Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo will square off for the third straight time in a Flyweight title fight in the co-main event of UFC 270 on Jan. 22, 2022. Moreno defeated Figueiredo at UFC 263 earlier this year to win the strap after the two men fought to a draw at UFC 256 six months prior.
After spending so much cage time with the Brazilian bomber, Moreno is ready to put him in his rear-view mirror once and for all. And it’s not just Figueiredo who he’s trying to put behind him, but some of the people around him, including his manager Wallid Ismail.
“I’m tired of thinking about him because all these fake people around him, man, it’s too much to me because I’m trying to be very, very real in my normal day,” Moreno said Monday on The MMA Hour (via MMA Fighting).
“I’m trying to be very real with my people, on social media. I’m trying to be very clear in my regular life, but this is guy is like … sometimes, I think this guy doesn’t believe in his words. When he talks, it’s like everything is talk about lies and the fake people around him. It is what it is. I’m tired of that, but a fight is a fight, and I’m ready to fight him again.”
Moreno’s apparent disdain toward Ismail grew exponentially after he set up Figueiredo to train with Henry Cejudo, Moreno’s former coach. But, it wasn’t so much the training that got under Moreno’s skin, it had to do more with Ismail suggesting Cejudo is out to get revenge on Moreno for betraying him on a past season of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), where the Olympian coached against Joseph Benavidez.
But, Moreno wants to remind everyone that it was Cejudo who didn’t pick him to be on his TUF team, forcing “The Assassin Baby” to join Benavidez and Co., an experience Moreno says helped him improve greatly.
Still, Moreno isn’t too upset about fighting Figueiredo a third time because at the end of the day, the former champion has turned out to be his highest-paying sponsor ever.
“Figueiredo is my best sponsor ever,” Moreno explained in reference to how much money he will end up making after a trilogy against him. “I never had another sponsor like Figueiredo. He’s paying my house, he’s paying my car, so we can do it again.”
Burn …
UFC 270 is expected to go down inside Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., and will be headlined by a Heavyweight title unification bout between division kingpin, Francis Ngannou, and interim champion, Ciryl Gane.
To check out the latest and greatest UFC 270 fight card and rumors click here.