Sean Brady will fight for a second time in 2025 against Michael Morales at UFC 322 in November. According to the welterweight contender, the deal offered was Morales or nothing.
In a new episode of the BradyBagz Show, Brady explained why he was fighting such a dangerous opponent in No. 8 ranked welterweight Morales after he already beat the much higher ranked Leon Edwards earlier in the year.
“I took this fight because fighters fight,” Brady said. “And there’s literally no other options. From what the UFC told me, this is it. This is the only guy I could fight, or else I wasn’t fighting til next year. And I’ve been trying to fight, and no matter what, we’re gonna have to fight all these guys regardless.”
“Michael Morales is a great fighter, he’s 18-0,” he continued. “He’s gonna be around for a long time. He’s young. So whether I fight him now or I fight him fight him later, I’m gonna have to get to him eventually. So f—k it. I’ll get him out of the way now.”
The welterweight division has been moving at a glacial pace for a while with the last generation of 170 pounders squatting on their rankings and refusing to take fights. The title picture has been stalled out too as everyone waits to see whether former lightweight champ Islam Makhachev can hang a weight class up. Brady’s solution is to all this mess is just keep fighting and keep winning.
“Coming off beating Leon, then I go and I take this risk and fight this young up and comer,” Brady said. “Once I beat him, I’m undeniable for the title shot after that. I’m just gonna become undeniable until they have to give me the title shot. And, yeah, I’m not waiting around, bro. There’s no perfect match-up in the UFC. Everyone’s tough. Everyone hits hard. We’re the best fighters in the world. So you gotta be ready to fight any of them, and this is what they came with. And I said yeah.”
“At the end of the day, the UFC doesn’t give a f–k about the rankings,” he continued. “They make the decisions at the end of the day. I go out there and I beat Michael Morales after just beating Leon. They can’t keep denying me a title shot. You know what I’m saying? They make the fights. The the rankings don’t make the fights. The fans don’t make the fights. The UFC makes the fights.”
“So I keep going out there, I keep being undeniable. You’re gonna have to give me what I want regardless. And if not, I’m a fighter. I get paid to fight. I love to fight. So I’m just gonna keep fighting until I get there anyway.”
UFC 322 goes down November 15th and is headlined by welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena defending his title against former lightweight champion Islam Makhachev. In the co-main, Valentina Shevchenko defends her flyweight title against former strawweight champ Zhang Weili.