Renato Moicano did something unusual for a fighter discussing other people’s title shots. He gave the right answer, then talked himself out of it in the same interview.
Speaking with MMA Fighting ahead of his UFC Vegas 123 main event against Tom Nolan at the Meta APEX, Moicano said Justin Gaethje would be in trouble against Arman Tsarukyan. “I think he will have a very hard night,” he said, pointing to Tsarukyan’s finish of Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331 and adding that he rates Ruffy as a better striker than Gaethje. Then he ran through the full scouting report: “Good striker, good grappler, good wrestler, very high fighting I.Q. So I think Arman is the next champion.”
A few breaths later he was pitching Gaethje vs. Alexander Volkanovski. “I would rather watch Volk than Arman, to be completely honest,” Moicano said.
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I like Moicano. I like that he says the quiet part at normal volume. His case for Volkanovski is also the cleanest argument against booking it.
Read the pitch closely
Moicano’s reasoning goes like this. Volkanovski is a little older but still has what it takes to be a champion, and Gaethje is a far more favorable opponent for him than Islam Makhachev was. From Gaethje’s side, Moicano said, Volkanovski is the better fight to take than Tsarukyan. And he admitted the whole thing falls apart if you look at the rankings, and that Tsarukyan shouldn’t be the one waiting.
Strip the fan appeal out and the pitch is simple: the champion should pick the challenger less likely to take his belt, and the man who earned the shot should sit. Michael Bisping got to the same place from the opposite direction on his Believe You Me podcast, saying that if he were Gaethje he’d take the guy moving up a weight class because it’s “win-win for him regardless.” Two people who clearly respect everyone involved, both describing a champion picking the softer night.
Volkanovski’s lightweight problem
Volkanovski is coming off a second-round knockout of Movsar Evloev in the UFC 333 main event, and MMA Mania’s Jesse Holland calls him the greatest featherweight ever, citing his record nine title fight wins. No argument from me at 145. At 155 he’s 0-2 in title fights, both against Makhachev. Moicano gave him credit for the first one, noting he did very well, and pointed out that the second came on short notice. Fair. It’s still two losses, and Holland made the sharper point: had Volkanovski beaten Ilia Topuria at UFC 298, a third lightweight try would be easy to sell. He didn’t.
Volkanovski’s own framing, which he floated during the build to UFC 333 and after it, is a double-retirement bout where both men vacate their titles afterward. That’s a farewell party with a belt on the table. Tim Edwards of MMA Mania compared it to Jon Jones trying to manufacture the best possible swan song with the UFC willing to play along, and he expects the promotion to make it happen anyway because Gaethje would probably prefer it.
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Tsarukyan did the time
Moicano knows better than anyone what Tsarukyan has sat through. Moicano got his own title shot at UFC 311 in January 2025, on a day’s notice, because Tsarukyan withdrew from the Makhachev rematch with a back injury. Since then Tsarukyan has won three straight: Charles Oliveira, then stoppages of Dan Hooker and Ruffy, the last one a Knockout of the Year contender in Los Angeles. Alex Behunin put it plainly in the MMA Mania mailbag: “Arman has served his time in UFC jail and has earned it.” All four writers on that panel picked Tsarukyan.
The stylistic detail I keep coming back to is in Moicano’s own scouting report. He listed striking first, then grappling, then wrestling. Gaethje pulled off a massive upset of Topuria at UFC White House in June, and he deserves every bit of credit for it. But Bisping noted Gaethje has lost to both Oliveira and Max Holloway, and Tsarukyan has already beaten Oliveira. A five-round title fight against a guy who can strike with you and then make you carry his weight against the fence for the back half of a round is a real champion’s test. Volkanovski is a great fighter who has twice come up short against the top of this division. That matchup is a legacy fight. Tsarukyan is the title fight.
Thomas Myers suggested in the mailbag that Gaethje seemingly has one fight left. If that’s true, it raises the stakes for getting it right. One last fight should settle who the best lightweight is, and every person quoted here, Moicano included, has already told you who that is.
Moicano closed by noting that the UFC does what fans want to watch, “so maybe that could happen.” Maybe. If the promotion books the double retirement, the belt walks out the door with Gaethje and Tsarukyan ends up fighting for a vacant title against whoever is left, which is a strange reward for being the best lightweight in the world without a belt. Moicano, meanwhile, has Nolan in front of him at UFC Vegas 123, and Edwards is picking him to shut the gate.
