FC returns this Friday when WOW 30: Lisboa goes down in Lisbon, Portugal, and the event is headlined by an exciting clash between Zé Machado and Henrique Barbosa with the promotion’s interim featherweight belt on the line.
Zé Machado 5-0 – Portugal, Age 26, Academia Unlimited
Boasting a perfect 5-0 record as a professional fighter, Machado closed out an impressive 17-7 amateur career in 2023 by winning that year’s IMMAF lightweight tournament.
After securing a number of first-round finishes as an amateur, none of Machado’s professional bouts have gone past the opening five minutes. The 26-year-old joined WOW FC last year and submitted Enrique Exposito with a guillotine choke late in the first round before stopping Michael Martinez with strikes at WOW 27: Madrid in March.
A feint-heavy striker, Machado likes to get opponents focused on his hands in order to start chipping away at them with hard low kicks during the early part of a fight. Finding success with those kicks allows him to then establish his jab and start opening up with more impactful punches. In addition to a standard 1-2, he also likes to throw big right hands that he’ll quickly follow with a left hook if an opponent remains within range.
The 26-year-old also mixes in punches to the body and is comfortable moving between stances. In his last outing against Martinez, he looked particularly confident working from southpaw and frequently looked for rear high kicks from this stance.
Machado packs some power in his hands and is more than capable of finding finishes on the feet, but his ferocious ground game is arguably the most impressive and dangerous part of his skillset. He has good timing on his double leg entries and will frequently feint or jab into these shots, and even if an opponent does return to their feet they’ll often immediately find themselves grounded by another takedown.
The Academia Unlimited-product is a submission threat and active guard passer, and he’ll quickly try to set up a mounted crucifix if he ends up in side control. Opponents that get mounted by Machado will find themselves trying to deal with heavy elbows and punches, and even if they manage to roll over they’ll still continue eating huge punches and also have to deal with the added threat of a rear naked choke.
Henrique Barbosa 10-1 – Brazil, Age 27, Chute Boxe Diego Lima
Training out of Chute Boxe Diego Lima, Barbosa ended a nearly two-year layoff last September when he made his promotional debut at LFA 216 and brutally stopped his countryman Wily Pereira in the first round.
The victory brought Barbosa’s current winning run to four fights after he suffered the lone loss of his career against Guilherme Neres in 2019. Prior to that, Barbosa went 6-0 to kick off a professional MMA career that began in late 2017.
Comfortable working out of both southpaw and orthodox, Barbosa does a good job of switching his stance off of his kicks or while moving out of range of his opponents. In addition to regular low kicks, he also likes to stab at the midsection of his opposition with a sharp front kick with his right leg out of both stances.
Largely more of a counter punches than an aggressor, the Brazilian loves to try and connect with a lead left hook as his opponents come forward and throw strikes. He’ll also double up on his jab and follow it with a right straight, and when he does connect cleanly he’s shown off some considerable power in his hands.
Barbosa will start to apply more forward pressure and open up with his strikes if he senses that an opponent is hurt or fading and that finish may be close. The tape available from his more recent fights doesn’t provide significant insight on his ground game, but he did show off some decent scrambling and good takedown defense when he took a three-round unanimous decision over Robson Silva (who was 12-12-1 at the time and is currently 12-14-1) in 2023.
Interim Featherweight Gold on the Line at WOW FC 30
Machado is currently close to a 3-1 favorite to get his hand raised in Lisbon, and it’s no surprise to see him favored given his amateur credentials and the sensational start to his professional career. That being said, Barbosa is still an interesting prospect in his own right, especially with how impressive he looked in his LFA debut after almost two years out of the cage.
Both of these men will be looking to set their rhythm with low kicks during the early going, and I expect that Machado is going to have a significant speed advantage over Barbosa during the striking exchanges. The Brazilian does have the kind of power that will require his opponent to avoid eating any big counter shots, but it’ll also be interesting to see how Barbosa navigates the frequent feints that Machado will be throwing out and how both men handle the stance battle.
Possibly the biggest question in this fight is how quickly Machado will decide to try and bring things to the ground. Even if Barbosa is able to defend an initial attempt or get back to his feet, he’s going to have a hard time creating enough space to be able to get back to striking and avoid being taken down again.
I expect that Machado will win this but would love to see Barbosa push him a bit, especially given that we haven’t seen Machado go past the first round as a professional yet. There’s also always the chance that Barbosa connects with something big to pull off the upset, and the winner of this fight will be lined up for a featherweight title unification bout with Nikolay Grozdev.
