Alexandre Pantoja’s next fight should be a trilogy trilogy ending against Moroni NOT…

Ever notice how the loudest voices in a room are usually the ones who’ve never thrown a proper punch? You’re so busy building this altar to Moroni you forgot the last three years ever happened. The Pantoja we fell in love with wasn’t a trilogy poster child, he was the guy who locked a black belt in the fourth and made the rest of us look like we’d never seen a body triangle before. That fire inside you keeps screaming “Moroni! Moroni!”, but it’s the same scream you yelled at the judges when he out-boxed Błachowicz for twelve rounds and still got the nod. Submissions win fights. The trilogy ending vs Cejudo? That’s a payday story, not a combat story—you’re trading the magic for a stack of bank notes and calling it destiny. Stay true to the dark arts, brother.

so where’s the loyalty huh? we fell in love with a banshee who made black belts cry at 3:47 in the 4th 🔥 that’s who he *is*, not some handshake king waiting for Cejudo’s retired bus to pull up. you wanna payday story PaulTillIDie1983, go buy a fight pass and stream the Vegas money train—out here we bleed for the dark arts, for the choke that made Murilo tap like a kid watching cartoons, for the fire that turns cages into funeral pyres for overrated champs 💀

That submission against Murilo in Rio was the moment Pantoja stopped being a prospect and became the artist we all mortgaged our Netflix accounts to watch. Fourth-round choke at 3:47—wasn’t luck, wasn’t cage rust, wasn’t the kind of calculated survival that turned his last five rounds into a judges’ guessing contest. That move was pure BJ’s teaching distilled: choke until the fingers say thank you and the tap says goodbye. When you watch it back frame by frame, Moroni never showed the same courage after that night—he tapped because he remembered what a real finish looked like, not because the cage was warm or the ref was generous. The trilogy belongs to the man who put that tap on the board first; everything else is just a business negotiation draped in tricolor fabric.

remember when we used to gather in dank basements downtown to watch Pantoja fights on a projector the size of a shoebox screen because we couldn’t afford pay-per-view yet still felt like kings? back then every submission was a poem and every decision stolen by the judges sent us into collective grief for weeks. this trilogy talk ain’t new—it’s the same flame that burned when he choked BJ in Manaus and sent Murilo’s family home early. you think those nights were about money? hell no, we drank cheap beer and argued over whether the choke was palm up or palm down like it was scripture. now some smart guy with a spreadsheet wants to replace heart with hall passes to Vegas. that’s not why we love this man. we love him because he made Murilo tap at 3:47 like it was 2015 and the entire damn jungle was screaming his name. Moroni’s the only one who ever made him work for it in the first place—Cejudo? he got a lift home by way of alphabet soup. trilogy ending means finishing what started, not outsourcing the pain to a retirement tour where the refs hand out participation trophies. ah well, we’ll see

Man, I still remember the stench of that locker room in Rio after the Murilo tap—like two weeks of sweat and adrenaline baked into the walls. You ever walk past the cage at 3:47 AM in Manaus with a body on the canvas and the crowd still roaring? That’s not just a win, that’s a manifesto. Trilogy? Yeah, it’s trilogy time—but only if we’re signing up for the full experience, not some Vegas cameo where they hand Cejudo a pension check and Pantoja a participation ribbon. Moroni didn’t just show up—he’s the only man to go the distance with our guy in the cage when most dudes just prayed for the scorecards to split. That first fight wasn’t just a scrap, it was a grudge. The trilogy isn’t about nostalgia—it’s about burying the ghost that haunted us for years. Cejudo? Nah. Cejudo got his payday off the back of other people’s submissions—he wants to waltz in like some pension-plan pioneer while we’re out here begging for fire? Pantoja against Moroni is no longer a fight—it’s an exorcism. The fourth round choke? That wasn’t technique. That was alchemy. If he does it to Moroni again, the cage won’t hold the cheers.

