Saint Denis will get another chance to break into the lightweight top ten against the crafty Moicano, and this time he’ll do it in front of a hometown crowd.
Benoit Saint-Denis is headed back home to Paris for his next fight, a five round affair against Renato Moicano.
Saint-Denis is coming off a tough loss to Dustin Poirier back in March, but the UFC still clearly sees a bright future for the 28 year old “God of War.” The promotion is putting him in the main event slot for their annual September foray to France, set this year for September 28th at the 15,000 seat Accor Arena.
It’s not a title shot, but a pretty nice consolation prize.
Verbal agreements for the bout were first reported by AG Fight, with MMA Junkie confirming contracts have now been signed.
Saint-Denis is 5-2 in the UFC and currently sits at No. 12 in the lightweight rankings. The No. 10 ranked Moicano is 11-5 and is currently on a three fight win streak. His last win was a thrilling come-from-behind victory over Jailin Turner at UFC 300. Given both men’s styles, this is going to be a wild battle that probably won’t make it the scorecards.
UFC France is just under three months away now, which means we should start getting more news as to who else will fight on the card. There’s plenty of hot local talent to choose from: Ciryl Gane headlined the last two Fight Nights in the country, and Manon Fiorot vs. Rose Namajunas was last year’s co-main.
Gane and Fiorot are both unbooked at the moment, so chances are good they’ll end up in France — unless UFC decides to match Manon up against champion Alexa Grasso for their big Noche UFC Sphere event a few weeks earlier. We’ll keep you updated as this latest Paris card shapes up.