Douglas Lima (photo via Bellator)

By Kelsey Mowatt

Douglas Lima worked his way to an impressive win over Paul Daley last month, and the fighter’s brother says “The Phenom” is ready to make another title run.

Lima was competing for the first time since last summer, when he lost Bellator’s welterweight title to Andrey Koreshkov, via a one sided, unanimous decision. Going into the fight, many believed that Koreshkov was going to be a stiff test for Lima, but few predicted how the fight would unfold. Koreshkov turned to his wrestling repeatedly throughout the bout, and scored multiple takedowns.

Well, more recently, it was revealed that Lima’s knee was significantly compromised for that bout. Thus, this is why his brother Dhiego Lima, recently had this to say on Full Contact Fighter Radio:

“Man, he’s back,” said the Titan FC welterweight champ, when asked to weigh-in on his brother’s win over Daley. “That last fight he wasn’t healthy. There’s really no doubt about it. He was like at 30% for that fight. He should have never taken that fight, but he got hit with taxes, he needed the money. It’s life. This is what we do. We get money fighting and he got hit with taxes real bad and he had to fight to pay it.”

“He took the fight, he was at like 30%, and now that he’s healthy, it was no surprise at all,” added Lima. “I knew he was going to put Daley away man. I knew he was going to dominate him. Douglas Lima healthy dude; I don’t see any welterweights beating him. When he fights for the title it’s going to be a whole different story when he fights the Russian again….”

Douglas Lima’s recovery is reportedly do to stem cell treatment he underwent for his knee, which has required surgery several times before.

“He had four knee surgeries in the past two years,” said Dhiego. “They just pretty much took out all the cartilage in his knee. So every time he was walking it was just bone on bone. He was like that for close to two years. He finally did a stem cell; Bellator took care of him. They found this great doctor in California…they did that and three months later he was close to 100%.”

With the win over Daley, Douglas Lima moved his overall record to 27-6. Dhiego Lima (12-4), recently decisioned David Michaud to capture Titan’s 170 belt. You can read his thoughts on the win by heading here.