Four months later, Moreno headlined an event in Mexico City, paired off with Pettis, the man he replaced in order to make his UFC debut.
Carefree, loose, and playful to start the fight, Moreno took Pettis’ back less than two minutes into the contest and started hunting for a fight-ending choke. He spent the remainder of the round as a human Jansport, softening Pettis up with short punches designed to move his hands, splitting him above the eye on the left side in the process.
He was one round into his first main event and looking good, but he wouldn’t win another round.
Pettis made the right adjustments, remained technical, and won the battle of the emerging, young flyweights. When Moreno returned to action the following spring in Santiago, Chile, he shared the cage with a familiar foe — Pantoja — and suffered a familiar fate, losing to the Brazilian veteran by unanimous decision.
Thirteen months after forecasting his future as a champion, Moreno was on a two-fight slide, and towards the end of 2018, when the future of the flyweight division was in doubt, “The Assassin Baby” was let go by the promotion.
If he was going to make good on his promise, it was going to take some work.
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Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA), one of the premier regional promotions in the sport, quickly signed Moreno, and he claimed the organization’s flyweight belt in his first appearance in June.
