Michael Morales Wins UFC Debut Against Trevin Giles

At just 22 years old, Michael Morales seems to have a bright future and got his UFC career off to a rousing start with a TKO victory over former middleweight Trevin Giles. Morales, a native of Ecuador who trains in Tijuana, Mexico, is a rangy fighter who entered this bout with an 11-0 record. His opponent, Giles, was making his welterweight debut, dropping down from middleweight.

Giles got off to a great start landing four very hard outside low kicks in the first thirty seconds of the bout. Giles then stung Morales badly with a right hand as he charged forward on the attack. Morales appeared to nearly hit the canvas as he staggered backward and into the fence. Morales, however, quickly popped up as Giles then somewhat questionably chose to engage the clinch. After controlling Morales for a bit against the cage, Giles used a nifty half hip toss/trip to take Morales to the canvas. From top half position Giles attempted to work an arm triangle choke but Morales was able to roll over into top position. With the fight returing to the feet, Morales quickly pressed forward and briefly controlled Giles from the clinch up against the cage before shucking Giles off.

With just over a minute left in the first round, Morales stings Giles with a big right hand as Giles charges forward. Morales was then all over Giles, landing punches as Giles desperately shot for a takedown and fell to his knees. Giles was able to stand back up, but Morales continued to pour on the heavy shots before a straight right hand sent Giles to the deck. With Morales in top position he lands close to twenty punches before Mike Beltran (who apparently hadn’t already realized the fight was over about 10-15 shots earlier) finally had seen enough.

Morales clearly has a lot of learning and developing in front of him, but his UFC debut ended in spectacular fashion with the TKO finish at 4:06 of Round 1.