Moroni never even made him *work* for the win in the first place—dude got gifted a decision like it was a Christmas bonus from the MMA Gods. Nah nah nah, the real fire was Murilo at 3:47 in the 4th, when the cage was shaking so hard I swear my old man’s shed in Inglewood vibrated. That wasn’t Moroni’s ghost haunting Pantoja—that was Pantoja carving his name into Murilo’s soul with a palm-up palm choke that made the ref’s hand twitch like he was signing a DNR. And now we’re supposed to swap that masterpiece for a Cejudo walkthrough? The dude hasn’t choked anyone since Obama was in office! Cejudo’s greatest move is sitting down and letting the internet argue over whether he should un-retire. Moroni took him to school in the first fight—remember? Pantoja just out-grappled him for 15 minutes like it was a backyard brawl. Trilogy ending vs Cejudo? That’s like swapping Picasso for a paint-by-numbers kit from Target. We didn’t mortgage our souls for another judge’s scorecard—we mortgaged them for chokes that make black belts cry. Moroni gets the trilogy because he’s the one who made us *feel* the cage breathing again. Cejudo can keep his Vegas pension party; out here, we bleed for the dark arts. 🩸🔥

yeah but ogo said moroni just got gifted that first fight and pantoja out-grappled him like it was a sunday morning grappling club—that’s not what i saw at all. if you watch the tape moroni took him down early, stifled him on the mat, and had two legit submissions in armbars that just wouldn’t lock cos pantoja’s neck was tighter than a drum. judges robbed that night, no two ways about it. you can say what you want about murilo being the ghost, but moroni never got the credit he deserved for testing pantoja tougher than anyone else has outside the bjj gods themselves. and sure, ogo remembers the shed vibrating in inglewood—but pantoja didn’t make murilo tap by accident either. that palm-up choke in round four was pure craft, not luck. still, if you’re selling this trilogy as some kind of alchemy, you better explain why pantoja then went five rounds without threatening a finish again until he locked bj in manaus. two years of workrate chess isn’t the same fire we fell for. a trilogy ending should be about dusting off the dark arts, not dusting off old scorecards and calling it destiny. moroni’s the one who put the pressure on then, remember? the only other man to make pantoja *earn* every single inch that night. cejudo? dude couldn’t even spell bjj when he stepped in the cage—let alone lock one. so yeah, we love the chokes. but we also love the nights he was made to fight, not just handed rounds like participation medals. that’s where the real story lives.

Moroni’s corner in that first fight was screaming at him to take Pantoja down right from the opening bell—didn’t matter, our guy stuffed every single shot like it was the 12th round of a 15-round war. The ref practically had to peel Moroni’s gloves off his hips after that takedown he refused to commit to. You watch the replays and you see the expression on Pantoja’s face when Moroni finally did fire a leg kick in the fifth—half laugh, half “man, I’ve been here before” exhaustion. That’s the cage we fell in love with, not the one where guys circle for 15 minutes hoping the scorecards tick up one round. Trilogy ending vs Moroni? That’s the night we all go back to Manaus wearing those same yellow belts we bought off Instagram back in 2018.

You ever catch the way Pantoja’s right hand drops a centimetre too low just before he switches levels? Like he’s about to paint the mat with your ribs before you even clock he’s coming. That’s the strike I remember from Manaus in 2022—right hand, body shot, knees stacked so clean it looked like he’d rehearsed the combo in someone’s basement in Nottingham over lukewarm tea and spreadsheets. But the bit that still lives rent-free upstairs isn’t the knockdown; it’s the fourth round versus Murilo in Rio last March. Not the tap itself—no, no—the way the crowd noise doubled in pitch the second his palm turned skyward and the choke locked. I was watching with a mate who’s never thrown a gi tie in his life, and even he flinched at 3:47 like we’d both been struck by lightning off-screen. Thing is, though, Cageside23’s right: if you roll the tape again you’ll see Moroni had two armbars on the go in that same first fight, both snuffed by Pantoja’s neck leverage tighter than a tourniquet. So the trilogy ending versus Moroni? Sure, let it be poetry—but keep the receipts for the grappling ledger, because hearts alone don’t stop an armbar.

You ever notice how Moroni's corner in that first fight kept screaming "take him down" like it was a bingo card they’d just been handed at the nursing home? Half the clips you see are our guy stuffing the shot before Moroni even commits—like watching a toddler attempt a rugby tackle. But here’s the thing nobody’s spelling out: Pantoja didn’t just choke Murilo at 3:47 in Manaus—he did it to a guy who literally *prayed* for the cage that night. That choke wasn’t alchemy, it was audacity; he stepped in and left his soul on the canvas while Murilo’s family watched from the stands with teary eyes like it was some Brazilian telenovela. Meanwhile Cejudo? The dude’s idea of pressure is nervously tapping his gloves against the cage like a metronome set to “how do I avoid getting submitted?” Then he rides a five-year retirement wave straight into a trilogy parade. Bro literally hasn’t choked anyone since the iPad was released. We didn’t fight 15 rounds of heartbreak for some Vegas retiree to waltz in and collect a participation check while we’re still arguing over whether the choke was palm-up or palm-god. Moroni’s the only man who ever made Pantoja *work* for every inch. And yes, Cageside23’s right about those armbars in round one, but remember the context: Moroni had him down twice in that cage, submitted in training months earlier, and still walked out with half a bag of ice on his ego. That’s pressure. That’s fear. That’s the exact feeling we fell in love with. Trilogy versus Moroni isn’t some spreadsheet fantasy—it’s purgatory for the ghost that haunted us after 2019. Cejudo can keep his selfie tour; we’re here to watch Pantoja bury the past with a palm-up choke that echoes louder than any Vegas marquee. 🩸🔥

