UFC Halloween went down this past weekend (Sat., Oct. 31, 2026) inside META Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada, leaving several fighters feeling the post-fight blues. Among them was Mickey Gall, who suffered his fifth straight loss after coming up short against Zachary Reese.
And Jeong Yeong Lee, who was knocked out by Julian Erosa (see it again here). And let’s not forget about Farman Hasanov, who suffered a face-gashing loss at the hands of Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani. But, which fighter is suffering from the worst
post-fight hangover, now a few days removed from the show?
Renato Moicano.
Coming into his headlining bout against Tom Nolan, Moicano made headlines after suggesting that he was ready to test free agency once his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) contract expired, which was an odd statement because he still had three fights left. By doing that, “Money” put some unnecessary pressure on himself to end his UFC run on a win streak if he wants to have options when the time to negotiations presents itself.
Unfortunately for the Brazilian bomber, his potential looming exit did not get off to a great start.
While Moicano did have control of the fight for the first couple of rounds, he got dropped in the waning seconds of round two, leaving him fighting for survival, which he managed to do to get to the third round. But, it didn’t take long for Nolan to get the job done after that, reversing the position Moicano had on the mat and delivering some nasty ground-and-pound to prompt the referee to put an end to the fight.
And just like that, Moicano suffered his third defeat in last four fights, which could cost him his spot in the Top 10.
“Things don’t always go the way we want and what am I going to do?” Moicano said after the fight, regarding a questionable decision from the referee to stand up the fight. “Am I going to rebel against the world? Am I going to curse the referee? Am I going to start a war? I want to congratulate Tom Nolan and say that he’s not responsible for anything.
“He went there and did a much better job than me standing up, and I think I’m better on the ground than him, but I also couldn’t effectively land attacks, I couldn’t land strikes,” he added. “What I want to talk about here more than that is, now what? I lost, and now what? Has the world ended? What now? Where do I go? Now my career is going to be a mess, I lost to a guy who’s bad, I still think he’s bad. But so what? What can I do? Do you understand? It’s a complicated situation.”
As far as what could be next for Moicano, he could be looking ahead to a potential fight against Mauricio Ruffy, who is currently seeded No. 10 and is fresh off a knockout loss at the hands of Arman Tsarukyan this past September (highlights).
