A pair of featherweight contenders looking to get back on track will headline the first ever UFC card from South Carolina as Renato Moicano meets “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung on Saturday night. Moicano has put together an impressive 5-2 resume in the UFC with his only losses coming to former champion Jose Aldo and recent title challenger Brian Ortega. Meanwhile, Jung will attempt to rebound following a shocking knockout loss to Yair Rodriguez in his last outing. After winning the majority of the 25-minute battle, Jung got caught with an elbow that cost him the fight with just one second left on the clock. Consistently known as one of the most exciting fighters on the entire UFC roster, Jung will definitely want to erase the bad memory of that night when he steps back into the Octagon to face Moicano. With both fighters having something to prove after those recent losses, expect Moicano and Jung to unleash the fireworks when they clash. 

The 29-year old North Carolina native earned his contract with the UFC following a rousing third round TKO over Don’Tale Mayes on Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series in 2017. Unfortunately, Crowder came up short in his UFC debut when he was toppled by Justin Willis via first-round knockout.

He then returned in January with a high-profile fight against former NFL defensive standout Greg Hardy and Crowder finally started to show some of his potential. 

Crowder got the better of Hardy during most of the exchanges, but as the second round got underway, he began running out of steam and what he believed should have been a completely dominant performance soon became a competitive fight. Unfortunately, the fight ended after Hardy unleashed an illegal knee strike that ended Crowder’s night. 

“I took that fight [against Greg Hardy], I had just got over a knee injury and I took that fight on about six weeks’ notice so I wasn’t in the best of shape,” Crowder explained. “My cardio was definitely better than his. 

“Going into the second round, I should have got my hips in a little bit tighter, a little bit closer when I was going for the takedown. Once I got the fight down to the ground, I would have finished the fight there. Little mistakes, little details I needed to improve on.”

He got the win but it definitely wasn’t the way Crowder wanted to earn his first UFC victory, which is why he’s more motivated than ever before as he prepares to return to action this weekend at UFC Fight Night from Greenville, South Carolina.

Ideally, Crowder would have returned sooner just to wash the bad taste of that last performance from his mouth, but the timing actually ended up benefitting him. Crowder was able to get some work in with new coaches while also traveling a bit before settling back down to prepare to fight in front of an almost home audience with his North Carolina home just a few hours away. 

“I wanted to fight a little sooner but things were adding up and then I ended up getting a new coach to help out with my other two coaches and they wanted to work on some things,” Crowder stated. “Just trying to improve upon a few things and then we ended up getting the South Carolina fight, which I’m excited about. 

“It’s close to my hometown. I’m only like three hours away from my hometown so I’ve got a lot of friends and supporters coming out to cheer me on so I’m really excited about that. I would have liked to fight sooner but I’m happy with the way it all worked out.”

To get what he will consider his first real win in the UFC, Crowder will have to hand undefeated heavyweight prospect Jairzinho Rozenstruik the first loss of his career. 

Rozenstruik made his debut in February, when he finished Junior Albini with a second round knockout to bring his record to 7-0 overall. As impressive as that finish may have been, Crowder knows that anybody in the heavyweight division is capable of that kind of knockout with a single punch compounded by a bad mistake. 

“Any man over 230 pounds, if they touch your face you’re going to go to sleep,” Crowder said. “You can’t make no mistakes. If you make one little mistake, one little slip up, I mean take that Derrick Lewis fight with [Alexander] Volkov — Volkov was winning that fight all three rounds, the last 10 seconds Derrick Lewis knocked him out. It don’t take nothing but that one mistake and it will ruin your whole night.

“He’s got some heavy hands. I look forward to this fight. A win over this guy is going to push me closer to getting a fight against somebody in the top 10 and help me solidify my spot here in the UFC.”

As dangerous as Rozenstruik may be on the feet, Crowder sees glaring weaknesses in other aspects of his game and that’s where he plans to take advantage. 

“I’m definitely better on the ground than he is. I didn’t see any kind of ground game,” Crowder said. “My end goal is I want to knock him out. I also feel like my striking is better. I’m setting out to prove that.  

“I’ve been working on my striking a lot since the Greg Hardy fight. I’ve actually gained like 10 or 15 pounds since then. My conditioning is better. I’m feeling really good right now and I want to go and get that highlight reel knockout, get that $50,000 bonus and take my family on a good vacation.”

If all goes well on Saturday night, Crowder would love to take that vacation with his family and then return in hopes that he can finally settle the score with Hardy once and for all. 
He doesn’t hold any ill will towards him for the way the first fight ended, but he still didn’t feel satisfied when it was over and that needs to be rectified. 

“I’d love to run it back again,” Crowder said about Hardy. “His name, that would probably be a main event fight if we get that one lined back up. So I hope we get to do it again. I plan on finishing this guy right here off and he (Hardy) has got one lined up [in July] and I hope he wins that one and we can run it back again.”

First it was when he won the Legacy Fighting Championship featherweight title by defeating Tony Kelley, pushing his record to 11-1 in the process. Then came the win over Damon Jackson, the former champion who had earned consecutive wins since returning to the promotion following a three-fight run in the UFC.

