Marlon Moraes : ‘I gave it my all’
“It was all or nothing,” Moraes told reporters Thursday in Atlanta.
“I put my heart into this, and I knew before [the fight] that this time, it’s me,” Moraes said. “In my heart, I was talking to myself that I was going to give everything I had, prepare, train hard, and go in there and finish. If I [didn’t] finish, [I knew] I gave all I had to the sport.
“I just thank God for everything that I have. Of course I made mistakes, I paid for them, but those were my mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, but one thing I never did is I never feared a challenge.”
Moraes ends his career with a record of 23-13-1 over a 37-fight pro run, which included earning a UFC bantamweight title shot against Henry Cejudo at UFC 239 in June 2019 — exactly four years to the day of his final fight.
