In his last fight with Gilbert Burns he was smiling too, only he had pink hair. A little extravagance never hurts when you’re 26 years old and one win away from fighting for a title. Of all the welterweights competing at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night (from Leon Edwards and Carlos Prates, to Islam Makhachev and champion Jack Della Maddalena in the main event, to his opponent Brady), Morales is the only one who has never had to wake up the morning after a fight and wonder what went wrong.
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He’s 18-0 so far in his career and 6-0 in the UFC since breaking into the Contender Series in 2021. Each of his last two wins (first-round TKO finishes of Neil Magny and Burns) earned him 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 his loved ones under one roof in his home country.
(Chris Unger via Getty Images)
This may seem modest by fighting game standards, but it’s a far cry from where he started, which was in the province of El Oro when he was a lanky teenager hitting pads. He struggled on a pittance in those early days, trying to make a name for himself and gain some experience while working a day job manufacturing parts for the Navy in El Oro.
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“I actually worked in a factory,” he says. “We were making a lot of fiberglass and welding. I helped make the boat frames because, if you think about it in Ecuador, in fights we made a hundred dollars a fight or something like that, so we needed to make ends meet. So we got to work.”
At age 18, Morales won the Oro FC welterweight title, a regional belt that he may have wanted to serve the practical function of keeping his pants up, because times really were tough. After moving to Mexico at age 19 to make the jump to wrestling full-time, he returned home and won another title in the capital city of Quito at age 21, leading to his spot on the Contender Series.
With each step, his actions have spoken louder than words, although he is also not afraid to exchange them, as demonstrated through some exchanges with the always talkative Ian Garry.
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“Listen, I’m not one to talk,” he told Uncrowned when asked about his star potential. “I have been demonstrationOK. I think I’ve been showing more than telling. I am someone who does not back down from a challenge. I talk about title challenges as someone who is ready to do these things. I think I have a great company (in formation). I have had excellent camps with very good preparation and I am surrounded by people who love me and put me in a good position, a great team to accompany him.”
Here he tilts the camera toward his mother, judoka Katty Hurtado, who is sitting next to him and smiling as big as her son. He says some words in fast Spanish that you can’t understand.
“And also my mom, who has been present at every one of my fights,” he says, “so I think I’ve been in a position to act like someone who wants to compete for the title, because I’m doing things that allow be the next challenger for the title.”
Not that fighting at Madison Square Garden isn’t big enough, but Morales has talked about what it would mean to become the first Ecuadorian champion in the UFC. A UFC belt would look great in the family compound. It’s something he’s looking for, and it’s why he plans to use the microphone effectively to help his own cause if he beats Brady in the swing match at Saturday’s pay-per-view.
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Of course, this is where your story turns, right there in that word “if.”
The UFC has seen many young people get to a place like Morales only to end up learning from their own shortcomings in real time. Brady, who won eight of his nine UFC fights with his 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, making this fight with Morales a high-risk, low-reward setup.
If Brady beats Morales as the division’s No. 2, he more than solidifies himself as the legitimate title challenger for the Della Maddalena-Makhachev winner, even though there is still the Garry-Belal Muhammad fight scheduled for next week in Qatar.
If Brady loses to Morales, well… he gives up a lot of ground in the title picture.
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The UFC has put the young phenom Morales in a situation to jump the field in one fell swoop. And although Brady has said publicly that fighting to go down in the ranking does not bother him, Morales himself sees the danger in it.
“It’s an important fight for him,” Morales says. “If you think about it, I mean, he has to fight a guy who is an up-and-coming, young, undefeated fighter. The difference between Sean Brady and me is that I’ve been finishing my fights, a lot of them in the first round.
“I mean, he’s distanced himself from most people, having decision wins on his side. And also, I think there’s a question of the welterweight division because every fighter at that time had a rival, had a fight scheduled. Think about it, everyone had someone to prepare for the next one, and he didn’t. Sooner or later we were going to face each other, so this is the moment, that’s all.”
The smile reappears on his face as he imagines the scene at MSG.
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“This is what we’re going to do,” he says. “We will have a great fight, I will win this fight on Saturday, and then we will wait to see what happens with that fight between Belal and Ian Garry, and see who will be the next title challenger.”