Diego Brandao confidently shares UFC 168 game plan for Dustin Poirier

For some fighters, a game plan isn’t a closely guarded secret to be kept from prying eyes.

UFC featherweight and “The Ultimate Fighter 14? winner Diego Brandao freely admits he’s looking for a particular kind of flow to his upcoming fight with Dustin Poirier, and a particular kind of ending.

“I am looking for a few takedowns of my own to see how he feels on the ground,” Brandao told MMAjunkie. “I feel the key to this fight is my jiu-jitsu advantage over Dustin. I think his jiu-jitsu is good, but not as good as mine.

“I plan to get him down and catch him in a submission. I truly believe in my jiu-jitsu.”

Brandao (18-8 MMA, 4-1 UFC) meets Poirier (14-3 MMA, 6-2 UFC) in the opening pay-per-view main-card bout of UFC 168, which takes place Saturday at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

The game plan Brandao is so candid about isn’t a product of Poirier’s setbacks inside the octagon — losses to Chan Sung Jung and Cub Swanson. While clues could be found in those appearances, Brandao is looking at something different.

“I won’t base my approach on those specific fights,” Brandao said. “I’m concentrating on the holes in his game. Everyone has holes.”

Of course, this approach didn’t come naturally. Brandao said he learned it the hard way with a loss to Darren Elkins, who outwrestled him and won on the scorecards at UFC 146.

“If you worry too much about what the other guy will do, no one can train properly,” he said. “The way I think these days is by putting together a game plan aimed to destroy my opponent.”

If he’s able to do that against the highly regarded Poirier, Brandao would take a huge step forward in his career. But he said he isn’t in line for a title shot — yet.

“I’ll wait for that,” Brandao said. “I have much to learn and much to demonstrate so far. Poirier almost got to fight for the belt once, so I know we’re getting close.

“There are a lot of guys ahead like Frankie Edgar, Chad Mendes and Clay Guida. I believe I need to take it one step at a time. So ultimately we prove our worth by winning, by knocking people out. We are primarily focused on getting that ‘W.’”

For more on UFC 168, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.