Renato Moicano: The Lightweight Test, a Perfect Move?
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Renato Moicano had his share of highs and lows in the UFC (5-3) featherweight division. His three defeats come from the elite of the division and among his five wins, three are against top 10 contenders. So yes, even after a few setbacks, Moicano still had an important role in that division, especially after the departure of Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar to bantamweight.
However, Renato and his team decided to move up to lightweight for his next fight against Damir Hadzovic (13-5), tonight, in Brasilia. Renato lives in Florida with his wife Priscilla, where he trains at American Top Team. It’s actually his coach Mike Thomas Brown who asked him for several years to move up. Moicano was apprehensive at first, but finally decided to test out lightweight.
Renato was always a very tall and lanky featherweight, and lately his capacity to take damage has been questioned quite a lot. Even if he never missed weight, there is still an argument to be made that he could be at his best at lightweight. Renato himself said he wants to go back to featherweight because he has “unfinished business” there. So let’s take a look at what Moicano achieved in that division, how his all around game turned him into a tough, tricky opponent, and why with ten fewer pounds to cut he could be a real nightmare for his opponents at 155.
FEATHERWEIGHT
What went right ?
From his UFC debut on two weeks notice to his all-time best performance against Calvin Kattar, Moicano improved significantly. His kicking game, which was promising from the start, became elite. Moicano’s ring IQ and cagecraft made leaps as well. From fight to fight, both his capacity to fight on the backfoot and to pressure was a problem for almost all of his opponents. On top of all this, Moicano was always extremely skilled and dangerous on the ground. He’s difficult to take down, and even on his back he used his rubber guard to either lock his opponents down or threaten with submissions.
Where Renato seemed to surprise most opponents is how explosive and physical he could be on the ground, especially when opportunistically taking the back. Moicano can pretty much do it all, he’s able to fight on the outside and on the inside (at times), but he really shines and looks like a world beater when he gets his kicking game going. He’s the full package, from low kicks to high kicks and front kicks. Kicks are by far his best weapons. Over the years he learned to mix up his combinations with different looks that incorporate both kicks and punches. His victories over Jeremy Stephens and Calvin Kattar showed how great Renato can be when he gets his fight.
What went wrong ?
Renato faced the elite of the division three times and lost three times. While the fight with Brian Ortega gave some positive takeaways, he eventually fell into his opponent’s trap. The loss to Jose Aldo brought to light a massive weakness in Moicano’s physique. His body is relatively fragile, and once he’s hurt, he’s a bit of a sitting duck. But, it was Aldo in front of him, after all. Then he was nuked by the most violent featherweight in UFC history. Moicano threw a lazy jab and was caught with a beautifully timed bomb over the top. Losing against those three guys is not that bad of a look, but every single defeat highlighted Moicano’s main weaknesses. Some are fighting related, and the others are physically related, perhaps related to his weight cut. For example, he defends the body poorly, and his left hand is always too low. But at the same time, he faced an insane caliber of opponent.
ADJUSTMENT MOICANO
In his second UFC fight, Renato faced Zubaira Tukhugov who was on a three-fight win streak. Zubaira has an extensive martial arts background, but his specialty is sambo. He mixed his wild striking with his wrestling fairly well and closed the distance using feints and false starts. This was a problem for Moicano in the first round, he wanted to stay on the outside behind his jab but kept either missing or being parried. Zubaira’s side stance allowed Renato to kick the lead leg, and that’s where he found the most success, but his incapacity to counter Zubaira’s blitzes caused him lose the pocket exchanges. Zubaira took round 1.
So, as soon as the second round opened, the Brazilian changed his tactics. He pressured Zubaira heavily using his kicks to back him up, and used his jab to keep him at range. This changed the story of the fight, he got Zubaira to stop feinting and took away his ability to improvise, he became very easy to read. Moicano forced Tukhugov to shoot a sloppy takedown from far away. Moicano stopped it easily and punished from front headlock. Round 2 for Moicano.
