SAO PAULO – Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 137 ended quite well for Francisco Trinaldo, who has now officially – and violently – recovered from a loss to James Vick.

But what people probably couldn’t tell by watching his shutdown of Evan Dunham (18-8-1 MMA, 11-8-1 UFC), which came via a vicious knee to the body, is that Trinaldo (23-6 MMA, 13-5 UFC) came close to pulling out of the FS2-televised lightweight bout.

In fact, Trinaldo told reporters backstage at Ibirapuera Gymnasium, he thought of canceling four times, due to a broken tooth that he says caused him the worst pain he’s felt in his life.

“I spent a week with tooth pain,” Trinaldo said. “I trained, I couldn’t sleep. I disappeared from the gym. Four times, at night, I called my manager asking to cancel the fight.”

Trinaldo, however, says he consults his brother about every decision he makes. And so his brother convinced him to stay on the card.

Whatever it took to make it up there, it ended up being quite a productive night for the Brazilian heavy hitter. Other than an impressive second-round knockout win, Trinaldo got to put his post-fight mic time to good use, with both a shout-out and a call-out.

The shout out – “Daddy beat up a guy here!”– was to his baby son, who’s too young to understand what Trinaldo was saying. The same can’t be said for the recipient of the call-out, though, who in fact has been acquainted with the Brazilian inside a cage.

“Now I want to beat Kevin Lee,” Trinaldo said. “He beat me here in Brazil, trashtalked my country and my fans. Now I want to beat him in his country.”

Lee scored a submission win over Trinaldo in March 2017, at UFC Fight Night 106 in Fortaleza, Brazil. Trinaldo had been on an impressive seven-fight winning streak then – which included the likes of Ross Pearson, Yancy Medeiros and Paul Felder – and went on to recover against Jim Miller, before Vick came along.

This time, there’s no need for Lee to come all the way over to Brazil, as Trinaldo says he would fight the former interim title challenger anywhere he pleases. The Brazilian also believes he’s been able to spot what went wrong the first time around.

“I lost focus,” Trinaldo said. “I lost focus, I though the fight was won, he threw a kick, it landed – and when it lands, the fight is over. Like you just saw, a knee landed and it was over. No one is unbeatable.”

Unfortunately for Trinaldo, though, his interest is not all it takes to make the matchup happen. There’s what Lee, who’s coming off a big win over Edson Barboza, wants. And, by the looks of it, Trinaldo is not really on the mix there.

And what about the UFC, does Trinaldo think they’d be interested in putting that one together?

Maybe, Trinaldo ponders, “if I start calling him names, talk about his mom, dad.” But that’s not something he’s interested in doing.

“That’s why I’m asking you to help,” Trinaldo said. “I don’t like swearing. I will never call the guy’s mom names. But I want to fight him.

“I want to do a great fight with him. For the UFC, it will be good, a great fight. I want to brawl with him. I want to hit him a lot, and I want to submit him.”

In typical Trinaldo fashion, the lightweight also took the time backstage to thank the reporters and apologize for not always being able to reply to messages and requests when he’s hard at training.

“I train very hard because I want to be one of the best,” Trinaldo said. “I want to show people that a guy who came from way down can be one of the best. A guy who didn’t get an eduction can be the best.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 137, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.