To an outsider, Marlon Moraes’ head kick of Jimmie Rivera looked absolutely flawless.
Moraes’ switch kick landed flush, sounded like a baseball bat connecting with the ball for a towering home run, and dropped Rivera to the mat, enabling Moraes to rush in and to finish his UFC Utica main event in just 33 seconds.
But when you study the game as close as the bantamweight contender does, nothing’s ever perfect, even a highlight-reel finish that will be name-checked years down the road after his career is over.
“We were training for this fight a long time, maybe six months, so, I probably drilled that kick more than 10,000 times,” Moraes said during an in-studio appearance on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.