UFC Mexico Preview
The UFC is heading back to Mexico City on Saturday, February 24 for UFC on ESPN 95. The main event will be a high stakes flyweight fight between former champion #1 Brandon Moreno vs. #3 Brandon Royval.
The fight will be a rematch dating back to 2020 where Moreno won by first round TKO over Royval at UFC 255. Moreno was originally scheduled to fight #2 Amir Albazi, but Albazi withdrew from the fight for undisclosed reasons.
After defeating Royval in their first fight, Moreno would then go on to have a historic tetralogy with Deiveson Figueiredo. The two split wins and Moreno would become a two-time champion and in the process he became a fan favorite. In his last fight at UFC 290 in July, Moreno lost the belt by split decision to Alexandre Pantoja in a rematch for one of the best fights of 2023.
Moreno is trying to not only get back to a title fight but also change bad fortune in his home country. “I feel a little bit frustrated, because obviously I want to put that on my legacy,” Moreno said. “Raise my hand in front of my people, in front of my Mexican flag. That’s it. It’s something that happened in the past, and I just try to turn the page. It’s frustrating, but I’ve been living with a lot of pressure since 2020, fighting for championships and rematches and the trilogies.”
Moreno has unsuccessfully fought in Mexico twice. He lost a unanimous decision to Sergio Pettis in 2017 and fought to a split-draw with Askar Askarov in 2019. He continued speaking about this fight in Mexico.
“I’m just trying to have fun in this one. At the same time, I understand the importance this fight has to my record right now. I’m focusing on Brandon Royval. I’m focusing on the challenge in front, and I’m ready.”
The former champion knows this fight with Royval will be different than the first fight. “It was a really quick fight – just one round,” Moreno said. “The only thoughts I have is that I was winning. He was throwing a lot. He was making a lot of distance. I wanted to take him down, and I was controlling him. That’s the only thing, but I understand his frustration. He really believes he can beat me. But I don’t care. I’m just ready to fight.”
Moreno is not overlooking Royval for another title fight. “Maybe (I’ll get a title shot),” Moreno said. “I don’t even know. I just want to be focused on Royval. A lot of people right now are asking me about Pantoja. I know it’s (media’s) job to ask about that and the future. But right now I’m very focused on Brandon Royval.”
Moreno has fought the who’s who of the flyweight division and with another win over Royval, it is hard to imagine where he goes next another than another title shot. Albazi would have been a new challenge for Moreno, so that fight could be rebooked with a Moreno win. But does Moreno need to take that fight? Albazi is 17-1 and 5-0 in the UFC, so his title apsirations are not going anywhere. But he does not necessarily need to go through Moreno to get to a title shot. He could just sit and wait, as could Moreno. However, Moreno is not known as a fighter to say no to a new challenge, so a rebooking of Moreno and Albazi could be seen in mid 2024.
Royval is trying to rebound from a unanimous decision title loss to Pantoja at UFC 296 in December. The 31-year-old is 5-3 in the UFC but can erase a bad loss from everyone’s memory with a convincing win over Moreno in his home country.
How does Royval feel about fighting Moreno in hostile territory on short notice?
“I’ve spent my whole life risking it all, and it’s paid off big for me,” Royval said. “I feel like this is another big risk, and another opportunity to step into a situation where everybody’s doubting me and the odds are stacked up against me. I’m going into enemy territory on short notice, and I’m the big underdog.
“It’s going to be me versus the world in there, and I’m ready to prove the world wrong. I’m going to get in there, do the job, ruin everybody’s night and then come back home to Denver.”
The Denver native reflected on his last loss for the title. “He clearly wanted to win the rounds, and not necessarily look for a finishing (blow),” Royval said. “I feel like I was diehard on my game plan that he was going to try to kill me (via knockout or submission) and that’s where I was going to beat him, by capitalizing on his mistakes. But he went quickly from him swinging big, to just trying to win rounds. He made that adjustment early on in the first round, and I should’ve made that adjustment right back.”
Royval believes he knows what Moreno’s approach to the fight will be. “The obvious game plan for (Moreno) is to try to shoot in for takedowns and wrestle his way to the win,” Royval said. “For me, it’s not letting him take me down, making him work hard the whole entire time, and if he gets me down on the mat, I’m going to sub him. And if he doesn’t get me down, I’m going to piece him up on my feet from a distance.”
