Following back-to-back losses at featherweight, Renato Moicano successfully made his lightweight debut at UFC Brasilia earlier this month.
He faced Damir Hadžović, a lightweight fighter from Denmark with a UFC record of 4-3. Moicano was able to quickly sink in a rear naked choke, winning via submission in 44 seconds of the very 1st-round.
Following the fight, emotions might have got the better of the fighters who argued about the outcome of the fight:
“I wanted to fight more!” Moicano can be heard saying.
“Then you shouldn’t have submitted me!” Hadzovic responded.
It has now been a couple of weeks, since UFC Brasilia happened. Moicano has had time to reflect back on his win and post-fight antics. He recently talked to BJPENN.com about the whole experience, revealing that he was frustrated going into fight:
“I was a little bit frustrated because I wanted to fight in front of my family and friends and my fans in Brazil. It was really different atmosphere than I am used to so it was a unique experience. It was not good behavior and I did wrong,” Moicano said. “But, I was frustrated because there were no fans and it made me angry because I trained so hard. The guy didn’t stop the takedown but I was wrong to do what I did after the fight. Damir is a good guy and he is a family man. I had to treat him better but I am happy with my performance. I lost my mind at the end of the fight and I want to apologize to everyone.”
Even though the fight lasted less than 50-seconds, Moicano says he felt good being at lightweight and revealed that on fight night, he weighed around 175lbs (79kg):
“I feel very good. My weight cut was good because I didn’t cut much weight,” Moicano explained. “I was still big on the day of the fight, I was weighing like 174, 175 something like that, I was not small and was like a natural lightweight. I felt really good.”
Moicano said that UFC have removed him from the featherweight rankings since his last fight, so he is mostly focused on the lightweight division for the time being:
“They remove me from the featherweight rankings and they took me off. Right now, I don’t want to fight at featherweight because I don’t want to have to work my way up,” He said. “I don’t want to fight unranked guys, I want to fight the top guys. I lost to top contenders in Aldo and Zombie so I have no idea why I came off the rankings.”
The Brazilian also revealed that he already has an opponent in mind. In fact, he’s already thought of a backup if the first guy doesn’t want to take the fight against him:
“I respect Paul Felder a lot. I know he is talking about not fighting as often so maybe he wants big fight. But, it makes sense,” Moicano explained. “I was seventh at featherweight and he is seventh at lightweight and I respect the guy. But, he lost to Hooker and I think he lost to Barboza. I want to test myself against him. “I want to fight the best. If Felder doesn’t accept it, I want Iaquinta because he is a good guy too and a ranked guy who fought for the belt,” he continued. “It makes sense for it because he doesn’t have a fight booked. I want all the hard fights at lightweight and I know I can do well.”
Paul Felder is coming off of a 5-round split-decision loss against Dan Hooker at UFC Fight Night 168 in February 23, 2020. Following his loss in his last fight, Felder was considering retirement from the sport, but has since confirmed that he still intends to compete. His coach, Duke Roufus was hoping that his fighter would be able to get a rematch against Dan Hooker at the upcoming UFC Dublin event later this year.
Meanwhile, Al Iaquinta has lost back-to-back fights against Dan Hooker and Donald Cerrone. In his last fight, he faced Dan Hooker at UFC 243 in October 6, 2019. He lost the fight via unanimous decision and does not have a fight booked at this time.
This article first appeared on CLOSEDGUARDMEDIA.com on 25th March, 2020.
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