Brandon Moreno is more than willing to face Alexandre Pantoja in his next outing, but he thinks that having it in May after his fight this weekend will just be too “soon.”
Moreno will be headlining the UFC Mexico City event against Brandon Royval this Saturday. The fighter is not entirely excited about the fight, especially since Royval only replaced his original opponent, Amir Albazi. Additionally, it will only be a rematch after Moreno defeated Royval back in 2020. Yet, the fighter knows that he still has to win this match again in order “to make a statement and keep (his) name there for the flyweight championship in the future.”
In case he wins this fight, “The Assassin Baby” could move forward to the title shot to challenge the flyweight champ for the gold. However, he doesn’t think he would be able to accept a fight as soon as May.
To recall, UFC recently announced that it will be returning to Rio de Janeiro on May 4. The names joining the card remain unknown, but Pantoja shared his interest in entering the event. The fighter even promised that he would defend his belt again on his home soil and asked CEO Dana White to grant him his “wish.”
Now that a UFC event in Brazil is confirmed, Pantoja is highly likely to join the card, which means he would need a challenger. Moreno is the biggest name for that position, but this will only give him two months to prepare.
“I mean, I don’t know nothing about May. It’s kind of soon, you know?” Moreno said on ESPN MMA. “I just wanna win and see what happens next. This sport is kind of hard with injuries and all this stuff. I just wanna win and see how I feel, how my body feels after the match, and see what happens.”
For Moreno, the perfect time for him to fight again will be at UFC’s Mexican Independence weekend event, which will be held in the Sphere in Las Vegas in September. However, this will, of course, oppose Pantoja’s plan to have his next fight in Brazil. According to Moreno, nonetheless, there’s still a chance that he could join the Rio event if he comes out of the cage barely unscathed this weekend.
“That (Noche UFC at the Sphere) makes more sense to me,” Moreno said. “If you talk about May, it’s kind of soon. And Noche UFC is September, so that’s amazing. I’d have enough time to rest a little with my body and start with the new preparation. I’m always in the gym, so it doesn’t matter, but the thing is, with May, it’s my body. But, hey, if I finish the fight in the first round, knockout first minute, and my body is good, let’s go.”
