The bout between Moicano and Saint Denis may feature a pair of fighters outside the Top 10, but the lightweight division is in a curious spot at the moment. Seven of the top 10 fighters are coming off losses, and the only matchup between Top 10 fighters on the books is a rematch between Michael Chandler and Charles Oliveira at UFC 309. That means, inherently, that the winner on September 28 could find themselves just a win or two away from title contention.
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Stylistically, the fight is intriguing. Both men love to pressure and march forward to initiate the action, and they’re comfortable doing so in part because they’re highly skilled in the grappling arena. Saint Denis is a black belt in judo and has won gi and no-gi jiu jitsu competitions in France before moving to mixed martial arts. Of his 13 professional wins, nine came via submission. That does, however, play into Moicano’s strengths as a jiu jitsu black belt. All but one of Moicano’s finishes came via submission. In fact, his first knockout win came in his most-recent outing at UFC 300 when he came back to defeat Turner in the second round.
The Paris crowd is certainly primed to see fun grappling exchanges and scrambles, but both men are also prone to sitting in the pocket and slugging it out. Either way, the collisions will come frequently, and the pace of the fight is certainly going to be a breakneck one with so much on the line in The City of Light.
