James Krause can finally claim to have instructed a world champion as he coached Brandon Moreno to his UFC 277 win.
Throughout Krause’s time as a fighter and a coach, he has been vocal in saying he never wanted to be a world champion, but rather coach one. At UFC 277, he had the chance to do that was he was coaching Brandon Moreno for the interim flyweight title.
Ultimately, the Mexican got the job done as he scored a third-round TKO over Kai Kara-France and when that happened, that moment was surreal for Krause.
“It was awesome, it was one of my favorite moments in my career, probably. It’s hard to even verbalize and vocalize what the feelings are,” Krause said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com. “It’s just a lot of hard work, not just with Brandon but with a lot of people, so it’s pretty cool to be recognized by it.”
Although Moreno got the third-round stoppage, the judges had the scorecards all over the place. One judge had it 1-1, while one had it 2-0 Moreno and the other had it 2-0 Moreno which Krause believes was the correct score.
“I can’t even, it’s a f*****g s**tshow with what the judges are thinking,” Krause said about the Moreno-Kara-France fight. “I re-watched it back because it was hard to judge in the fight because I’m not watching the fight to judge, I’m watching it to coach. I thought we took the first round, it was kind of close and then I for sure thought we took the second round. It was 1-1 at worst, but I thought it should’ve been 2-0 for Brandon.”
With Brandon Moreno becoming the interim flyweight title, his next fight is expected to be the fourth fight against Deiveson Figueiredo. However, for James Krause, he doesn’t think Figueiredo will come back down to flyweight and defend his belt again.
“I personally think Figgy leaving Fight Ready is a mistake, I think those guys did an excellent job preparing him for their third fight,” Krause said about Moreno-Figueiredo 4. “I do feel like that is a mistake on his end, but that’s not for me to make that decision. But, I’ll be honest, I’ll be surprised if that fight happens. He’s huge, I don’t know if he can come back down to 125, if he does, I’m really excited about it.”
If Figueiredo doesn’t return to flyweight, Krause believes there is only one option for the undisputed title fight and that is Moreno vs. Alexandre Pantoja.
“Pantoja’s gotta be next in line, Pantoja vs. Brandon for the undisputed flyweight title is what I would go. I don’t know who else you can throw in there,” Krause concluded.
Do you think we will see Brandon Moreno vs. Deiveson Figueiredo 4?