Cătălin Moroșanu

2005–2007

After a short career as a professional rugby player, Moroşanu began kickboxing professionally in 2005 and spent the majority of his early career competing in the Local Kombat promotion in his home country.

He made his K-1 debut on April 5, 2007 at K-1 Fighting Network Romania 2007 against Stefan Leko.,^[3] and was handed the first defeat of his career by the German veteran as he lost via unanimous decision. Following this, he returned to Local Kombat to take three more wins, over Dimitry Podgaisky, Sergei Gur and Nicolas Vermont, by the end of the year.

2008

In 2008, Moroşanu was invited to take part in the K-1 European Grand Prix. The opening round was held at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2008 in Budapest Europe GP Final Elimination on February 9 where he was able to defeat Turkish fighter Erhan Deniz via unanimous decision after an extra round. In the quarter-finals at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2008 in Amsterdam on April 26, Moroşanu was knocked out with a knee strike by Frenchman Freddy Kemayo just seconds into the opening round.

Following a first round knock out of Junichi Sawayashiki at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2008 in Taipei on July 13, Moroşanu rematched Kemayo on November 6 at Local Kombat 31 in Buzău, Romania. He was able to avenge his defeat by winning the match by unanimous decision.

He ended the year by defeating Trinidadian brawler Gary Goodridge in a match for the WKN Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship at Local Kombat 32 on December 12. After being dominated for most of the fight, Goodridge quit on his stool at the end of the second round.^[4]

2009

Moroşanu began 2009 with a fifty-eight-second knockout of Musab Gulsari at the K-1 Rules Tournament 2009 in Budapest on February 28. In his next match on 16 May at K-1 ColliZion 2009 Mlada Boleslav, he lost by another knee KO in an upset loss to Slovakian Tomas Kohut. He bounced back, however, by knocking out Wiesław Kwaśniewski in round one at K-1 ColliZion 2009 Sarajevo.

His impressive KO wins then earned him a chance to compete in a superfight at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2009 in Seoul Final 16 on September 26, where he faced Japanese karate fighter Taiei Kin in a highly-controversial bout. Towards the end of the first round, the "clapper" (the device used to signal the remaining 10 seconds of the round) sounded. Moroşanu seemed to think the sound indicative of the ending of the round, and began walking towards his corner, only to be met by a punch from Kin (who was rightfully continuing in the context of the official rules regarding the fight). The end bell, signifying the officially sanctioned end of the round, sounded moments later. Moroşanu deliberately continued to fight, hitting Taiei (who was defenseless after dropping his hands at the end of the round) with a two punch flurry, knocking him unconscious. Moroşanu was disqualified from the fight, thus giving the victory to Taiei by means of disqualification.

The audience present at the show booed the decision awarding Taiei the victory. The crowd believed the punches to have been thrown before or exactly when the bell had sounded. However, video evidence refutes this.^[5]

He rebounded by beating Samoan-American slugger Mighty Mo in a close match at K-1 ColliZion 2009 Final Elimination on October 24. The bout was ruled a draw after three rounds, so an extra round was permitted to decide a winner, after which Moroşanu was ruled the victor by split decision.

2010

On February 6, Moroşanu defeated Deutsch Pu'u via technical knockout in the first round at the K-1 ColliZion MAX 2010 Europe GP in Budapest, Hungary. In his next bout, he faced Errol Zimmerman at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2010 in Bucharest on 21 May and lost via TKO in round one. Just twenty seconds into the round, Zimmerman rocked Moroşanu with a flying knee and right hook which forced the referee to stop the fight.^[6]

Following this, he picked up a unanimous decision win over Igor Mihaljević at a show in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina on October 29. On November 27, he rematched Gary Goodridge at K-1 Scandinavia Rumble of the Kings 2010 in Stockholm, Sweden and was able to better "Big Daddy" once again as he won via TKO (referee stoppage) in the second round.^[7]

2011

In 2011, Moroşanu began competing regularly for the newly founded SuperKombat promotion. On March 18 at SuperKombat: The Pilot Show in Râmnicu Vâlcea, Romania, he took a unanimous decision victory over Yüksel Ayadin.^[8]

