Tom Nolan is a top-10 lightweight now, and he got there by going through the guy he called one of his heroes.
Nolan moved up to No. 7 in the UFC’s 155-pound rankings Tuesday, three days after stopping Renato Moicano in the UFC Vegas 123 main event at the Apex. Yahoo Sports put it bluntly: Nolan booted Moicano out of the top 10. Bloody Elbow’s rundown of the update has Nolan climbing five spots and Moicano dropping six, all the way to No. 14. That leaves a former title challenger hanging onto the edge of the list.
The win came with an argument attached. A lot of people watching believed the referee’s decision to stand the fighters up changed the fight, and Joe Rogan reacted to the call too. Moicano isn’t fighting it. He won’t appeal, per Bloody Elbow, and he was critical of his own performance afterward.
He was even tougher on the pre-fight pleasantries. Nolan had called Moicano one of his heroes before they fought, and Moicano waved it off on The Ariel Helwani Show. “People say that for the camera, you know,” he said, before describing himself as a “journeyman, let’s be honest.” He has also talked about being done with MMA in the near future, which doesn’t help a contender case that just took a six-spot hit.
Bloody Elbow pushed back on the journeyman label, and the résumé backs them up. Moicano is a 21-fight UFC veteran with eight losses in the promotion: Nolan (UFC Vegas 123, 2026), Beneil Dariush (UFC 317, 2025), Islam Makhachev (UFC 311, 2025), Rafael dos Anjos (UFC 272, 2022), Rafael Fiziev (UFC 256, 2020), Chan Sung Jung (UFC Greenville, 2019), Jose Aldo (UFC Fortaleza, 2019) and Brian Ortega (UFC 214, 2017). Makhachev, dos Anjos and Aldo all held UFC gold. Ortega and Jung both got title shots.
Two years ago Moicano was riding a four-fight win streak when the call came to fight Makhachev for the 155-pound title on short notice. Journeymen don’t usually get that phone call. Fewer of them say yes.
For Nolan, Bloody Elbow called this the biggest fight of his career against an established contender in the division, and the five-spot jump reflects it.
The same rankings update had Jacobe Smith cracking a top 15, according to Yahoo Sports.
My take: the standup is going to follow Nolan around for a while, but the guy who lost isn’t appealing, so I’m not going to appeal it on his behalf. No. 7 is the number, and it’s earned. As for Moicano, I’ll take one fighter who answers a question this straight over a room full of guys reading canned humility off a card. If he really is close to the end, a man who said yes to Makhachev on short notice has nothing to apologize for.
