In Jose Aldo's training camp, this UFC hopeful is Conor McGregor

Jose Aldo and Jonas Bilharinho

Well before he got the call to play the role of Conor McGregor in UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo’s training camp, Jonas Bilharinho had studied the Irish fighter’s style and strengths.

Why not, Bilharinho figured. He was the featherweight champ in Jungle Fight, and he had plans of moving on to the UFC some day. That he would eventually fight McGregor seemed not unlikely, so he might as well get a head start on his homework.

Then Nova Uniao head coach Andre Pederneiras reached out to Bilharinho’s coaches at Team Nogueira to ask a favor. Bilharinho, he said, seemed to have some McGregor-esque elements to his game. Would he mind assuming the duty of Aldo’s main McGregor simulator in the training camp leading up to the UFC 189 title fight?

“I was so excited,” Bilharinho told MMAjunkie. “I can’t describe what I felt. Jose Aldo is No. 1 in the world. It’s an amazing opportunity, to do this for him, and it’s unique.”

If you watch Bilharinho fight, it’s not hard to see why Nova Uniao coaches thought he’d be the perfect mimic. He’s a southpaw with the same wide stance as McGregor, the same patient mastery of distance. He attributes much of that to his training background, which began when he started karate at the age of 4.

“And after that capoeira,” Bilharinho said. “After that ninjitsu, boxing, muay Thai, jiu-jitsu, wrestling – I always liked to experience different ways of fighting. My mom would say to me, ‘This way, you’ll never get good at anything.’ But she didn’t know that some day I would use all of this in one art: MMA.”

He didn’t exactly think of himself as a McGregor-esque fighter before Pederneiras called. As far as he was concerned, Bilharinho (6-0-1) said, he had his own style, and with an unblemished professional record and Jungle Fight titles in bantamweight and featherweight, it seemed to be working out for him. But once the idea of mimicking McGregor was put to him, he saw the logic in it.

“I’m already left-handed, and we’ve got some similar tools in our game, so it’s easy to emulate Conor McGregor for me,” Bilharinho said. “We’re a little bit similar. Some of the strikes he delivers, I like those – but not all the game-playing.”

Still, in order to effectively simulate what Aldo (25-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC) will likely face when he squares off against McGregor (17-2 MMA, 5-0 UFC) in UFC 189’s pay-per-view main event on July 11, Bilharinho, who speaks fluent English, has been making sure to mix in plenty of trash-talk with their sparring sessions. He tells Aldo that he’s got nothing, that he’s about to lose his title, all the usual stuff. And what has this taught him?

“Jose Aldo will not understand anything that (McGregor) says in there,” Bilharinho chuckled. “So that’s not going to matter.”

For his services, Bilharinho said, he’s “not charging anything.” Rather, he’s helping Aldo out of a mix of loyalty to a fellow Brazilian and his desire to train with the best in the world. As for his own career, Bilharinho said he recently turned down a Bellator contract, just like he turned down other offers that didn’t come from UFC headquarters in Las Vegas.

“I want to fight in the UFC, man,” he said. “There’s no other way I see myself going. I was the bantamweight champion in Jungle Fight, and then I moved up to featherweight and got that title as well. I don’t know what else I can do in Brazil. I want to go to the UFC. I want to be tested.”

In the meantime, he’ll settle for doing his part in the gym to help the Brazilian champ come out on top in what could very well be the biggest UFC event of the year. He’s even got a prediction for how it will go once the cage door closes.

“Jose is going to chop his head off,” Bilharinho said. “I think McGregor will drop with the first hand that Jose puts on him.”

For more on UFC 189, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.