Renato Moicano reveals he turned down up to $200,000 from UFC's Lawsuit settlement payout.
— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) July 16, 2025
Out of 700 fighters he is one of few fighters to do that.
"This is not what free market is about." - Moicano explains his decision.
@showmethepod - they just uploaded new pod. pic.twitter.com/ktgLcPj8g8
Former UFC Lightweight title challenger Renato Moicano certainly has principles.
The No. 12-ranked Lightweight contender is well-known for his fiery economic and political views, which he’s more than willing to
share in his post-fight interviews. Without getting too into it, the outspoken Brazilian has spoken at length about the virtues of the free market and other libertarian principles, even recommending different economics books to his fans. In one of his more famous on the mic moments, Moicano yelled out “MOICANO WANTS MONEY!”
Perhaps that’s changed since his million dollar paycheck, but Moicano is actually one of very few UFC fighters who turned down the recent settlement money stemming from Cung Le’s lawsuit against the UFC. The antitrust suit granted athletes $375 million to be distributed based on total income and number of fights, which breaks down to quite a bit of dough for roughly 1200 current and former fighters who competed during the time frame covered by the suit.
Moicano will not be among those cashing checks, though he revealed his payout would have been worth roughly $200k.
“You wanna know how much I love UFC? I did not [take] the money that they sent to the fighters,” Moicano revealed on his Show Me The Money podcast. “I just had to put my name over that, but I didn’t. I did not sign it.”
He added, “Only 3% of the fighters refused the money.”
Why is Moicano turning down such a significant sum? Moicano doesn’t believe he was taken advantage of, and the whole lawsuit goes against his free market principles.
“They said UFC did not pay the fighters fair enough,” Moicano explained. “But this is like you get a girl today and you’re f—king her, and like two years later, she say ‘The guy raped me.’ That’s what it is. I agreed [to the contract]. I remember my first fight in the UFC was [$8,000 to show, $8,000 to win]. And then what they say is that $8k/$8k was wrong, because they take advantage of you. It’s the same thing: you have a girl and then somebody talk to the girl, ‘That guy abused you!’”
He continued, “If you like the logic of how USA was created, like free market, you have to do your part of the deal. You cannot take advantage of people. The problem of people now is the mindset of ‘UFC is f—king rich, they can do that.’ It’s not like that, you have to honor your part.”
In the words of Omar Little, “A man’s gotta have a code.” Unfortunately for the Brazilian, his just cost him the closest thing UFC has ever offered to a retirement plan.
Moicano, age 36, has lost his two most recent appearances to Beneil Dariush and Islam Makhachev. Prior to those defeats, he was riding an excellent four-fight win streak over the likes of Benoit Saint Denis and Jalin Turner.
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