The former bantamweight title challenger Marlon Moraes hasn’t fought after losing to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champ-champ, Henry Cejudo, at UFC 238 this June via knockout. However, Moraes is all set to return to Octagon and he wants to face former UFC Featherweight champion, Jose Aldo.
It’s an interesting callout as Aldo contests at 145 pounds, while Marlon has spent most of his career down at Bantamweight. But “Magic” did spend his first 10 bouts competing in the Featherweight division.
Before to his loss to Cejudo, Moraes (22-6-1 MMA, 4-2 UFC) had won 17 out of 18 bouts. Before making the jump over to UFC, Moraes ruled World Series of Fighting (WSOF) as its 135-pound champ.
The Brazilian feels he is the perfect opponent to welcome Aldo into the division:
“It’s not like, ‘He’s the one calling out Aldo,’” Moraes told media. “It’s not like that. I have muito respect for Aldo. Aldo is a great fighter. What happened is, he wants to move down to 135. He’s a legend. If he fights once, everyone is going to say this guy has to fight for the belt. But I don’t think he deserves (that) fight now. And I don’t think Henry is ready now.
“I’m at the top, so it makes a lot of sense for him (to) move down and fight with me. I’m more than happy to welcome him to the division. I think we could put on a very good fight.”
Meanwhile, Aldo (28-5 MMA, 10-4 UFC), hasn’t had an impressive run inside the Octagon as of late, going 3-4 in the last four years. After winning the vacant 145-pound title, Aldo went on to drop two straight to Max Holloway before racking up back-to-back knockout wins over Jeremy Stephens and Renato Moicano. He then lost to Alexander Volkanovski, via a unanimous-decision at UFC 237.
As both fighters are in need of a big win, the possible bout should bring out the best of them, but for this we have to wait for a while.
