Marlon Moraes Admits It Was Tough To Celebrate Scary Knockout Over Aljamain Sterling
Marlon Moraes not only earned his first UFC knockout this past Saturday night when he finished Aljamain Sterling in the first round of their bantamweight matchup in Fresno, Calif. but he may have earned one of the best highlights of all 2017.
As Sterling started to dive for a takedown, Moraes threw a switch kick and absolutely blasted the New York native with a vicious knee strike that send him crashing face first onto the canvas.
Of course, Moraes wanted to celebrate the win not to mention the knockout but Sterling remained motionless on the canvas for several minutes after the fight and the former World Series of Fighting champion admits at that moment he wasn’t concerned about touting his victory.
Moraes just wanted to make sure Sterling was OK.
“At the moment, I felt bad,” Moraes said on Tuesday. “It’s kind of hard to talk and say all that crap that people say after the fight. I could not say anything. I could not challenge anybody. I could not enjoy it much that victory. We’re friendly teams, Matt Serra and Ray Longo, they’re great people and we respect them so much. That’s the sport. We want to win and I got the win.
“Thank God he’s fine. I see him out there and now everything is OK. I won, that’s the most important thing.”
While it was definitely a scary moment inside the Octagon as Sterling was taken out on a stretcher, he updated his condition later that night and said that he was physically just fine following the knockout.
KNEE GAME PROPER! Marlon Moraes with the absurd KO knee on Aljamain Sterling! #UFCFresno https://t.co/Wn9Q0ul7fz
— FOX Sports: UFC (@UFCONFOX) December 10, 2017
That was welcome news for Moraes, who knew exactly how dangerous that kick could be after he suffered a broken nose from the same exact move when he was training alongside former UFC champion Frankie Edgar in his own fight camp.
“That’s how we train. We train for that kick,” Moraes revealed. “I think if he stayed a little bit back, I was going to catch him with the kick anyway but I caught him with the knee. Ricardo Almeida always tells me about this knee. Takanori Gomi got Ralph Gracie with one of those cause he’s a southpaw but I switched my stance. I was happy. I told Ricardo, I said ‘professor you always talk about this kick and it’s hard to catch it but if you catch it, you don’t come back’.
“I’ve caught someone while training. I got caught by Frankie [Edgar] one time while training. I shoot on Frankie, he switch kick and broke my nose. That’s a very scary kick and dangerous.”
Dangerous and effective as Moraes earned a $50,000 bonus for his knockout as he now moves to 2-1 overall in the UFC after picking up wins over Sterling and John Dodson all inside of a month’s time.
“It feels good. I feel bad for what happened and how it played out for my opponent but when we get in there, we want to finish the fight and I’m a striker. I’m a finisher,” Moraes said. “I like to finish fights.
“When I got the job done, I was very happy and I was like I did it. I can do this and I just did it.”
