Marlon Moraes found himself in a sticky situation during UFC Fortaleza fight week last week, suffering from diarrhea that nearly had him pull out of the fight. Moraes won his fight against Raphael Assuncao with a first-round submission and he may have a teammate to thank for the win.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani on his ESPN talk show Monday, Moraes said that it was Frankie Edgar who gave him the inspiration to continue with the fight.
“I don’t want to pull out,” Moraes told Helwani. “So I’ve got to call somebody that’s not going to tell me to pull out. So I said, ‘Who would never pull out of a fight?’ and I thought about it and I said ‘I know somebody’ and I called Frankie Edgar.”
When @MMARLONMORAES considered pulling out of the #UFCFortaleza main event, he turned to @FrankieEdgar for support. #HelwaniShow (via @arielhelwani) pic.twitter.com/nsBdc8gP4B
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) February 4, 2019
Moraes said that he called Edgar at 7 AM and that Edgar’s advice was to stay positive and that he’ll get better. He was smart to take Edgar’s advice as he looked more than recovered when fight time came.
Moraes may now be the top contender to TJ Dillashaw’s bantamweight championship. If he continues to follow the advice of his teammate and former champion Edgar, he should be in good shape.
Monday Notebook
–Aspen Ladd told MMAJunkie Radio that she wouldn’t be shocked if the reason Holly Holm pulled out of their scheduled UFC 235 fight was that Holm is going to fight Amanda Nunes for the bantamweight championship. She also pleaded to UFC to “just give me a fight.”
-David Teymur suffered a broken orbital bone in his TKO loss to Charles Oliveira on Saturday.
–Johnny Walker told MMAFighting that he wasn’t aiming for Justin Ledet’s head with the soccer kick that nearly landed in the closing sequence of their fight.
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