A featherweight battle between Matt Sayles and Sheymon Moraes kicked off the FX Prelims of UFC 227.
Matt Sayles is another one of the Contender Series fighters that are attempting to make their mark on the UFC, and a win his debut would absolutely show his ability. That’s what Sayles was looking for at UFC 227 on Saturday night in L.A. The man standing in his way was one Sheymon Moraes, who had lost his only UFC fight to date against Zabit Magomedsharipov last November. Moraes was attempting to get on the winning track against Sayles in his first fight of 2018.
In the end, it was Brazil’s Moraes who came out on top, but not without a bit of controversy.
In the earlier moments of the fight, Moraes was throwing some really hard shots and appeared to be landing more than Matt Sayles. However, Moraes’ best strikes of the fight were a series of multiple eye pokes on Matt Sayles. Despite the ref not taking a point, they clearly had an effect on Sayles. It’s as if getting poked in the eye four times hurts, who knew? Sayles was showing clear discomfort with his eye as the fight progressed. Yet despite the eye pokes, Sayles made a fight of it and kept moving forward the entire bout.
The first two rounds were quite close frankly. However, the third round clearly belonged to Sayles. Even after all the eye pokes and shots he ate, he kept coming forward and landing blow after blow on Moraes. Sayles showed great heart and cardio in this fight, while opponent Moraes displayed a really high level striking game. A fun fight all around, however a point should’ve been taken for Moraes repeated eye pokes. It wasn’t, and instead, Moraes came out ahead in a unanimous decision, 29-28 on all three scorecards.
🗣 By Unanimous Decision!@SheymonMoraes gets it done in his second Octagon appearance. #UFC227 pic.twitter.com/FzbpSjUdkc
— #UFC227 (@ufc) August 5, 2018
Sheymon Moraes def. Matt Sayles by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