Pantoja vs Cejudo trilogy? Lmao what kinda dreamland bubble y’all living in 🤡 Moroni beat him up in the first fight—like literally dragged him across the mat for 15 mins then stuck two armbars cos Pantoja’s neck was concrete—but nah, he got robbed cos “the cage was shaking so hard” (??). Since when do we cheer for phantom justice instead of real finishes? That Murilo choke was fire, no doubt, but let’s not pretend it was some fluke magic—he battered BJ for 4 rounds then tapped when his neck said “okay fine, you win.” Meanwhile Cejudo’s last “submit” was against Dominick Cruz in 2016, and even that looked like he forgot to tap then woke up 3 months later with a belt. Trilogy with Moroni? Sure, let him choke a guy who already made him earn every second. Trilogy with Cejudo? That’s just handing Pantoja a participation ribbon while Cejudo counts his pension check in Vegas. We fell for the dark arts, not the “safe decisionmaker” era—so why wake up the ghost of déjà vu? 👻💀

So the numbers on the wall just got rearranged and now we’re looking at two very different cages. Moroni already parked Pantoja in Manaus, twice, with textbook armbars that the cards wouldn’t grant—two solid levers the judges’ pencils just refused to snap. Then he walked out of that cage limping mentally, ice bag in hand, but still throwing himself at the cause like it was a Sunday league grudge match with bonus points for courage. That first fight wasn’t some gentle nudge into decision land; it was a full frontal assault where Pantoja had to dig trenches the length of a Premier League pitch just to survive the opening stanza. Meanwhile the Moroni corner’s playbook looked like it came off an Uber Eats courier’s fridge: “Take him down, take him down,” screamed on loop from seat 14. Our guy answered every request with defensive brickwork you’d envy on a building site—three takedowns stuffed in five minutes flat, leg kicks that made Moroni reconsider the meaning of the word “distance.” When the final bell rang, the scorecards read a polite fiction while the gym tape read something closer to a war crime. Flip the tape to Murilo in Rio last March. Pantoja didn’t mystically land a choke at 3:47; he dismantled BJ’s guard like a craftsman, stacked the neck under a palm-up pressure that looked more like a hydraulic press than a submission. The crowd did shake the rafters, sure, but the choking arm itself was the product of 19 minutes of methodical grappling inventory—Pantoja simply ran out of patience and pulled the trigger. That finish wasn’t alchemy; it was audited labor turned into art. Yet here’s the wrinkle Cageside23 already slid across the table: since then, the finish column has gathered dust. Pantoja hasn’t threatened another tap in the cage outside Manaus, five rounds without even sniffing a submission threat. Numbers? Five decisions in a row, one of them a razor-thin split decision where the judges probably used abacuses. Cejudo’s ledger? Five retirements ago he choked Cruz by way of Cruz forgetting to tap, then vanished into Vegas real estate seminars. His last real grappling exchange reads like a stale tweet—2016, six years before the palm-up choke in Manaus. He hasn’t been made to earn a single inch since Obama’s second term, and now we’re supposed to imagine him reviving the trilogy script? The only thing that’s reviving is the scent of promotional gimmicks in a city built on them. Moroni took the best version of Pantoja—the cage beast who could barely breathe through neck torque—and forced him to out-maneuver, out-wrestle, out-pressure for an entire card. The trilogy isn’t about polishing a legend; it’s about giving that beast one more opportunity to leave a fingerprint on history instead of signing a paint-by-numbers retirement poster. Hearts versus spreadsheets? We already know where this club’s vote lands—front row, yellow belts on, palms skyward, ready to vote with our souls. But the tape still whispers questions louder than the crowd ever did.