UFC Fight Night results: Tom Nolan stops Moicano in round 3

Renato Moicano got exactly the fight he wanted for two rounds and still got stopped in the third. That is the whole story of UFC Fight Night: Moicano vs Nolan, and it is a good one. Tom Nolan spent more than seven minutes being controlled, never stopped throwing, and finished the 37-year-old at 1:28 of round three.

As a card, it was a solid Meta Apex Saturday with one split decision settled by a single strike, four finishes, two doctor's stoppages and a pair of short-notice replacements who both won. Favorites took nine of the 12 bouts. The three underdogs who didn't follow the script were the headliner, a veteran who needed 91 seconds, and a featherweight who took the fight on late notice and walked away with a split decision.

Nolan vs Moicano: control time that hurt nobody

Photo: Sexto Round / CC BY 3.0

Renato Moicano did his job early. He landed his only takedown attempt of round one and held Nolan for 4:07 of the five minutes. He got him down again in round two and banked another 3:02 of control. By the end he had three takedowns on five attempts and 7:17 of control time in a fight that lasted 11:28.

The problem is what he did with it. Moicano landed nine significant strikes all night. Nine. Nolan landed 69 of 92, a 75 percent clip, and 38 of those came on the ground, which tells you the bottom position was not the cage it is supposed to be. In round two, a round Moicano spent three minutes controlling, Nolan landed 25 significant strikes to Moicano's four and scored the fight's only knockdown. In round three he landed 40 of 49 in 88 seconds and Dan Miragliotta waved it off.

I wrote before the fight that Nolan's path ran through volume, the body and round three. I also picked him to win a decision, so let's not pretend the crystal ball was flawless. But the core read held: control time that doesn't damage anybody is a weak argument, and Moicano's grappling did not damage Nolan.

The market had drifted the other way all week. Nolan was the favorite when the line filled out, then the consensus flipped and he closed at +101 with Moicano at -122. Our model gives Nolan 60 percent and never moved off him. Information only, but on this one the model read the fight better than the sportsbooks did.

What it means at lightweight

Nolan came in ranked 14th at lightweight and beat the 12th-ranked man. He is 12-1 now, 6-1 in the UFC, and has won six straight since the first-round loss to Nikolas Motta in January 2024. He is 26. That's a list of numbers the matchmakers can't ignore.

For Moicano it is a third loss in four fights: Islam Makhachev, then Beneil Dariush, then a win over Chris Duncan in April, now this. It is also the first time he has been stopped by strikes since Rafael Fiziev in December 2020. He is 21-8-1, still ranked, and still the kind of veteran who beats anyone who can't stop takedowns. The trouble is that the next wave can, or at least can survive them, and Saturday was the proof.

The scorecard that decided the night's other upset

Dakota Hope came in as a late replacement for Gaston Bolanos, closed at +188 against Francis Marshall, and won a split decision. All three judges gave Marshall round one, and all three gave Hope round three. Round two decided everything, and here is how thin it was: Hope landed 12 significant strikes, Marshall landed 11. Hope had 41 seconds of control, Marshall had seven.

Derek Cleary gave round two to Marshall and scored it 29-28 Marshall. Eric Colón and Sal D'Amato gave it to Hope and scored it 29-28 Hope. You can make a case for either corner in a round separated by one strike, which is exactly the problem with a 10-point must system that has no room for "too close to call." Over the full 15 minutes Hope out-landed Marshall 44 to 25 and controlled him for 4:41 to 1:34, so the result isn't a robbery. It's a coin flip that landed on the fighter who did more. Hope is 12-2, and his previous UFC fight was also a split decision, a loss to Kai Kamaka III in April. The full cards are on the bout page.

On to the rest of the card

Lucia Szabová made her UFC debut and looked like she has been here for years. She took Tainara Lisboa down five times, held her for 9:03, landed 70 of 96 significant strikes and finished it at 3:20 of round three. She was up two rounds on every card when it ended. She is 13-0, and Performance of the Night is a fine way to introduce yourself.

Julian Erosa came in on a two-fight skid and as a +140 underdog against JeongYeong Lee, and needed 91 seconds. One knockdown, 16 of 27 significant strikes, done. My preview called him a third-round wrestler. Juicy J did not read it. He is 10-9 in the UFC, and nobody on the roster makes a .500-ish record look more fun.

Joseph Kropschot, who won his Contender Series fight in August, won his debut with a submission of Nick Klein at 1:25 of round two. Klein actually won more of the wrestling exchanges (two takedowns, 3:01 of control) but Kropschot threw up three submission attempts and finished it with one. Klein falls to 0-3 in the UFC, and that number usually ends conversations.

Jacobe Smith stepped in late for Carlos Leal, four weeks after his last fight, and beat Randy Brown 30-26 on all three cards. Every judge scored round two 10-8. He held Brown for 8:53 and out-landed him 40 to 16 in significant strikes. It is the first time Smith has gone the distance in the UFC. He is 14-0, 5-0 in the promotion, and I would like to see somebody ranked next. I liked his path into this one; he took the longer road than I expected.

Luana Santos, ranked seventh at women's bantamweight, beat sixth-ranked Yana Santos 29-28 on all three cards after losing round one on every one of them. Five takedowns on 16 attempts and 7:35 of control won it. She is 7-1 in the UFC and should pass Yana on the next board.

Cody Durden took a 29-28 sweep over Ode Osbourne with six takedowns on eight attempts and a 35-15 edge in significant strikes. He dropped round three on all three cards and didn't need it.

Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani beat Farman Hasanov by doctor's stoppage at 2:11 of round three after landing 104 significant strikes to Hasanov's 53. Lebosnoyani is 3-0 in the UFC.

Rodrigo Sezinando won the same way over Theodor Berggren, the doctor ending it between rounds two and three. Sezinando had won both rounds on two of three cards.

Zach Reese beat Mickey Gall 29-27 on all three cards despite losing a point for an eye poke in round one, a round he had otherwise won. He out-landed Gall 110 to 67.

Piera Rodriguez beat Talita Alencar 30-27 three times, out-landing her 89 to 44.

Bonuses, picks and what's next

Four Performance of the Night bonuses went to Nolan, Erosa, Kropschot and Szabová, and the money side of the night lives on the payouts page. One fight left this card before it ever happened: Mantas Kondratavicius vs. Andre Petroski moved to Nov. 7.

For the ledger: in my full-card picks I went 11 of 12 on winners and missed only Marshall, which means the one pick I got wrong was the one three judges couldn't agree on either. Our model went 10 of 12, missing on Marshall and Hasanov.

Nolan asked for a step up and got a man who has submitted seven people in the UFC. He took the worst of the grappling for two rounds and won anyway. The question for the lightweight top ten is simple now: who wants to be the first ranked opponent to find out whether he can do that for five full rounds?