Next it was a unanimous decision win over Justin Rader, and when he knocked out former Ultimate Fighter contestant and Tuesday Night Contender Series alum Than Le in the first round, snapping Le’s eight-fight winning streak in the process, it felt like a certainty that the talented competitor fighting out of Longview, Texas would graduate to the big leagues.

But the call never came.

“For a moment there, I was getting bummed out like, ‘Dang — why don’t they like me? Why don’t they want me?’” admitted Aguilar, reflecting on his days positioned atop the featherweight division in one of the premier regional promotions in the sport. “I was just beating myself up, asking myself a lot of questions like, ‘What am I doing wrong? Who more can I beat?’ over and over again.

“At the end of it, I just needed my window, my chance, my opportunity, so when they called me for the Contender Series on short notice, I knew immediately I had to take it.”

Last summer, Aguilar was called to replace Rafael Fiziev in a main event assignment on Week 4 of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series.

Combined with his LFA bona fides, it felt like the opportunity Aguilar needed to finally secure a place on the UFC roster. Although he walked away with a split decision victory over Joey Gomez in an entertaining back-and-forth fight, his name wasn’t called and Aguilar was headed back to the regional circuit, though he viewed the entire experience as a huge positive.

“It was an opportunity for me to step in front of the UFC brass and show out,” he said of the win over Gomez. “They saw that I could step in short notice, any moment in time and be ready to put on a good show. I was okay with it (going back to the regional circuit) because I got to show out in front of them on short notice, up a weight class and it was a great experience.”

It also proved to be the face-to-face introduction he needed because a few months later, the UFC needed a featherweight to step in against Rick Glenn and Aguilar was there to pick up the phone, agree on the spot and ship up to Las Vegas at the end of November, where he registered a unanimous decision win in his promotional debut.

Four months later, “The Angel of Death” made his sophomore appearance in the Octagon, getting the best of underrated Peruvian featherweight Enrique Barzola, who entered on a four-fight winning streak.

After years of wondering if his time was ever going to come, Aguilar is now established as a full-time member of the UFC featherweight division, but don’t think for a minute that he’s gotten complacent or experienced a change in mindset now that he’s won a couple fights in the UFC.

“Honestly, for me, I’m never comfortable with it,” he said, who makes his third foray into the Octagon this weekend in Greenville, South Carolina against fellow Contender Series alum Dan Ige. “I’m always going to be hungry and chasing it. I’m not comfortable right now. I want to have more fights.

“I’m winding down to the end of my contract — I want to renegotiate after I go in there and beat Dan Ige and I want to keep going. I don’t want to stop. I’m getting fights consistently and that’s how I want to keep it, but that’s just me.”

It’s a mindset and approach forged by a desire to be the greatest fighter in the sport and fueled by a history of defying the odds.

“I’m in it to be the best in the world — that was my mindset from Day One and it’s my mindset now,” said Aguilar, who can push his winning streak to double digits with a victory on Saturday night at Bon Secours Wellness Arena. “I want to be the greatest fighter ever.

“If you’re jumping into MMA thinking, ‘I’m going to give it a shot,’ that’s the wrong mindset. You have to want to get punched in the face, kicked, choked, beat up, exhausted; you have to want all that and that’s what I want every day.

“All these guys that stand in front of me, they think they’re better than me,” he added. “They’re highly ranked and they think they’re going to win; I’m always the underdog too. Even as the champion back in LFA, I was always the underdog — against Thanh Le, against Damon Jackson, against Justin Rader — and I came out on top every time.”

Despite all his success, the 30-year-old emerging talent maintains a very simple and straightforward approach, offering a variation on the “every fight, I’m 0-0” line of thinking offered by the man who currently sits atop the featherweight division, Max Holloway.

“Every fight is the next special fight,” said Aguilar. “(In terms of being 17-1 and potentially having a nine-fight winning streak) Those are great numbers, but I don’t even really think about them too often; I just think about the next opponent in front of me. Every opponent I face, I see them as the world champion.

“Dan Ige is the champion right now and I have to go beat him.”

Much like Holloway and many other fan favorites, there is something naturally exciting about the way Aguilar fights and his ability to turn every appearance into an entertaining scrap.

“I’ve got to go out there and put on a great show, but in doing so, I tend to stay pretty traditional,” he said of his fan-friendly approach inside the cage. “I don’t get flashy, I don’t throw my hands up and taunt; I let my natural fighting instincts make things exciting. I’m still composed and my expression never changes because my natural instincts and abilities will make it Fight of the Night without any of that added foolishness. My grit and hardcore approach is going to make it Fight of the Night.”

And that’s exactly how he sees things playing out with Ige on Saturday night.

“I honestly didn’t know much about Dan, but my coach said he’s a young, hungry, talented guy and he thinks he can beat you, so I was like, ‘Sign me up. Let’s go!’” admitted Aguilar. “But if we’re both hungry and we’re both out there for the same reasons, it’s going to be the best fight of the night, if not the whole year.”