Man on the way to that title fight he beat Dodson, KOed Sterling and Rivera and then submitted Assuncao. Was winning that Cejudo fight for a while there as well but came up short in the end. Yeah he next got the decision over Aldo but most think Aldo won then Moraes got TKOed by Sandhagen, Font, Merab, Song and Seymon Moraes who he had subbed back in WSOF when he was champ.
Just a real dramatic rise to the title fight followed by a brutal fall. Not the first time we have seen such a rise and fall but it reminds me of the decline of former champs Woodley and Barao after they lost the titles.
Moraes fights Loughnane in the PFL headliner on Sat. I don’t see him winning this one either but I’d love to be wrong.
I used to make sure to watch all of Moraes’ fights in WSOF or find a replay if I missed them. Him and Gaethje, they were both just see TV on the way up there.
He still looked good for a few minutes in most of his losses after the Aldo fight. It wasn’t age he still looked as athletic as ever. It was a brittle chin and more importantly poor cardio imo
And as expected, that marks the 6th straight L for Moraes after last night and the 6th straight KO/TKO.
That is a tough field there in PFL at FW.
Thing is, this is like with JDS… there are boatloads of winnable fights for Moraes out there but you keep them in there with the top 10, the top 20 for too long and these the results get real predictable. 2,3,7 and 13 are the current fightmatrix rankings in the world of the BW’s that just beat Moraes in the UFC. 40 and 14 and the rankings of the FW’s he just lost to in the PFL.
In July of 2020, Moraes was the #1 ranked BW in the world, even before the loss last night he was now, two and a half years later the 97th ranked FW in the world. I’d say its safe to say he will be out of the top 100 rankings once they are updated. Lets see who he draws next in the regular season.
His career has taken a BJ Penn-esque 180 where he just became incapable of winning overnight. Marlon should quit since his last legitimate win was over 4 years ago, before he passes Penn’s 8 year losing streak and gets knocked out in front of a Denny’s.
It is legitimately sad to watch. I watch every fight of his the same way I watched BJ after he had lost 5-6 straight. It’s very hard for me to do. I didn’t watch his last two and tuned into this one knowing it was a bad matchup anyways… wasn’t surprised. I hope he takes a drastic step down in competition and somebody is looking out for him
What about Reyes since his title fight with Jones?
Unlike Moraes, where everyone knows he lost to Cejudo, to this day some people still think Reyes beat Jones, not the judges of course but some people thought on that night he defeated Jones the LHW GOAT and current HW champ and should have been awarded the decision.
See Jones is now walking around the HW champ and Reyes… 0-3 since then and KOed each time by Jan, Jiri and Spann. Brutal.
Decline happens to everyone who sticks around but man, getting KOed 7x in a row after losing a competitive UFC title fight to Cejudo and winning a close fight vs Aldo is an incredibly big fall from the top of the mountain.
You’re not wrong but what’s that have to do with anything?
Barao only beat Gagnon and Nover, I think Moraes still would have beat guys of that calibre but the UFC gave him Sandhagen, Font, Merab, and Song Yadong before he left. That’s a killers row, he needed a step back after Sandhagen and instead got maybe the best 135 on the planet. Barao wasn’t still fighting ranked guys after losing to Sterling. Once you leave the UFC after a run like that it’s usually over.
Anyways I think Barao’s fall was worse in hindsight.
