The headlining matchup of this Sunday’s WEC 49 show in Canada features former lightweight champion Jamie Varner against Kamal Shalorus, but the very first preliminary bout on the card offers a WEC first-timer who could provide much to talk about: Nova União’s Renan Barão will make his WEC debut against Anthony Leone at a catch weight between the feather and bantamweight divisions.
Barão is the current Shooto South America featherweight champion and has a record on 22 wins and 1 loss. He is the son of the kickboxing coach at team Kimura / Nova União camp in the northeast-Brazilian city of Natal, but spends much of his time training at the Rio de Janeiro headquarters of Nova União with standouts like WEC featherweight champion José Aldo, soon-to-debut-in-the-UFC Amilcar Alves, Ronys Torres, and the rest of the Nova União camp.