Brandon Moreno: Brandon Royval fight was ‘break point’ that had him considering long layoff

Brandon Moreno is back in the cage sooner than expected, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t taken time to reflect on his recent struggles.

The two-time flyweight champion had established a routine of fighting once every six to seven months over the past few years, and his return in Saturday’s UFC Edmonton main event comes after a slightly longer break after most recently fighting in February. At UFC Mexico City, Moreno lost a split decision to Brandon Royval and the result prompted Moreno to take a step back from thinking about competing.

“I think it was the break point,” Moreno said at UFC Edmonton media day on Wednesday. “That’s it. I said this before, I don’t want to put any excuse. I think Brandon Royval is doing an amazing job right now. He’s a tough guy with amazing rhythm in the middle of the fight, but I don’t know, I feel like that night was that kind of night when your mind is not there. That’s very frustrating because I did all the training camp, the elevation, I leave my family for two months, really nice sparring sessions, everything, and then in the fight I wasn’t there. My body was there, but my mind—I don’t know, that’s very frustrating for me.”

“No excuses,” he added. “I don’t want to come here and start to put a lot of excuses. I think it’s very normal between fighters, maybe you can ask other fighters, ‘Did you have fights where you feel like your mind wasn’t there?’ They’re going to say yes, and that night was one of mine.”

The loss to Royval put Moreno on a two-fight losing streak, just the second time in his career he’s suffered consecutive losses, with Alexandre Pantoja recently defeating Moreno for the flyweight title at UFC 290. Both of those losses came via split decision in exceedingly close five-round fights.

Moreno planned to take time off after the Royval fight, but his competitive itch kept flaring up. It’s thanks to his team and family that he was able to stay away from the octagon as long as he has.

“I think it’s very easy, I’m a competitor,” Moreno said when asked what made him come back sooner than expected. “When I decide to take a little break of competition, everything was fine in that moment, but after that, three weeks after, I’m starting to think again, ‘Damn, I want to fight. I want to fight. I want to fight.’ Then it’s when my wife, my family helped me a lot with that.

“My wife and my coaches like, ‘Hey, you have to take a break. You have to take it serious. You have to rest, be with your family, with your daughters. Make more nice moments with them first.’ So I had to calm myself. I had this fight with myself in my mind to take this break serious.”

On Saturday, Moreno fights the streaking Albazi, a contender coming off a lengthy layoff of his own that is yet to lose in five UFC appearances. Though the fighters appear to be heading in opposite directions, Moreno isn’t discouraged by his past two outings; rather, he felt his competitive performances were evidence that his best is still to come.

“It’s crazy—and I’ve been talking with my coaches about this—I feel very frustrated because even when I lost my last two fights, I feel my prime,” Moreno said. “I feel very strong. I feel stronger, with better technique, with more knowledge about the fight game, just the result is not what I’ve been having [before]. So now my goal is to show that to the world. To back up all my words, to back up all my hard work at the gym and that’s it.”