It appears Michael Morales is an undefeated fighter once again. The UFC welterweight recently had his perfect 19-0 record restored by the MMA record-keeping website, Tapology, after they briefly updated their database to include one win and one loss.
Earlier this week, Tapology changed Morales’ professional MMA record from 19-0 to 20-1 after reviewing tape from a 2017 Ecuadorian reality show, ‘Ultima Pelea’, where the then-17-year-old won the qualifying round before suffering a KO loss in the quarterfinals.
Tapology explained that they considered those fights as professional bouts and updated Morales’ record on their website, which resulted in the UFC star addressing the matter via an Instagram post.
After considerable clamor online, Tapology seemingly made a U-turn regarding their decision and restored Morales’ undefeated record. In an X post, they issued an official statement addressing the situation. It read:
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“Update on the ‘Ultima Pelea’ league in Ecuador and its impact on Michael Morales’ MMA record. We will reverse & classify these as exhibitions. We look forward to many colorful replies on social media about how stupid we are. Thank you in advance. But above all, we want to be fair and get this correct.”
They added:
“What’s not fair and not consistent is that we are applying a roughly 2023-forward framework to a 2017 event. If this event had been reported to us in 2017, we would have certainly accepted it as an exhibition at that time. This is the crux of how we agree we were incorrect when we classified these yesterday. We apologize for the sh*tstorm, and we appreciate all the interesting feedback we received. Yes, some of the feedback was fairly dumb. But some of it contained good and helpful arguments.”
Michael Morales reacts to his undefeated status being taken away
After Tapology briefly took away Michael Morales’ undefeated record, the UFC welterweight took to social media to share his reaction.
In an Instagram post, the 26-year-old Ecuadorian vowed to “punch injustice in the face” and wrote:
“I’ll punch injustice right in the face. F**k you, Tapology.”
Edited by Nishant Zende.
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