Renato Moicano is all about easy money, but he has revenge on his mind after UFC Vegas 115.
Following a lopsided performance that saw him score a knockdown on Chris Duncan before putting him away with a rear-naked choke submission in the second round Saturday night, Moicano turned his attention to the opponent he was originally scheduled to face back in March. Before being moved to a main event in April, Moicano was supposed to face Brian Ortega in a rematch at UFC 326 after he lost his first professional fight to his fellow grappler back in 2017.
Now his desire for that fight has grown even hotter with Ortega dropping out of the rematch.
“There is one motherf*cker who I have bad blood [with] and his name is Brian Ortega,” Moicano said during the UFC Vegas 115 post-fight show. “He ran the first time. I was beating him the first time. He got me OK, fair enough but it was my first defeat. Now I want revenge. I want his head. I want to kill this motherf*cker.”
Immediately after his win, Moicano shouted he wanted a ranked opponent and hopefully someone he could easily beat, but admittedly getting vengeance against Ortega might mean even more.
Taking a look at the fighters ahead of him based on the UFC’s official rankings, Moicano sees a lot of opportunity — and a couple of potential opponents he definitely wants to avoid.
“Dan Hooker, f*cking easy money,” Moicano said. “Paddy Pimblett, f*cking easy money. Benoit Saint Denis, f*cking easy money. I don’t want anything against Mauricio Ruffy because back in the day, I thought I could beat this motherf*cker but now after what he did against f*cking [Rafael] Fiziev, you saw that, this guy’s the real deal. I don’t want anything with Mauricio Ruffy.
“Mateusz Gamrot, he trains at my gym but right now I’m fighting everybody from the gym … no I’m joking. Don’t be worrying Mateusz, I’m just joking. I’m not coming for you.”
Following a two-fight skid, Moicano proved he’s still an elite lightweight with his performance Saturday and there’s little doubt he’ll have his pick of potential opposition when he returns to action.
That said, Moicano wants to avenge his past loss to Ortega because some fights mean more than rankings.
“I think Dan Hooker would be even easier but at the same time, it was my first loss,” Moicano said. “Brian Ortega, especially because he’s coming to lightweight. I like fight. I like that matchup. We were supposed to fight so I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to him. He just pulled out of the fight, but I think we have unfinished business.”
One thing is for certain, Moicano doesn’t want to run into another awkward situation like he had with Duncan considering they both train at American Top Team in Florida.
As dominant as Moicano was in his victory, he admits the entire situation rubbed him the wrong way and that’s why he’s not signing up for another one of those fights again.
“I did not want to fight Chris Duncan,” Moicano said. “But you guys remember, I was supposed to fight [Brian] Ortega and Ortega pulled out. Then they offered me guys outside the rankings. The first one I said OK, the other one I said no because nobody knew the guy. But then Chris Duncan’s manager said that Chris Duncan would accept the fight.
“That got me pissed because we are teammates. Once he said that, now I want to fight you because I know I’m better than you so let’s fight. I give him a shot. It was not easy, it was not good at the gym. I don’t want to do that again.”
