Michael Morales is in the Big Apple as the phenom of the unofficial welterweight grand prix at UFC 322, and, like all young fighters arriving at a big spot, he’s taking in as much as he can on the fly. On Wednesday afternoon Morales made his media rounds wearing a beanie with “UFC NYC” covering the blonde hair he’s sporting for his fight with Sean Brady, smiling ear to ear.
For his last fight with Gilbert Burns he was smiling, too, only he had pink hair. A little flamboyance never hurts when you’re 26 years old and a win away from potentially fighting for a title. Of all the welterweights competing at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night — of Leon Edwards and Carlos Prates, of Islam Makhachev and the champ Jack Della Maddalena in the main event, or his opponent Brady — Morales is the only one who has never had to wake up the morning after a fight and ask himself what went wrong.
Advertisement
He is 18-0 so far in his career and 6-0 in the UFC since breaking through on the Contender Series in 2021. Each of his last two victories — first-round TKO finishes of Neil Magny and Burns — earned Performance of the Night bonus money, which he says he’s been using to build a compound in his native Ecuador for his entire family to live in.
His ultimate goal, he says, is to have all of his loved ones under a single roof in his home country.
Michael Morales of Ecuador certainly had the look of a star at Thursday’s UFC 322 press conference at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
(Chris Unger via Getty Images)
This may seem modest by fight-game standards, but it’s a long way from where he first started, which was in the El Oro Province as a lanky teenager hitting pads. He’d fight for peanuts in those early days, trying to build a name for himself and get some experience while holding down a day job making parts for the Navy in El Oro.
Advertisement
“I worked in a factory, actually,” he says. “We were doing a lot of fiberglass, doing welding. I helped make the structures for the ships because of the fact that fighting, if you think about it in Ecuador, we’re making a hundred bucks a fight or something like that, so we needed to make ends meet. So we went to work.”
At 18 years old, Morales won the Oro FC welterweight title, a regional belt that he might’ve wanted to perform the practical function of keeping his britches up, because those were lean times indeed. After moving to Mexico at 19 to make the leap into full-time fighting, he returned home and won another title in the capital city of Quito at 21, which led to his spot on the Contender Series.
With each step, his actions have spoken louder than words — though he’s not afraid to exchange those either, as he’s shown through some back-and-forth with the ever-chatting Ian Garry.
Advertisement
“Listen, I’m not one to talk,” he told Uncrowned when asked about his star potential. “I’ve been showing, OK. I think I’ve been showing more than telling. I’m someone who’s not going back down from the challenge. I talk about title challenges as somebody who’s ready to actually go and do these things. I think I have a great company [in training]. I’ve been having great camps with very good preparation, and I’m surrounded by people who love me and putting me in a good position, a great team to go with it.”
Here he tilts the camera toward his mother, the judoka Katty Hurtado, who is sitting right by his side and smiling as big as her son. She says some words in rapid Spanish that can’t be made out.
“And also, my mom that’s been around every single one of my fights,” he says, “so I think I’ve been in a position of acting like someone who wants to challenge for the title, because I’m doing things that allow me to be the next title challenger.”
Not that fighting at Madison Square Garden isn’t big enough, but Morales has talked about what it would mean to become the first ever Ecuadorian champion in the UFC. A UFC belt would hang nicely in the family compound. It’s something he is gunning for, and that’s why he plans to use the microphone effectively to help his own cause if he beats Brady in the swing bout on Saturday’s PPV.
Advertisement
Of course, this is where his story hinges — right there in that word “if.”
The UFC has seen a lot of young guns arrive at such a spot as Morales’ only to end up learning of their own deficiencies in real time. Brady, who has won eight of his nine UFC bouts with the only loss coming against former champion Belal Muhammad, is the most dangerous opponent Morales has faced to date. Most believe Brady has already earned a title shot, thus making this fight with Morales a high-risk, low-reward setup.
Should Brady beat Morales as the No. 2 guy in the division, he more than solidifies himself as the rightful title challenger for the winner of Della Maddalena-Makhachev, even though there’s still the fight between Garry and Belal Muhammad set for the following week in Qatar.
Should Brady lose to Morales, well … he gives up a lot of terrain in the title picture.
Advertisement
The UFC has put the young phenom Morales in a spot to leapfrog the field in one fell swoop. And though Brady has said publicly that fighting down in the rankings doesn’t bother him, Morales himself sees the danger in it.
“It is an important fight for him,” Morales says. “You think about it, I mean, he has to fight the guy who’s an up-and-coming, young, undefeated fighter. The difference between myself and Sean Brady is that I’ve been finishing my fights, many of them in the first round.
“I mean, he’s gone to distance with most people, having decision wins on his side. And also, I just think that there’s a matter of the welterweight division because every single fighter at the moment had a rival, had a fight scheduled. You think about it, everyone had someone to prepare for next, and he didn’t. Sooner or later we were going to face each other, so this is the time, that’s it.”
The smile hits his face again as he envisions the scene at MSG.
Advertisement
“This is what we’re going to do,” he says. “We’ll have a great fight, I’ll win this fight on Saturday, and then we wait for what happens with that fight between Belal and Ian Garry, and see who’s going to be the next title challenger.”
