Renato Moicano says he'll quit MMA after his UFC deal and box influencers

Renato Moicano said on Monday that he will stop fighting MMA once his UFC contract ends and wants to box influencers instead. The 37-year-old lightweight said it on The Ariel Helwani Show, two days after Tom Nolan stopped him at UFC Vegas 123, theScore reported.

"I want to finish my contract, and once I finish my contract, I don't want to fight MMA anymore," he said, according to LowKick MMA.

He hasn't retired. No boxing match, opponent or promoter has been reported, and we found no response from the UFC as of Monday. Moicano left a small opening to stay. On a new UFC contract, he said: "If the deal is good for me, it's OK, but I don't think it will happen."

Why he says he's done

Moicano pointed to pay and to how much he has left. "I think after these three, I'm done, because they're not gonna pay me enough," he told Helwani. "I don't want to be like Tony Ferguson," he said, then added: "And sometimes, you have to realize when you're done."

"I want to beat up people that don't know how to fight," he said of boxing, pointing to "this Adin Ross show," a reference to the streamer. He said he'd do it for "half a million dollars, a million dollars."

Ferguson lost eight straight, a UFC record at the time, the last of them at age 40 in August 2024. He took the same route, stopping Nathaniel "Salt Papi" Bustamante in round 3 on a Misfits card on Aug. 30, 2025, Sports Illustrated reported. He's still at it, retaining the Misfits middleweight title on Sept. 26.

Boxing was already on Moicano's mind before the Nolan fight. In an MMA Fighting interview he raised free agency and added, "Maybe boxing, influencing, something like that," Heavy reported on Oct. 28. In a YouTube video after the loss he said "I'm not going to stop," but he meant not quitting early after one defeat.

How many fights are left

Reports disagree on the count, and his contract isn't public. Moicano said three on Monday, and theScore and LowKick repeated that. SB Nation reported two after Saturday's loss, in stories carried on Yahoo. Before the fight, Heavy had three including Nolan, which also leaves two, while MMA Junkie had two including Nolan, which would leave one.

The Nolan loss

Nolan won by TKO at 1:28 of round 3 in the Oct. 31 main event in Las Vegas. Late in round 2, Moicano had Nolan's back with a body triangle when referee Dan Miragliotta stood them up, Uncrowned reported. Nolan hurt him with a knee soon after the restart. Moicano called his night "a terrible performance."

He later told MMA Fighting he was "a little frustrated" by the stand-up, SB Nation reported, and said, "I clearly lost my focus." He won't appeal to the Nevada commission. "I want him to go f—k himself, him and everyone else," he said of Miragliotta. No report has him tying his boxing plan to the result.

Moicano opened as a +105 underdog and closed a slight favourite at around −135, about 55%. Nolan's win was a small upset at the close. As a bet he's beaten his price: 7-5 in 12 priced UFC fights since 2020, +2.91 units at one unit a fight. The prices implied about 5.5 wins.

He is now 21-8-1 and 13-8 in the UFC, and 1-3 in his last four. His one title shot came at UFC 311, when he took on Islam Makhachev on about a day's notice and was submitted in round 1.

We think Monday's plan carries more weight than his April threat to retire, which was a demand for an easier opponent. This time he's named an endpoint and a price, though the boxing money is only his asking figure and no offer has been reported. No next fight is listed for him on our page, so his exit date depends on when the UFC books what's left.