MMA Junkie<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s an athlete just like me. He\u2019s a person just like me. He bleeds just like me. I just see him as a person who I want to take the title from. Sure, he has his legacy and history, but that\u2019s his, not mine. I\u2019m doing my own thing, and I\u2019ve worked hard to get what I have, so I won\u2019t give him that respect of, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s the champion. I have to give him all the praise.\u2019 No, I also want to be champion. I\u2019ve set in my head that I\u2019m going to work hard to take the title away from somebody. That\u2019s my dream, and that\u2019s my priority. I don\u2019t care who I have to beat. I\u2019m not going to idolize anyone. I want to take the title. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s against Makhachev or anyone else. I want to be champion, and I\u2019m preparing very hard to do that. I want to get a knockout and leave with the belt in my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201dEveryone knows his game, which is wrestle to death, submit, and have it be over,\u201d Morales added. \u201cVery few times has he knocked somebody out. Everyone knows his game. If the fight is difficult on the feet, he\u2019s going to wrestle to death, and look for a quick submission. And if the fight is tough on the ground, he\u2019s going to keep his distance. However, I\u2019m unorthodox. I can wrestle, I can strike, I can do it all. I\u2019m getting ready in all areas, but I don\u2019t think he would strike with me. I have too much distance, I\u2019m tall, but let\u2019s see what happens. He\u2019s almost the same size as the guy I fought (Sean Brady), and yeah, you can notice the difference. I saw him backstage when doing interviews, and I did see him a bit smaller. He is more muscular now. Regardless, I can\u2019t get overconfident even though he\u2019s smaller. He might be quicker than me, which gives him an advantage in shooting for takedowns. I think that is his only advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morales or Garry \u2026 or neither?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Morales doesn\u2019t plan on showing much respect to 170-pound champion Islam Makhachev. That\u2019s because the No. 3-ranked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,702,4454],"class_list":["post-451958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-upcoming-ufc-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}