Charlotte, NC — UFC welterweight Alex Morono scored the second submission victory of his UFC career with a second-round guillotine choke finish of Tim Means at UFC on ABC 4.
A big-time finish against a highly respected name in the sport of MMA for the 32-year-old Morono, who was asked by media post-fight where this win ranked amongst the rest in his MMA career. “Top 3: Beating Cowboy [Donald Cerrone] number one easy, and probably my UFC debut [Kyle Noke] number two, but this [Tim Means] number three.”
It would appear that Morono has had Tim Means on his radar for a long time, saying, “I got a lot of respect and admiration for Tim Means,” adding that “I watched him fight live in Houston about 10 years ago.”
Morono continued, “I was maybe 21, 22 years old, like maybe 1-0, 2-0 pro. And I watched him take out like Houston’s number one prospect, the guy I had trained with, and the guy [prospect] gave me a lot of trouble.”
Morono would go on to explain how Tim finished said prospect, got resigned to the UFC as a result and how that made him feel about Means, “I was always like a little— I don’t want to say intimidated but like if I had to fight him, I wouldn’t have been thrilled about it.”
Alex, who prides himself on being a martial artist, will fight anyone offered to him, and described how it was a huge personal hurdle and accomplishment for him to accept and win this fight against Means, “Normally I don’t care who I fight,” he stated. “Even in the UFC, I couldn’t imagine someone they’d want me to fight, and I wouldn’t be excited.”
“And this match for Tim Means it was just like when I took it, it was like, there was like a feeling of caution opposed to a feeling of excitement. And then I knew if I could get the win and conquer this task that it would be you know quite valuable on a personal level.”
“I do like the vets, if I could get matched up, I like to get the guys who have, you know, 20 plus wins, 10 plus fights in the UFC, now granted I’ll fight some newcomers all day long,” Morono said when describing the types of guys, he’d like to fight.
“But just as a martial artist fighting other seasoned martial artists— it’s just more gratifying.”
Morono, now 23-8, called out veteran Bryan Barberena immediately following his UFC Charlotte win and reiterated the call out when asked about by the media. “Bryan Barberena had tagged me a while back asking to get matched up in San Antonio and I was like ‘hell yeah let’s do it.'”
Watch the full UFC Charlotte post-fight press conference with Alex Morono above.
