Brandon Moreno and Amir Albazi are healed. The flyweight competitors' championship drafts were hampered by health problems. Moreno and Albazi headline UFC Fight Night in Edmonton, Canada on Saturday with a title shot on the horizon.
Moreno (21-8-2) is looking forward to fight week. It's been a while since he last felt this way. The former UFC flyweight champion returns from his longest break since 2020, which amusingly still only lasts eight months. This is what the life of a fighter is like, it seems. But Moreno says the time he spent with his family and his LEGO collection was hugely refreshing as he looks to bounce back from back-to-back losses to Alexandre Pantoja and Brandon Royval.
“I struggled hard two or three years in a row. There was a lot of responsibility in the fight for the title.” Moreno told CBS Sports. “At some point it exploded in my head. Along with many physical injuries, I had to heal my mind and body in order to fight again.”
“In my last fight – and I don't want to apologize because Brandon Royval is a great fighter and deserves everything he's doing now – but in my mind, when I tried to remember that moment in the fight, it was me not.” My body was there and I hit, but my mind wasn't there. I was very frustrated because I knew I was a lot better than the guy who fought in February.
Albazi (17-1) returns after the toughest fight of his career. Albazi is a perfect 5-0 in the UFC, but was sidelined for more than a year due to serious health problems. Albazi fought Kai Kara-France in June 2023, later discovering an irregular heartbeat. Many scored the victory for Kara-France. Albazi refused to excuse his subpar performance but admitted he was not fully functional. Albazi learned he would need heart surgery after suffering a serious health problem during training.
“I felt like I was going to die,” Albazi told CBS Sports. “There's no way I should have been so tired after fighting for two minutes. I checked my phone’s heart rate monitor and it read 239.” [beats per minute]. I tried to fix the problem. I thought there was something wrong with the heart rate monitor because I've never seen a number that high. I would take it to 195 in an intense session. I tried to lower it but it wouldn't work.
Luckily, Albazi was at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas. Medical staff helped lower his heart rate and he later underwent heart surgery. Albazi recovered and pushed into enemy territory to prepare for a fight against Moreno at UFC Fight Night in Mexico City on February 24. Six weeks earlier, Albazi learned he was struggling with another health problem that was nearly paralyzing him.
“I couldn't even take a shower. I couldn’t lift my arm above my head,” Albazi said. “My arm literally stopped working.”
Albazi visited five different doctors, all of whom told him he needed to have neck surgery or recommended he stop fighting because of a spinal cord injury. Albazi stubbornly refused to withdraw from the fight. He found out via social media that his fight, like all the others, was canceled. A UFC doctor made the recommendation and Albazi was quickly removed from the card.
“When a doctor told me, 'Hey, brother to brother, trying to get a 9-to-5 job.' I sat quietly in the car for 15 minutes and thought, “Wait? I didn't come this far to stop. Is that it?” That was hard, even if I knew I was moving on, it would be hard to hear it from a doctor. “No, I won't make it better.” There were many dark days.
Check out the full interview with Amir Albazi below.
There is a lot of intrigue associated with the co-main event. The women's flyweights collide as former strawweight queen Rose Namajunas takes on Erin Blanchfield. Both are hoping to get into the title discussion, but both recently lost to potential top contender Manon Fiorot. A win on Saturday could go a long way toward impressing the matchmakers of a potential title loser in former champion Alexa Grasso, who is coming off a three-fight series with defending champion Valentina Shevchenko.
“Achieving a goal on Saturday means everything. This puts me back in title contention,” Blanchfield said told CBS Sports hopes to bounce back from its unanimous decision loss to Fiorot. “It's not just about winning, it's also about how you win. A good performance puts me in an even better position.”
“Even with a good performance, we could cross that bridge when the time comes, but I would still feel bad about jumping it for some reason,” said Namajunas, a former UFC women’s strawweight champion told CBS Sports on overtaking Fiorot, who defeated Namajunas in her flyweight debut. “…Ultimately the UFC is kind of the judge of that and it's up to me to put in a really good performance to justify it.”
One of Saturday's main fights should feature fan favorite Derrick Lewis taking on relative newcomer Jhonata Diaz at heavyweight. However, Lewis was forced to withdraw from the fight late Friday night due to an “illness unrelated to weight loss,” the promotion said. Jasmine Jasudavicius vs. Ariane da Silva has been moved to the main card for a flyweight contest.
Below you'll find the rest of Saturday's fight card with the latest odds before we make a prediction and pick the main event.
UFC Fight Night card, odds
| Brandon Moreno -175 | Amir Albazi +150 | Flyweight |
| Erin Blanchfield -125 | Rose Namajunas +115 | Women's flyweight |
| Caio Machado -155 | Brendan Ribeiro +130 | Light heavyweight |
| Marc Andre Barriault -205 | Dustin Stoltzfus +170 | Middleweight |
| Mike Mallott -320 | Trevin Giles +250 | Light |
UFC Fight Night ad information
Date: November 2nd | Start time: 8:00 p.m. ET (main card)
Location: Rogers Place – Edmonton, Canada
TV channel: ESPN+
forecast
Brandon Moreno vs Amir Albazi: Albazi's heart problems manipulate useful data in the fight between Kara and France. Albazi won a five-round split decision, but 19 of 21 media members scored for Kara-France in the fight, plus 91.5% of the fan vote MMA decisions. This won't change the outcome, but it's worth mentioning. Albazi figures he will have an advantage over Moreno in wrestling, but the former champion is no match for wrestling. Moreno statistically outperforms Albazi in every wrestling category – takedown average, accuracy and defense. Moreno also has greater power and accuracy. Pantoja landed six of 11 takedowns against Moreno, so I expect Albazi to have some success, but not enough. Moreno has better finishing ability in a fight where both men have five-round stamina. Moreno by unanimous decision
Who will win UFC Fight Night: Moreno vs. Albazi and how exactly does the fight end? Visit SportsLine now for in-depth picks and analysis from the incomparable expert who is over $1,500 up with his UFC main card picks and find out.
