Once again, a fighter’s retirement came to an end just a few months
after saying goodbye to the sport.
On Thursday night, ESPN
announced that Marlon
Moraes (23-10-1) has come out retirement to sign with the
Professional Fighters League. The report
mentioned, that per Moraes’ manager Ali Abdelaziz, the contract was
not finalized but was expected to come together shortly. Minutes
later, Moraes publicized
his return to the organization, and he will be competing at 145
pounds when he does come back. There is no currently announced
event or opponent for his first fight back, although PFL
recently picked up fellow ex-Ultimate Fighting Championship vet Shane
Burgos as well.
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Moraes
initially wrote a thorough retirement message in April, when he
stated that he was going to hang up his gloves.
“I want to thank everyone – Sean Shelby, Dana White and the UFC for
giving me so many opportunities,” Moraes wrote. “I want to thank my
family, my coaches, my manager, everybody who has been around and
been part of my career. I’m still gonna be around the sport helping
young guys and helping my friends. I also want to say thank you to
Mark Henry, Ricardo
Almeida, Frankie
Edgar and Anderson Franca.”
In his unretirement
message, Moraes wrote the following:
”Guys I wanna announce I’m coming home where I started, I wanna
thank the legend Ray Sefo & PFL
get ready for some firework.”
Moraes made his name as the first World Series of Fighting bantamweight champion,
a title he claimed at WSOF 9 in 2014 over Josh
Rettinghouse. “Magic” defended that strap five times before
departing the league for the UFC, and he still is tied with
Justin
Gaethje for the most consecutive defenses in organizational
history.
In combined WSOF-PFL history, Moraes is currently tied for the
fifth-most victories under its banner with 11, along with Natan
Schulte. He is one of four fighters to ever fight for the
promotion at least 10 times and never lose, sitting on a list with
Gaethje, David
Branch and Kayla
Harrison. His seven finishes have him currently tied with the
fourth-most of any to ever fight with either promotion, and
Gaethje’s nine, Ray Cooper
III’s 10 and Harrison’s 11 are the only three above him.
Moraes initially bid farewell to the sport after four straight
knockout losses to Cory
Sandhagen, Rob Font,
Merab
Dvalishvili and Yadong
Song. While he maintained an undefeated record as a WSOF
competitor, his UFC time was far more contentious. Although he did
vie for the vacant bantamweight strap in 2019, Moraes ended his UFC
run with a record of 5-6 – he does celebrate wins over former
champs Jose Aldo and
Aljamain
Sterling, with the latter still a UFC champion at this time.