Today’s timeline had two moods. Half the fight world was yelling about a referee breaking up a dominant position, and the other half was talking money, from ramen shops to Conor McGregor’s favorite subject, Conor McGregor’s numbers. Here’s who said what.
Renato Moicano
The referee debate got loud enough that Peter Jordan, the guy behind the Brazilian channel Ei Nerd, jumped in on X and called it one of the biggest robberies in UFC history. His complaint was that Moicano had the dominant spot when the ref stood both men up, and he asked whether this was supposed to be MMA or kickboxing. Moicano quoted him and replied with pure bewilderment: “Caraio… pq caralhos o Peter do ei nerd tá falando de mma kkkkkkk.” Roughly translated, Moicano wanted to know why on earth the Ei Nerd guy was suddenly talking MMA, followed by a wall of Brazilian laughter. When a pop-culture YouTuber is defending your top control harder than you are, the stand-up has officially gone mainstream, and Moicano’s reaction (2,317 engagements, the biggest post of the day) was the funniest possible way to receive the support.
Hiromasa Ougikubo
Ougikubo spent his day eating. He posted on X that he tried the tsukemen at Zuyurumen 3110, the second shop from fellow fighter Yutaka Saito, which has its grand opening on November 10. His review was short and ecstatic: “美味い！パーフェクツ！これは売れる！” That’s delicious, a playfully mangled version of perfect, and a flat prediction that the place is going to sell. He also said he filmed a YouTube video there, so Saito is getting a free food-vlog commercial from a top flyweight, which is the kind of teammate marketing I fully endorse.
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Kenny Florian
Florian went long on X after a fan argued that the UFC rewards excitement and punishes low action. Florian opened by noting he no longer works for the UFC and said he personally doesn’t believe the stand-up came from a promotion directive, floating crowd boos or plain poor judgment as the more likely culprits. Then he got to his main point: “Either way, a professional referee has absolutely no business trying to make a sporting contest more entertaining.” He finished with this: “When a fighter is punished for successfully establishing a dominant position, we’re no longer rewarding effective MMA. We’re actually undermining it.” Florian didn’t name the bout in the post, but he did land on the heart of every bad stand-up ever. Refs are paid to enforce rules, and nobody hired them as hype men.
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Shinya Aoki
Aoki shared his latest column on X, and the subject was Tenshin Nasukawa’s event, Tenshin Festival. In the headline he described the show as healthy, beautiful and cool, said it was a story about how a person’s character shows in how they spend money, and admitted Aoki was tipping his cap. He added that the experience thickened his own set of values. Aoki praising somebody else’s business sense with zero sarcasm is rare enough that I’m marking the calendar.
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Conor McGregor
And then there’s Conor, who looked at a Canelo fight and started asking about views, attendance and the gate before answering his own questions. “Man I outdo ALL of these people in sales. Majorly. EVERY SINGLE ONE. With ease. Maybe even combined,” he wrote on X, followed by the immortal “I don’t even be trying.” He claimed he went head to head with a World Cup semifinal and still did huge numbers, said he has to wait another few months before he returns, and announced he’ll actually try to sell his next fight, which he called his final fight. Love the villain energy, I always will. But a man promising to start trying at promotion for the very last fight of his career is a hell of a pitch.
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Georges St-Pierre
GSP, as usual, stayed out of the mud and posted a mobility tip on X. After the sauna he runs through his full range of motion, and his reasoning was simple: “Cold muscles snap like an elastic. Warm ones stretch.” While everyone else argued about refs and gate receipts, the most disciplined man in MMA history was out there quietly telling you to stretch after your sauna session.
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