Renato Moicano spent Tuesday morning on X arguing with Brazil, and by mid-afternoon he had turned it into a fight poster. At 14:54 GMT on Oct. 6 he posted “Pobre de direita vs rico de esquerda no MMMMMA. Quem aí se candidata ?!👇” Translated loosely, he wants a broke right-winger to fight a wealthy leftist in MMA, and he asked his followers who wants in.
The line his fans will care about more came about two hours earlier. A follower wrote that she’d shown a friend one of his videos and planned to pull him into the UFC rabbit hole. Moicano answered with “Boraaaaaaa porraaaaaa dezembro tem mmmmmmmmmmmma,” a profane, extremely Brazilian way of announcing that December has MMA in it for him. He didn’t name an opponent, an event or a date. Nothing official from the UFC shows up in the reporting so far.
The matchup joke had a backstory. At 12:14 GMT, Moicano wrote that calling people “pobre de direita,” calling them stupid and rooting for their lives to go badly is one of the dirtiest things he’s ever seen. His Portuguese was a lot saltier than that. When a follower told him people had started calling him the “Paulo Kogos do MMA,” he laughed it off and asked who decided livestreams don’t count as work. Another fan told him they like him but don’t admire him. Moicano replied “Aspas fortes kkkkkk,” which is basically “strong words” followed by a lot of laughing.
View post on X
Where he stands
Moicano sits No. 8 at lightweight in the UFC Meta Rankings, which were updated after UFC 332 in Salt Lake City. That puts him between Benoit Saint Denis at No. 7 and Mateusz Gamrot at No. 9. Justin Gaethje holds the belt and Ilia Topuria is No. 1.
Topuria is the name Moicano has been circling. In a video interview MMA Fighting shared on Oct. 2, which MMA Weekly picked up the next day, Moicano pitched himself as Topuria’s comeback opponent. Topuria is returning from a damaging loss, and the talk around him includes a possible immediate rematch with Gaethje. Moicano called Topuria a real name, argued that he needs an easy fight next and said everybody knows how the UFC operates. He laid out the options as he sees them: “Either they sacrifice him and Paddy Pimblett,” or the UFC gives Topuria a fight that helps him rebuild his confidence, which Moicano believes is broken. He also hedged on the whole idea, saying he wasn’t sure the UFC would make it happen and wasn’t even sure that’s the fight he’d ask for.
View post on X
There’s a timing footnote, too. Rafael dos Anjos, who shared the Octagon with Moicano at UFC 272 in March 2022, took off his gloves after Alexander Hernandez stopped him at 3:12 of Round 2 at UFC 332. Dos Anjos hasn’t formally announced his retirement.
My take: the right-vs-left pitch is pure engagement bait, and it’s funnier than half the Apex main events this year, so I won’t pretend to be offended. The part I’m holding him to is the shouted December promise. I’d rather see the version where he talks about Topuria needing an easy fight and then makes it brutally hard for him. If the UFC hands him someone outside the top 10 instead, expect a much angrier livestream.
View post on X
