The cut was bad enough to nearly cancel his fight against Alexander Hernandez last weekend.
Weeks before his fight against Alexander Hernandez at UFC 271 this past Saturday, Renato Moicano suffered a gruesome injury during one of his final sparring sessions.
Moicano shared a video on Wednesday that showed him and a teammate accidentally clashing heads in an exchange, which led to the Brazilian getting sliced open immediately upon impact. He realized he was cut after touching his forehead with his glove and seeing blood that had already begun dripping down his face. The 32-year-old stopped sparring and went to lie down on the canvas, and that is where things took a messier turn.
As Moicano was being tended to by one of his coaches, blood was now spraying out of his forehead. No, seriously. This was the type of blood splatter you would see in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
You can watch the video below:
“Two weeks before the fight I suffered a cut in training that almost took me out of the fight,” wrote Moicano. “It made it impossible for me to train properly for a few days, but I’m Brazilian and giving up is not an option! And I couldn’t let the opportunity pass! Let’s go to the next one!”
Nolan King of MMA Junkie spoke to Oren Hodak of Knockout Representation — manager of Moicano — who said the fighter needed 12 stitches to close the cut. It was also bad enough to either reschedule or cancel the fight with Hernandez, but that did not happen.
Moicano met Hernandez on the opener of the pay-per-view and submitted him via second-round rear-naked choke. Now on a two-fight win streak, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace has expressed interest in sharing the Octagon with another fellow veteran in Bobby Green, who also earned an impressive win at UFC 271. Green defeated Nasrat Haqparast by unanimous decision.
“Let’s see what the UFC has to offer,” Moicano told Danny Segura of MMA Junkie. “But I heard people are asking for a main event for Bobby Green. Maybe it’s good we do a Fight Night…that’s it, man. I respect Bobby Green a lot. We fought on the same day, he did a great performance, so did I. He deserves a main event. If he goes to a main event, I want to be there. I want to fight with him, promote the fight, get the fans excited about that, but let’s see what the UFC has to offer.”