"I do hate him," Morales told Alvaro Colemenoro. "We don't have a very good vibe. But at the end of the day, he's still a fighter. I'm not gonna get overconfident if I had to prepare myself to fight him... That fight is gonna be intense if it happens... I think that if I were to fight him, it would be the first time that I would fight in a very aggressive way."
'Our new rules, 'Stand and Bang,' between Materla and Jungwirth, that would be something special. Now it's basically gonna be boxing with small gloves, with elbows also, clinch on the fence, but no takedowns, no kicks. And I believe this will be something special.'
"About the decision, about the fight, nobody stay happy. I think the only people who stay happy about the decision is my opponent and his team. The president is making the right choice with that, that's protecting the image of the company and not tainting their legacy and the sport."
With a perfect 11-0 record that includes eight finishes, and the chance to fight in his hometown at The O2 Arena, Pinto has all the motivation in the world to go out and deliver a big performance on Saturday night as he plans to do two things: make himself happy with his performance, and issue a warning to the heavyweight division that a talented new threat is on his way.
Muhammad Mokaev has seemingly been invited back to the UFC, but not to compete in MMA. Mokaev (15-0) recently won the under-65 kilogram title at the English Senior Wrestling Championships in freestyle wrestling. Mokaev claims he has now been offered to fight jiu-jitsu ace Mikey Musumeci for a UFC BJJ title. "I have been offered to compete against Mikey Mussumeci for the UFC BJJ belt. What do you think guys?" Mokaev wrote on X.
"That was cold. I wish I had a counter to see how many times I actually watched that," Murphy told the UFC. "I've watched that knockout a million times. I will watch that until I'm dead, until I'm old... The happiness I get from watching it never goes. I feel like if I'm down, I might as well just watch this and bring me back up."