Dan Hooker watched Renato Moicano’s fight with Tom Nolan, and he wasn’t impressed. In comments posted by Ariel Helwani on X on Wednesday, Hooker called Moicano “an absolute f***ing joke” and said Nolan “made him look like an absolute mug.”
Hooker went straight at the stand-up that has had people arguing all week. “I could see the fear on his face,” he said. “He was absolutely shitting himself as soon as they stood him up.”
Then he turned to the fight he actually wants. Hooker and Moicano have been trading shots from a distance for a while, and Hooker made it clear he’d rather settle it in the Octagon. “We’ve been talking shit,” he said. “The buildup for it would be absolutely disgusting. You couldn’t chuck the buildup for that on Paramount.” He said it would be a blast and that he still can’t figure out why it hasn’t been booked.
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Moicano’s week
Moicano has been talking plenty since the Nolan fight, and none of it sounds like a man losing sleep over the result. He told Helwani on Monday that he “could not care less about Tom Nolan or Dan Miragliotta” and predicted he eventually won’t even remember the fight. What does bother him is the money. “The only thing I get sad about is I got only half of the paycheck,” he said, adding that fighters sometimes don’t get paid because of other people’s mistakes.
According to comments reported by MMA Fighting and shared on X by @DovySimuMMA, Moicano won’t file an appeal. He said he didn’t remember getting any warning before the stand-up was called and that he decided to keep his focus on the fight instead of complaining. His message for Dan: “I want him to go f*ck himself.”
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He also didn’t love Nolan calling him one of his heroes. “I’m not Charles Oliveira, I’m not Khabib. Let’s be honest, I’m a journeyman,” Moicano told Helwani.
The bigger news from Moicano might be his exit plan. He has three fights left on his UFC contract and told Helwani he wants to finish it and walk away from MMA for influencer boxing. “I want to beat up people that don’t know how to fight,” he said. He pointed to Tony Ferguson as the career he doesn’t want, describing a fighter at 40 on a six-fight losing streak, and said he doesn’t expect the UFC to pay him enough to keep going after those three.
Hooker has had a loud week of his own. He told Submission Radio that Charles Oliveira ruined the BMF title, saying it was cool for a while before Oliveira killed it.
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Quick take
Moicano is basically counting down the days, and he’s told everyone he’s leaving because of money. So book the fight that would actually sell. Three fights is not a lot of runway, and a lightweight scrap with this much real bad blood shouldn’t be left on the table while he burns through his contract against people neither man cares about. Moicano said it himself: “For me, it’s these three more fights.” Put Hooker’s name on one of them.
