Renato Moicano has three fights left on his UFC contract, and he says that’s all the MMA he has in him. After that, he wants to go into influencer boxing.
Moicano laid it out in an interview Ariel Helwani posted on X on Monday, and he didn’t dress it up. “To be completely honest with you, I want to finish my contract, and once I finish my contract, I don’t want to fight MMA anymore,” he said. “I want to do boxing, like influencer boxing. I want to beat up people that don’t know how to fight.”
Then he pointed at the guy he doesn’t want to become.
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“I don’t wanna be like Tony Ferguson. Eight fights, trying to be a champion, 40 years old, on a six-fight losing streak. I don’t want that,” Moicano said.
He framed the decision as knowing his limits, both physically and emotionally. “Sometimes you have to realize when you’re done,” he said. “You have to realize how much gas you have left in the tank, how much love for the sport you have. For me, it’s these three more fights.”
He was also blunt about the money side. “I think after these 3 I’m done because [the UFC] is not gonna pay me enough.”
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The Nolan loss and the Miragliotta mess
The timing tracks. Moicano is coming off a loss to Tom Nolan in the UFC Vegas 123 main event over the weekend, a fight Nolan finished in Round 3.
It was a messy one, and not because of anything Moicano did. At one point referee Dan Miragliotta stood the fighters up while Moicano had Nolan’s back, a call that had fighters lighting up social media in real time. Nolan nearly finished Moicano moments after the restart, as clips posted by Championship Rounds showed. Gilbert Burns, watching like the rest of us, posted, “This is crazy,” with a string of facepalm emojis. MMA Fighting called it a massive blunder and rounded up fighter reactions.
Moicano told MMA Fighting he won’t file an appeal, saying there was nothing he could do about it and that he doesn’t remember Miragliotta giving him any warning before the stand-up. He said he considered complaining in the moment but chose to stay focused on the fight. His final word on the referee was less diplomatic: “I want him to go f*ck himself.”
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No opponent or date has been announced for the first of Moicano’s three remaining fights.
Quick take
I’ll take a fighter who says the quiet part out loud over one who reads me a statement about “exploring opportunities” any day of the week. Moicano just ate a loss that had a referee’s fingerprints all over it, and instead of moping he told Helwani exactly what he wants: a few more paydays in the UFC, then easier money punching people who can’t punch back. You can call that cynical. I call it a guy who has done the math on his body and his bank account and doesn’t want to be the cautionary tale in someone else’s interview. Three fights. Then he’s chasing the influencer checks, and some YouTuber is about to have a very bad night.