Round 3 started the same as the last. Moicano’s pressure started to take a toll on Zubaira, who became even more desperate and tried to make it a brawl, even if he had to eat strikes while closing the distance. After shifting and headbutting Moicano, he landed a good right hand over Moicano’s low left hand. However, this did not discourage the Brazilian, who welcomed the brawl and used Zubaira’s sloppy aggression against him. He baited him into blitzing and countered with precision.
Renato is able to fight well on the front foot, but his performance in round 1 on the back foot raised some questions about his capacity to win fight as he’s being pressured. However, in this match up, Renato recognized very early that Zubaira’s constant movement and feints might make it difficult to counter accurately. Pressuring and moving forward, making Zubaira waste energy on blitzes and takedowns, and keeping him against the fence with front kicks and jabs, forced him to become predictable and then easy to counter.
BACK FOOT CARNEIRO
When Renato fought Jeremy Stephens in April 2017, his gameplan was perfect. Renato wanted to leave the center of the octagon to “Lil Heathen”, and get on his bike while kicking him on the outside until Jeremy either overextended or became frustrated and threw exclusively homeruns. In his previous fight, Jeremy Stephens was very close to finishing Frankie Edgar with a head kick, but lost a close decision against the former champion. Edgar stayed on the outside, kicked Jeremy’s legs and was in and out in the pocket early in the fight until he got knocked down and badly hurt by Jeremy. Eventually, Edgar’s wrestling saw him through. Playing the matador against this dangerous bull is the best way to beat him, but it’s still a risky game.
Renato started the fight with round kicks to Jeremy’s front leg. Carneiro used the outside leg kick when Jeremy was in the center of the octagon, and used the inside leg kick when Jeremy was pressuring, trying to time Jeremy as he threw the 1-2. Renato circled consistently, in both directions, breaking his stance with side steps. Jeremy Stephens is not the best at cutting off the cage, he tends to follow his target too much. It was unclear if it was due to the leg kicks or because Renato circled left and right, but Jeremy started to switch stances in order to catch Renato as he circled. Even if it seems like a good idea on paper, it was also a huge tell from Jeremy, Renato knew exactly what punch was coming when Jeremy switched stances. Stephens was hoping that Moicano would walk into his hook, but Renato timed the attempt with his inside leg kick. Occasionally, Renato used double jabs and threw 3-4 punch combinations to relieve some of the pressure from Jeremy, scaring him out of the pocket.
Stephens did his best to cut the cage, but as soon as he would stop Renato’s movement, he was hit with inside leg kicks, then Moicano got right back on his bike. If you know Jeremy Stephens, you’ll know it didn’t take long for him to become visibly frustrated. Slowly but surely, he started to overextend and chase big power punches with minimal set ups. This left him open to counters, which Moicano wasn’t even attemping thus far. He did find a way to frustrate Stephens even more when he shot a double leg as Jeremy threw an ill-advised lead elbow from the southpaw stance. Renato then stayed on top of Jeremy for the last minute of round 1.
In the second round, Jeremy was exploding at every opportunity, and this time Renato countered and hurt him for it. After a setting up his jab, it was Renato who quickly closed the distance with a left hook that partially landed, but Jeremy timed a double leg under it. He put a lot of effort into the shot, but Renato stopped it fairly easily and head kicked Stephens off the break, finishing the sequence with a big right hand that landed flush. Stephens started to run out of ideas, he changed up his shot selection, went for hooks and uppercuts when closing the distance but fell short, only his leg kicks found success. Jeremy’s up-tempo pace showed results for a short amount of time, but Moicano got back to his jabs and never forgot to mix in the mean leg kicks behind them. Stephens really was fuming at this performance, he was too eager to land big shots, his jab wasn’t there, and he fell into the trap of following Moicano. The Brazilian side stepped for a minute, then landed a big combo on Stephens, jabbed, laced the back hand into the double collar tie to set up a knee to the face that missed by inches. The manipulation of rhythm from Moicano was on point.
As the round went on, Renato started to counter with 4-5 strike combinations that did serious damage to Jeremy’s face and body. He also started to catch Jeremy’s kicks and played with some different counters. Late in round 2, he caught Jeremy’s left kick to the body with his left hand, grabbing Stephens’ heel, and used it to reverse their position against the cage. Moicano also faked a spinning kick and threw the left high kick behind it, which didn’t land, but he seemed to be having fun. Renato was enjoying playing the matador while Jeremy was trying his best to stay composed.
