Sean Brady is ready to do whatever it takes to earn a title shot.
Brady (18-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) is scheduled to face surging contender Michael Morales (18-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) at UFC 322 on November 15, in a matchup that caught many fans off guard when it was announced on Monday.
Given that the No. 2-ranked Brady dominated and submitted former welterweight champion Leon Edwards in his last outing at UFC London in March, seeing him matched against Morales—who is ranked six places below him—came as something of a surprise. For the Philadelphia native, a title shot had seemed like the more likely next step.
“Whether I fight him now or I fight him later, I'm gonna have to get to him eventually, so f**k it, I'll get him out of the way now,” Brady said on The Brady Bagz Show. “Coming off beating Leon, and then I go and I take this risk of fighting this young up-and-comer. Once I beat him, I'm undeniable for the title shot after that, and that's what I'm just gonna prove to do. I'm just gonna become undeniable until they have to give me the title shot. And yeah, I'm not waiting around, bro. So like, I'm not trying to sit here. There's no perfect matchup in the UFC. Everyone's tough, everyone hits hard. We're the best fighters in the world. So you got to be ready to fight any of them, and this is what they came with, and I said, yeah.”
Brady has been steadily climbing the ranks at 170 pounds, and after stringing together impressive wins over Kelvin Gastelum, Gilbert Burns and, most recently, Leon Edwards, he was widely touted as a potential challenger for the winner of the upcoming title bout between Jack Della Maddalena and Islam Makhachev.
However, the 32-year-old refuses to dwell on what might have been and is ready to go out and prove his worth against Morales when they meet at Madison Square Garden next month.
“At the end of the day, the UFC doesn't give a f*k about the rankings, they make the decisions,” he said. “At the end of the day, I go out there and I beat Michael Morales, (after) just beating Leon, they can't keep denying me a title shot, you know (what) I'm saying? Like, they make the fights. The rankings don't make the fights, the fans don't make the fights, the UFC makes the fights. So, I keep going out there, I keep being undeniable. You're gonna have to give me what I want, regardless, and if not, I'm a fighter. I get paid to fight, I love to fight, so I'm just gonna keep fighting until I get there anyway.”
