Alex Morono wanted to fight Diego Sanchez but not for all the reasons we’d expect him to.
Prior to Alex Morono handily defeating Donald Cerrone at UFC Vegas 26, he expressed that he had always wanted to fight Diego Sanchez partly due to the UFC veteran’s dogged nature to just scrap it out in the octagon but to also show how ineffective Joshua Fabia was as Sanchez’s coach and to prove how ludicrous the controversial coach’s training methods were.
“He would just run to the middle of the octagon and would start throwing down, and I always wanted to fight him for that,” Morono said of Sanchez on What the Heck. “But when he got this coach, I kind of wanted to fight him to let his coach know that he’s just wrong what they’re doing.”
Recently, Fabia has faced a lot of backlash from the majority of the MMA community after being further exposed in his role of Sanchez’s departure from the UFC after the 16 years with the promotion. “The Nightmare” was cut for refusing to sign the document to assure the UFC he was in good health after his coach Fabia had asked for past medical records of Sanchez.
Since Sanchez’s cut from the UFC, many fighters including Morono expressed concern for Sanchez being led by in the wrong direction by Fabia as well their concern for his general wellbeing.
“Genuinely, I still like Diego,” he said. “I watch his interviews, and he seems like a sweet guy and seems like he’s being led astray. It’s one of those things where everyone around him is like, ‘Hey, this guy’s bad news, you need to get away from him,’ and you just know that guy’s in his ear telling him that they’re all wrong, I’m here to protect you.”
With Sanchez’s departure, Morono was able to step in on late notice to face Cerrone which ended in a first round TKO win for the American. Whilst he is thrilled to have earned the biggest win of his career, reflecting on the whole Sanchez-Fabia situation with the UFC, “The Great White” had mixed feelings about the whole thing.
“Weird’s a good word for it, and sad is another good description for it,” he said. “If we really break it down, I can thank Fabia’s weirdness for getting me this opportunity. This has been by far the biggest thing I’ve ever done in the UFC. It’s just crazy how the butterfly effect works.”
How well do you think Alex Morono capitalised on the opportunity given to him? Did Fabia’s weirdness actually lead to Morono’s sucess?
