Outside Source
Renato “Money Moicano” Carneiro will take plenty of momentum into his showdown with Beneil Dariush at UFC 311.
Advertisement
The Brazilian standout has won his last four Octagon appearances and is coming off a second-round stoppage of Benoit St. Denis at UFC Paris this past September. Even though he’s already enjoyed plenty of success, Dariush would be Carneiro’s most significant victory to date.
“St. Denis was also a good grappler, but I believe Dariush is even better, so I believe that fight will go to the ground,” Moicano recently told Sherdog.com while declining to predict a clear method of victory.
“I’ll knock him out, submit him or win via decision. I don’t know. I’m just sure that I´m in a great position, and I´ll leave that Octagon with another win.”
The American Top Team representative also doesn’t have a callout in mind should he get his hand raised on Saturday night at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.
“I don’t care about names,” he said. “I want fights that will bring me more financial return. ‘Moicano’ wants money.”
The lightweight division features plenty of talented grapplers, and Carneiro, who is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, pointed to the top of the weight class when selecting who he feels is the best.
“The grappling concept is pretty wide,” Carneiro said. “But concerning MMA and the last fights among ranked lightweights, it has to be Islam [Makhachev], Charles [Oliveira] and [Arman] Tsarukyan. If Khabib was still active, I would put him in first place.”
Tsarukyan, another ATT product, will challenge Makhachev for lightweight gold in the UFC 311 headliner. While they’re from the same gym, Carneiro revealed that he didn’t work with Tsarukyan this time around.
“We trained a long time ago — not this time,” he said. “But I was able to see a lot of his sparring and I can tell he is in great shape.”
However, Carneiro would not go so far as to give his ATT stablemate the nod over Makhachev.
“Tsarukyan is coming well prepared, but unfortunately Islam is way bigger, heavier and has a better wrestling skill, so I think he is the favorite,” Carneiro said. “But in a five-round MMA fight, anything can happen. Arman did his homework and is coming in great shape and can surprise the champion.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
Help support MMACrazies.com when you shop Amazon by starting your online Amazon shopping at MMACrazies.com/recommends/amazon. You are not charged extra, but we receive a small and very helpful commission on everything you purchase. Thanks for thinking of us every time you shop at Amazon.