Round 3 was the logical continuation of everything mentioned above, Renato took Jeremy down for a minute, stayed in the pocket then got back on his bike for a while, still jabbing and kicking on the back foot. Stephens’ nose was bloody and his lead leg was red. He became increasingly desperate, his jab completely disappeared, he threw combinations like the rear uppercut to lead hook that missed Moicano, who was already several feet away. Moicano also tried to prove a point to Stephens, that he could beat him in the pocket, as he stood and banged it out with him a little. He landed a beautiful combination - jab, ducked under Stephens’ jab, right uppercut to left hook.
Stephens switched to southpaw in order to hand fight more effectively and take away Renato’s jab, but all it really did was allow him to eat some straight rights and more leg kicks. Jeremy’s cardio held up very well and he kept pushing, with some success, but nothing significant happened in that last minute.
They embraced, Jeremy knew he got beat up fair and square and laughed about it with Renato, who showed a lot of respect to the man he just toyed with for 15 minutes. Renato Moicano won a split decision (no comment) over Jeremy Stephens and answered all the questions the Tukhugov fight had raised. Yes, Moicano can fight on the back foot, and he’s good at it.
THE KATTAR BEATDOWN
In April 2018, Renato Moicano fought against the best pure boxer in the featherweight division in Calvin Kattar at UFC 223.
Renato focused early on not letting Kattar set up his jab, he parried every jab Kattar threw early on. During this time, both men were in the center of the cage and Renato didn’t waste much time before blasting heavy low kicks to Kattar’s lead leg. Kattar used his rear hand often to evaluate the distance, doing some ineffective hand fighting before exploding with a fast 1-2 that landed flush on Renato’s jaw. He took it well, but was backed up against the cage.
Kattar threw a nice varied series of jab-uppercuts as he put heavy pressure on the Brazilian. Renato stayed composed and it was his sense of timing that got him through, he used his jab to keep Kattar away from him and slammed the inside leg kick when Kattar threw to get him off balance. Back in the center of the cage, Moicano curiously still gave the initiative to Kattar, and for two minutes it was just a battle of feints and distance management with no one throwing anything significant except for Moicano’s left check hook over Kattar’s right hand.
As good a boxer Kattar may be, he still struggled a lot to cancel Moicano’s jabs. Moicano did a great job at keeping Kattar at distance, but also interrupting him mid combo with the jab, even as he kept landing two or three kicks per minute on Kattar’s lead leg. With a minute left in the round Moicano switched to southpaw and landed some big inside leg kicks on Calvin’s lead leg, and the open stance allowed him to kick the body too. Kattar then turned to southpaw too and shifted back to orthodox as he closed the distance, but he was welcomed by a nice slip and counter right hand by the Brazilian. Somehow, this round was easier for Renato than it was against Jeremy Stephens. The better boxer was completely shut down by Renato’s reach and timing.
Kattar relied so much on his right overhand, but everytime he threw, it failed; it was either countered by a check hook or Renato simply took a side step and watched Kattar viciously punching air. When Moicano found a counter, he didn’t stop with just one; each time, he threw a series of 4-5 strikes behind it. Moicano even won smaller boxing exchanges by parrying Kattar’s jab and landing his own jab behind it, before dodging the counter right hand from the boxer. Another blitz from the American? Another check hook. Another short right hand missing, another hook counter.