On June 16 at the SuperKombat World Grand Prix II 2011 in Constanța, Romania, he took revenge over Stefan Leko, the man who handed him his first career loss, winning by unanimous decision.^[9]

In October, he took another two decision victories in the space of two weeks by defeating Michael Andrade and Ibrahim Aarab at the SuperKombat World Grand Prix III 2011 and SuperKombat World Grand Prix IV 2011, respectively.^[10][11]

He was then expected to face Melvin Manhoef at the SuperKombat World Grand Prix Final 2011 on November 19, 2011 in Darmstadt, Germany. However, he fought Patrick Liedert instead. Moroşanu's reckless start to the fight allowed Liedert to knock him down twice early in the first round, but he was still able to make a comeback and KO'd the German on the bell at the end of round 1.^[12]

2012

Catalin Morosanu vs Anderson "Braddock" Silva

On February 25, 2012, Moroşanu won the SuperKombat World Grand Prix I 2012, showing an improved kicking game and technical boxing skills. In the semi-finals, he knocked out Utley Meriana with a high kick in the second round and in the final, he took a clear-cut unanimous decision win over Anderson "Braddock" Silva. The tournament win qualified him for the SuperKombat World Grand Prix Final 2012.^[13]

He faced Paul Slowinski at the K-1 World Grand Prix 2012 in Tokyo Final 16 on October 14, 2012.^[14][15] He won via unanimous decision after sending the Pole to the canvas twice in round three.^[16]

He beat Carter Williams by unanimous decision on November 10, 2012 in Craiova, Romania in a non-tournament at the SuperKombat World Grand Prix 2012 Final Elimination.^[17][18]

2013

At the K-1 World Grand Prix 2012 Final on March 15, 2013 in Zagreb, Croatia, he faced Pavel Zhuravlev in the quarter-finals^[19] and lost by unanimous decision, bringing an end to his twelve-fight winning streak.^[20][21]

He TKO'd Eduardo Mendes in round one at SuperKombat World Grand Prix 10 in Craiova, Romania on May 18, 2013.^[22][23][24]

He challenged Ben Edwards for the vacant Kings of Kombat Heavyweight Championship at Kings of Kombat 10 in Melbourne, Australia on September 7, 2013, losing by majority decision in a fight where Moroșanu relied on his typical brawling style while Edwards utilized low kicks heavily throughout.^[25][26][27]

He scored a brutal first-round KO over Daniel Lentie the SuperKombat World Grand Prix 2013 Final Elimination in Ploiești, Romania on November 9, 2013.^[28][29]

2014

He defeated Mohamed Karim via unanimous decision at the SUPERKOMBAT World Grand Prix I 2014 in Reșița, Romania on April 12, 2014.^[30][31]

2015

On 2015 Cătălin Moroșanu won "Sunt Celebru Scoate-ma De Aici"

Personal life

Moroşanu is married and has one daughter. He is a law student, and also owns his own kickboxing gym in his home country of Romania. A notably interesting fact about Moroşanu is that the K-1 promotion arbitrarily created the image of him as a crop farmer. In one of their promotional video-clips, Moroşanu appears driving an old tractor.^[32] In yet another clip from the company, Moroşanu appears to be drinking and promoting a brand of wine, which supposedly gives him super-hero like fighting powers. The wine is supposed to be, albeit fallaciously, his own signature line.^[33]

Television

From March 19 through May 7, 2010 Cătălin Moroşanu participated in one of the most popularly viewed show in the history of Romanian television, Dansez pentru tine (the local version of Dancing with the Stars). He stated that his motivation and financial winnings would go to support a young widow, who wanted to make her daughter's life easier, and filled with the happiness that she deserved but had lost with the death of her father. He was considered to be the single most talented and entertaining male participant in the competition, and was the fan favorite. He made it to the Final elimination round, and won the 1st place spot at the end of the show, earning 60,000 Euros for Magdalena Ciorobea (his dancing partner in the show), collecting over 13,000 votes.

On March 8, 2015 Moroşanu won the first series of Sunt celebru, scoate-mă de aici!, the Romanian version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.

Politics

Moroşanu is currently serving a term as a Iași County councilor. He has been elected in June 2012.^[34]