Renato Moicano isn’t buying into Paul Craig’s middleweight rebirth and thinks ‘Bearjew’ is the same terrible fighter he’s always been.
After a two fight losing streak at 205 pounds, Paul Craig seems to have renewed his career at middleweight. The Scottish submission specialist made a strong debut in his new weightclass at UFC London, TKOing Andre Muniz in the second round with some nasty ground and pound (watch the finish here).
Following that win, Craig called out two of the hottest up-and-coming names at 185 pounds: Bo Nickal and Khamzat Chimaev. That was a little much for lightweight fighter Renato Moicano, who is becoming a master of serving up hot takes on his YouTube channel.
“Man, Paul Craig is terrible,” Moicano said in a new video. “I know you guys are going to roast me for saying that, but he’s f—ing terrible. Even his top position in the first round, he got reversed very easy. I think what happened in this fight is ‘Sergipano’ is a jiu jitsu player too, so he sat in the guard and stuff. But Paul Craig’s stand up is terrible.”
“Bo Nickal would destroy him. Khamzat would destroy him,” Moicano claimed. “I know you guys like that kind of stuff, but let me tell you something: he’s terrible. I thought he would lose, and he was losing the fight. They got a scramble or something like that, I don’t remember what happened, but he got on top, and he won by TKO. But make no mistake, he’s terrible.”
Jeez, Renato. Tell us how you really feel.
Craig may be getting some unfair criticism aimed towards his skills these days due to the fact that we watched him slowly evolve from 2016 to now. In the early days of his UFC career, he went 4-4-1. If his early blitz didn’t work he’d fall apart. He’s 5-2 since the start of 2020 (versus Moicano’s 4-2), and while we’re not about to call him the Khamzat-killer, ‘terrible’ is certainly a strong word to use when describing his skills.
Funny enough, Craig is actually ranked higher than Moicano right now. The “Bearjew” sits at No. 9 in the Light Heavyweight rankings, while Moicano is No. 13 at lightweight. Apples and oranges, some might say. But wild and violent fighters maybe shouldn’t be throwing rocks at other wild and violent fighters. Glass houses and all that.