Brandon Moreno vs Amir Albazi booked for UFC Fight Night 237 five-round co-main event
2024 is going to be a big year for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and its fans. One week following UFC 298, where featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski (26-3) aims to make the sixth defense of his title opposing no. 5 ranked Ilia Topuria (14-0), no. 1 ranked former flyweight champion Brandon Moreno (21-7-2) is expected to face no. 2 ranked Amir Albazi (17-1) in UFC Fight Night 237’s co-main event of the evening.
It is expected to be a five-round affair, marking the third time a non-title, non-main event bout was scheduled for five rounds; and if it happens, it’ll be the first time a five-round non-title, non-main event bout took place.
Brandon Moreno is coming off his split decision defeat to current champion Alexandre Pantoja, who just made the first successful defense of his title last night at UFC 296.
Coming over to the UFC as the three-time defending WFF flyweight champion, Moreno would win his first three bouts with the promotion, the third of which coming over Dustin Ortiz (rear naked choke), where he became the first, and to this day the only man to ever stop Ortiz.
Back-to-back defeats would come to future, now former Bellator bantamweight champion Sergio Pettis (UD), and then Pantoja (UD). The UFC was considering cutting the flyweight division at the time, and as a result Moreno was released from the promotion.
Moreno then won the LFA flyweight championship in his next bout before returning to the octagon just over a year later.
After battling ACB flyweight champion Askar Askarov to a draw in his return bout, he’d rack up three-straight wins over the likes of no. 4 ranked Kai Kara-France (UD), Jussier Formiga (UD), and no. 3 ranked Brandon Royval (TKO) before going into his first UFC championship fight against former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo.
That bout also resulted in a draw, calling for an immediate rematch where he submitted (rear naked choke) the BJJ black belt in round three to claim the UFC flyweight championship. Moreno would battle Figueiredo again next in their trilogy bout, losing a disputed unanimous decision.
Next would come an interim title fight, where he stopped Kai Kara-France (TKO) in their rematch before once again dethroning Figueiredo in their quadrilogy, the first ever in UFC history, winning the fight via doctor stoppage (TKO) after round three.
Moreno would however lose the title in a closely contested bout with Pantoja, which was also a trilogy, falling 0-3 to the current champion in July.
Then we have Amir Albazi, who has been nothing short of incredible since joining the UFC roster in 2020.
The former UCMMA & FSC bantamweight champion has gone a perfect 5-0 thus far into his promotional tenure with wins over the likes of former TKO flyweight champion Malcolm Gordon (triangle choke), FNG flyweight champion Zhalgas Zhumagulov (UD), Deiveson Figueiredo’s brother Francisco (rear naked choke), Alessandro Costa (KO), and most recently Kai Kara-France (SD) back in June.
Who comes out of this flyweight contest on top?
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