Renato Moicano dominates, outstrikes, and submits Brad Riddell at UFC 281
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, November 12, 2022, for perhaps the biggest event they’ve hosted this year in UFC 281, as the sport of MMA turns 29 years young tonight.
UFC 281 is to be headlined and co-headlined by world title fights, as UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya (23-1) aims to defend his throne for a sixth time against fellow former kickboxing champion Alex Pereira (6-1), someone he went 0-2 against in kickboxing.
UFC strawweight champion Carla Esparza (19-6) also aims to make the first defense of her newly claimed title against former champion Weili Zhang (22-3).
Our preliminary main event of the evening came in the lightweight division between Brad Riddell (10-3) and Renato Moicano (16-5).
Riddell had gone 4-0 to being his tenure with the UFC, but came into tonight’s bout on a two-fight skid, while Moicano had gone 3-2 since moving up to 155 lbs.
Continue reading to see how this preliminary main event went down:
Official Result: Renato Moicano def. Brad Riddell via submission (rear naked choke) at 3:20 of round one
Moicano opens up the bout with a stiff jab, and it appears he’s already found his range. Riddell goes to land a combination unsuccessfully, and Moicano times a nice knee in response to Riddell’s level change. Riddell ties Moicano up and presses him into the fence, but ends up being reversed before Moicano separates and gets back to his striking. Moicano is looking sharp on the feet tonight, he’s piecing and bloodying Riddell up. Riddell then gets his back taken in a scramble and his forced to tap shortly thereafter. This was really Renato Moicano’s coming out party; he’s now 17-5-1 as a professional, he now has ten finishes, all via submission and all via rear naked choke, and this was his ninth UFC victory.
If you enjoyed this piece, feel free to share it on social media!