Due to what happened in his last fight, Royval has a golden opportunity to show that he has improved on the holes that Pantoja exposed in his game. If he does this with a win over Moreno, he will find himself back in prime position to once again challenge for a title.
The co-main event of the evening will be another high-stake fight but in the featherweight division. Former title challengers #3 Yair Rodriguez and #4 Brian Ortega will also have a rematch dating back to 2022 where Rodriguez won by TKO after Ortega suffered a shoulder injury. The winner of this fight could jump to the front of the line to challenge newly crowned champion Ilia Topuria for the title.
Rodriguez is trying to rebound from a third round TKO loss for the title at UFC 290 to former champion Alexander Volkanovski. The Mexican fighter has not hesitated to voice his interest in fighting the new champion.
“I would love to f*ck him up,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t want to fight him, I want to f*ck him up. There’s a f*cking big difference on that, just to make that clear. And anywhere I f*cking see him, I’ll f*ck him up.
“… F*ck this b*tch. I don’t f*cking like him.”
Rodriguez has found himself in a not-so-friendly back and forth on social media with Topuria. “I don’t normally get into this kind of situation with nobody, I’m really respectful,” Rodriguez said. “But this f*cking guy, you know, I just don’t really like him. I don’t like him. I don’t have to f*cking like him. I want to f*ck him up. That’s what I want to do.”
Despite having a win over Ortega, Rodriguez explained why he is not thrilled to be fighting him a second time. “It’s always weird. I never wanted to fight the guy,” Rodriguez said. “This time is no different. I like his family, I like him. He’s Mexican, so it’s not the same feeling. It’s a job we have to do. Not something that I really wanted to do.”
Aside from Ortega, Rodriguez has key wins over Josh Emmett, Jeremy Stephens, Chan Sung Jung, B.J. Penn, Alex Caceres, and Dan Hooker. He made his UFC debut at 20 years old and was once considered a top prospect and now at 31 and a former title challenger, he can channel his energy on shocking the world one fight at a time. It all starts with a convincing win over Ortega on Saturday.
Ortega has not fought since the first fight with Rodriguez which gave him his second straight loss. He challenged for the featherweight title a second time at UFC 266 but lost a brutal unanimous decision to Alexander Volkanovski. He first fought for the title at UFC 231 in 2018 against Max Holloway but lost to Max Holloway by fourth round TKO.
The 33-year-old is 1-3 in his last four fights, but he believes he has learned from the losses and a long layoff. "It's been a hell of a year. I've learned a lot. It's taught me a lot," Ortega said. "The main lesson I think I learned is patience. I think a lot of us don't really spend a lot of time with ourselves, by ourselves, without distractions. That's what I was able to do these last 19 months or so.”
He continued, "It taught me a lot about myself, who I am, and man did I dig out some roots and just fix a lot of things about myself," Ortega continued. "To be alone with your own thoughts, it's not always the best. But then later on, it turned out to be good."
How does he feel about this rematch with Rodriguez? “My perspective on it is just a continuation of [the first] fight,” Ortega said.
“But it depends who you are, how you view the sport, incident, the fight — it’s either a rematch or a continuation. For me, it’s a continuation. We just started getting warmed up. We were very dry. We were still trying to feel each other out, got a hold of each other, hit each other a little bit, felt each other’s strength. It was still partially in that feel-out session. It’s gonna be just two rounds now of that feel-out session [when the fight begins.]”
Ortega has key wins over Chan Sung Jung, Frankie Edgar, Cub Swanson, Renato Moicano, and Clay Guida. Ortega needs a win, but a convincing win will erase his latest struggles. It is difficult for a fighter to be granted a third title shot, but a win on Saturday puts Ortega on that path.
The rest of the main card:
Lightweight - Daniel Zellhuber vs. Francisco Prado
Bantamweight - Raul Rosas Jr. vs. Ricky Turcios
Women's Strawweight - Yazmin Jauregui vs. Sam Hughes
Lightweight - Manuel Torres vs. Chris Duncan
ESPN + Prelims:
Bantamweight - Cristian Quiñonez vs. Raoni Barcelos
Flyweight - Jesús Santos Aguilar vs. Mateus Mendonça
Flyweight - Edgar Chairez vs. Daniel Lacerda
Lightweight - Claudio Puelles vs. Farès Ziam
Flyweight - Luis Rodriguez vs. Denys Bondar
Flyweight - Victor Altamirano vs. Felipe dos Santos
Featherweight - Erik Silva vs. Muhammad Naimov
