Thiago Moises shares some of the thoughts and feelings he had ahead of his fight at UFC Vegas 57.
UFC lightweight Thiago Moises may have saved his job at UFC Vegas 57. After scoring a much needed submission win against Christos Giagos, the Brazilian was in an emotional state during the card’s press conference.
In an interview with Combate, Moises explained why he was emotional about the win. Not only was Thiago afraid of losing his third fight in a row and getting released, the Brazilian shed some light on all the hardships he had to go through in order to get into the UFC.
“I yelled, I cried,” Moises said. “I got very emotional because I was coming off two tough losses that happened during difficult moments in my life, but I kept working. When I entered the cage, the song that was playing said ‘He left school, he rode his skateboard and listened to music’. That’s what I did. I practiced sports, I trained jiu-jitsu. I sacrificed my whole life for that moment. That’s why this win is so important to me and my family. All the hard work I put in was at stake. I’m happy I was able to get that submission.”
A submission artist, Moises knew what he had to do against Giagos. Although Thiago enjoys trading striking to test his stand-up before going for the takedown, this time around the Brazilian jiu-jitsu blackbelt knew he had too much at stake in order to take any chances.
“This time, the plan was to use my wrestling and my jiu-jitsu. It was one of the best performances of my life. He’s really tough. He’s faced a champion in Charles Oliveira, Gilbert Burns and I was able to finish him and have a great performance.”
The win made Moises (16-6) recover from back-to-back losses to Joel Alvarez and Islam Makhachev, respectively in November and July of 2021. Before the victory over Giagos, the 27-year-old’s most recent win happened in February 2021, when he defeated Alexander Hernandez by unanimous decision.