\u201cDemitri\u2019s one of the hardest-working athletes we\u2019ve had in our gym,\u201d Austin Arnett said. \u201cHe\u2019s someone who\u2019s completely dedicated himself to the sport; he\u2019s all-in. A lot of guys, they kind of are doing it as a hobby. Demitri\u2019s been all-in for the UFC or bust \u2014 that\u2019s his goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very committed and ready to go after the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
A tough test <\/p>\n
Today\u2019s fight will represent Morales\u2019 return to action after a year-and-a-half layoff resulting from factors like the cancellation of one planned fight and time off taken to retool and develop his style.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s leveled up so much from what he was then, it\u2019s going to be an eye-opener for anyone that\u2019s followed his career,\u201d Arnett said. \u201cMy dad came from a striking background, and that\u2019s what (Morales) was molded to be. That\u2019s what we continued to build off of him with. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow, we\u2019ve developed his wrestling, his jiu-jitsu \u2014 we\u2019ve started building him up to make him a complete all-around fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnett predicted that Morales will have a significant challenge on his hands from the experienced Stirewalt (6-7), who turned professional in 2018 and has faced opponents with winning records in nine of his 13 contests since, including four who entered the contests undefeated.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Stirewalt is) a very good fighter,\u201d Arnett said. \u201cHe\u2019s very skilled; he doesn\u2019t have the best record, but he\u2019s a lot better than what his record shows. He\u2019s fought really, really stiff competition. From, like, his first fight, he was fighting guys that were undefeated, and he\u2019s never not fought top-level guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Arnett holds that Morales has put in the work and built the skillset he needs to carry the day and take a step toward the bigtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a really tough test for Demitri, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m excited,\u201d Arnett said. \u201cI think Demitri will be able to rise to the occasion. The better the opponent, the higher the stakes, I think Demitri\u2019s skills will show out even better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDemitri\u2019s one of the hardest-working athletes we\u2019ve had in our gym,\u201d Austin Arnett said. \u201cHe\u2019s someone who\u2019s completely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-805758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}