DWCS 69 winner Marco Tulio not surprised by spinning back kick TKO: 'I repeated that a lot in training'

LAS VEGAS – Marco Tulio punched his ticket to the UFC in brutal fashion.

The Brazilian middleweight earned a contract with the UFC after a highlight-reel finish at Dana White’s Contender Series 69 on Tuesday. Tulio (12-1) folded Mattheiu Dulcos (6-3) with a spinning back kick to the body followed by punches to close out the show. It was a finish Tulio expected.

“I repeated that a lot in training,” Tulio told MMA Junkie and other reporters at the UFC Apex. “What we do in training, we do in the fights. You get into an automatic state of doing things. I trained, and it happened today.”

It wasn’t just training. Tulio, who trains out of Chute Boxe in Sao Paulo, also did a lot of visualizing, with every result the same.

“I think I fought this dude every day for the last two months basically in my mind, and every single time I fought him in my mind, he was just there flat on the ground,” Tulio said. “Today was just making those thoughts and dreams come true.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for DWCS 69.