Michael Morales entered into 2026 as one of the UFC’s top rising stars, but just a week later there’s already been an attempt to take some of the shine off his undefeated 19-0 record.

Tapology is one of the leading websites when it come to fighter records, and after reviewing old footage of the 26-year-old Morales they’ve amended his record to 20-1 and given an explanation as to why this has happened.

“While Morales had been listed up to this point as undefeated as professional, we have added 1 additional professional win and 1 additional professional loss from the start of his career,” Tapology wrote on X.

“We were tipped off to and found extensive footage of an Ecuadorian league “Ultima Pelea” which had at least 3 seasons of a reality style show with fighters in a tournament. Morales competed in the 2nd season in 2017.

“Morales was 17 at the time of the qualification fight and 18 at the time of his quarterfinal fight (a loss). The rules and structure of the fights meet our criteria of professional MMA. Many of the competitors were established professionals including Ricardo Centeno who beat him.”

Tapology also issued video evidence of the fight, while noting that Morales went to sleep after being caught in a triangle choke and then punched. The fight was originally declared to be via KO, though Tapology have opted to change that to a triangle choke finish instead.

They then went on to explain why a reality TV show loss is being counted as a pro-defeat, despite the results of fights on the TUF show not being included.

“While The Ultimate Fighter reality show in the U.S. is still classified as exhibition status, we don’t grant the same exhibition status to other reality competitions around the world,” Taplogy explained. “TUF has only been exempted because of the U.S. athletic commission designation it was given.”

This is a point of debate however, because the rules of the ‘Ultima Pelea’ reality show Morales fought on were different from a standard MMA bout, with there only being two five-minute rounds and no elbows being allowed.

As such it’s worth noting that other sites don’t appear to be falling in line with Tapology’s verdict on this matter, with the UFC’s official site still having Morales as 19-0, while the Wiki site was briefly changed to add the loss, before being removed again soon after.

And meanwhile a long-trusted destination for fighter records, Sherdog.com, has also spoken out to confirm that they were aware of the fights in question, but had already decided that they shouldn’t be included on Morales pro record.

“Sherdog Fight Finder will not be changing the professional record of #ufc fighter Michael Morales,” Jay Pettry from Sherdog wrote on X. “We reviewed the “Ultima Pelea” reality series ~two years ago, and determined that these tape-delayed matches would not be marked as pro.”

And of course Morales himself also had something to say about his record being called into question.

“I am going to hit injustice right in the face,” Morales wrote in Spanish. “F*ck you, Tapology.”

Regardless of what happened in the past, there’s still a buzz around Morales given that he’s currently has a perfect 7-0 record in the UFC, including TKO’ing Neil Magny, Gilbert Burns and most recently Sean Brady in his last three fights to take the No.4 spot on the welterweight rankings.