UFC bantamweight Marlon Moraes has decided to call it a career after announcing his retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts on Wednesday.
Moraes confirmed the news in a statement sent to MMA Fighting via his manager, Ali Abdelaziz.
“I want to thank everyone — Sean Shelby, Dana White and the UFC for giving me so many opportunities,” Moraes said. “I wanna thank my family, my coaches, my manager, everybody who has been around and been part of my career. I want to say thank you to Mark Henry, Ricardo Almeida, Frankie Edgar, Anderson Franca and Hunter Campbell.
“I’m still gonna be around the sport helping young guys and helping my friends.
At 33, Moraes leaves the sport with an incredibly deep resume after he first turned pro back in 2007 with the majority of his career spent between the UFC and World Series of Fighting.
In WSOF, Moraes was a force of nature while putting together an 11-fight unbeaten streak where he served as the promotion’s bantamweight champion with five defenses under his belt. During that run, Moraes scored seven finishes by knockout or submission while earning wins over names such as Josh Hill, Sheymon Moraes, Tyson Nam and Miguel Torres.
After signing a deal with the UFC, Moraes suffered a razor-close split decision loss in his debut but then bounced back with four straight wins including knockouts over future bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling as well as Jimmie Rivera.
Moraes avenged his first UFC loss with a submission win over Raphael Assauncao, which then led to his opportunity to become bantamweight champion in a fight against Henry Cejudo at UFC 238.
Despite a strong start in the fight, Moraes eventually fell to Cejudo by third-round TKO.
In his last five appearances in the UFC, Moraes went 1-4 with a win over Jose Aldo while suffering defeats to Cory Sandhagen, Rob Font, Merab Dvalishvili and Song Yadong.
During his run with the UFC, Moraes faced a murderer’s row of top fighters in the bantamweight division but now he’s decided to hang up his gloves to focus on new endeavors moving forward.
Moraes retires with a 23-10-1 record overall including 10 knockouts and six submission victories along the way.
