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.