Renato ‘Moicano’ Injured, Out of UFC Fight Night 223 Headliner vs. Arman Tsarukyan

About two weeks ahead of the Ultimate Fighting Championship card at the end of April, its headliner is in jeopardy.

The news first broke from MMA Junkie on Thursday, where Renato Carneiro (17-5-1) has suffered an undisclosed injury. His lightweight match atop UFC Fight Night 223 against Arman Tsarukyan (19-3) is off, and there is no current word of a replacement. The co-headliner for this April 29 event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas is currently Caio Borralho vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk at 185 pounds. The injury and subsequent withdrawal have since been confirmed by other outlets.

“Moicano” was looking to get back in the cage again for the first time since November 2022, when he tapped out Brad Riddell to bounce back from a one-sided defeat to Rafael dos Anjos earlier that year. Dating back the last five years, every victory inside the Octagon for Carneiro has come by rear-naked choke. The six performed by Carneiro in the UFC have him tied with Charles Oliveira for the third-most in company, with only Kenny Florian (seven) and Demian Maia (eight) above them.

Just like Carneiro, Tsarukyan was aiming to put himself on a win streak with a victory in the UFC Fight Night 223 headliner. The Russian made his promotional debut in 2019 on short notice against future champ Islam Makhachev, losing a decision. Tsarukyan then strung together five straight wins, including knockouts of Christo Giagos and Joel Alvarez, to put himself in the lightweight contender discussion. While he lost his next outing to Mateusz Gamrot, in December, Tsarukyan righted the ship by claiming a decision over Damir Ismagulov.

UFC Fight Night 223 on April 29 will go down inside of the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, and the current headliner is still up in the air. Beyond the co-main attraction of Borralho-Oleksiejczuk, the main card consists of a middleweight affair pitting Rodolfo Vieira against Cody Brundage, a strawweight scrap when Emily Ducote meets Polyana Viana, a heavyweight slobberknocker between Marcos Rogerio de Lima and Waldo Cortes-Acosta and a 170-pound contest when Josh Quinlan takes on Ange Loosa.