The longer the fight went, the greater Moicano’s appetite for violence became. He started to lead from southpaw, throwing mean body kicks just under the high guard of his victim, and the open-stance kicking of Moicano to Kattar’s body and the inside of his leg became the story of that round. Kattar’s only response was to switch to southpaw himself, and then seeing Renato going back to orthodox and jabbing his face. Calvin stayed in southpaw, maybe just due to ego, as the open stance allowed his left leg to get destroyed just as well as the right one. Thirty seconds later, Kattar went back to his original stance; however, Moicano’s career-best movement kept any of Kattar’s overhands from landing. Moicano had Kattar reacting to every little feint and knew it, which allowed him to get some success with his hands too. Renato (who casually went back to southpaw) feinted the left straight to the body and landed a big right uppercut on Kattar; the Bostonian got more than frustrated, and started to be more and more aggressive with his combos. All of them were either blocked or interrupted with mean inside low kicks, which sent his left leg flying all around the cage. Renato also liked to feint the 1 then the 2 slowly so many times, which drew Kattar’s defensive reactions to his head;. However, what followed the feint was even more inside low-kicks.
At this point, not only did Kattar have zero success on the lead, but he also had zero success on the counter; he never managed to get past Renato’s mixing attack (feints, rhythm and kicks). We often mention the legend Jose Aldo against Faber in terms of a kicking clinic, but this one from Renato was just insane. With Kattar’s leg done, all he had in him was one last stand; he started round 3 guns blazing. Calvin gave everything he had, and tried to make something happen for him, and for the first time in the fight, he finally threw 4-5 jabs in a row with a big hook to the body behind it. It was great, but too little, too late; Renato didn’t react well to that hook to the body, he switched stance right away, but Moicano then bloodied Kattar’s face with a series of hooks that have always been followed by a kick to the body. Calvin had been slowed down so much that it became very difficult for him to defend, and he’s now not much more than a punching bag for Moicano to style on. Calvin Kattar is taking the beating of a lifetime, but he’s so tough and stayed on his feet. Moicano is often mentioned as this very good technical fighter with great fight IQ, but people underrate how violent and mean this man can be in the cage, and it proved a miracle for Calvin that he made it the distance.
Another great performance from Renato, who proved once again that his great all-around striking game is a problem for everybody in that division. That seemed to be even clearer when Renato made quick work of perennial contender Cub Swanson (knocked him down with a beautiful jab then choked him out within a round).
THE LIGHTWEIGHT TEST
After being stopped twice at featherweight by Aldo and the Korean Zombie, Renato is finally moving up in weight. In my opinion, this is a great idea. Moicano would still have a height and reach advantage over many lightweight in the UFC. His takedown defense is competent enough that I don’t see him being wrestled any more easily than at featherweight.
Renato’s vulnerability is overplayed in my opinion. Chan Sung Jung can knock out pretty much anyone, and Aldo is Aldo. My biggest concern for Renato at featherweight is his lack of defensive ability when it comes to the body. Moicano is an excellent fighter who can fight moving forward and backward, he’s good at range, in the clinch, in the pocket, and he’s one of the best kickers in the UFC, but his defense has always been average at best. In the Ortega fight, he showed that he actually had a very good chin because even though he was boxing Brian’s face off for most of the fight, he still took some big shots from T-City.
Of course I expect Renato to pass his first lightweight test with flying colors this Saturday. His opponent, Damir Hadzovic, is strong and athletic, but his wrestling is not particularly serviceable and his striking can be limited. While Hadzovic isn’t the perfect matchup for Moicano’s lightweight debut, it’s favorable enough that he should be able to control the bout without getting into any trouble.
Renato’s weight cut always seemed to be pretty tough, but he never seemed like one to undergo an insane drop like Kevin Lee or Khabib at lightweight. If he feels good at the weight, he’ll get through this bout fairly easily and likely get a decent matchup in the top 10. I see Moicano joining the lightweight rankings in short time. He has all the tools to beat the likes of Iaquinta, Hernandez, Gillespie and Makhachev. Training at American Top Team allows Renato to train often with Dustin Poirier and Jorge Masvidal, two fighters who had a ton of success moving up in weight. Phil Daru, their strength and conditioning coach, did wonders for Poirier’s physique and fitness.
Renato Moicano would do well moving forward in both divisions, but I truly believe that he’s at the right gym at the right time to climb the rankings at lightweight, especially after removing some strain from his training camp. There are not many lightweights in the UFC who will be able to deal with Renato’s versatility and fight IQ. I’m being optimistic, Moicano finishes Hadzovic by TKO within the distance.