Former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub found himself at the center of another internet controversy after Brazilian MMA competitor Renato Moicano delivered a critique of his podcasting and comedy abilities during an appearance on the Ariel Helwani show.
The beef originated from Schaub’s criticism of Moicano’s decision to reject a $200,000 settlement from the UFC’s class action lawsuit. The lawsuit accused the UFC of monopolistic practices to suppress fighter pay. It resulted in a $375 million settlement split among competitors from December 2010 through June 2017.
While most competitors accepted their portions, Moicano declined on principle. He stated that he didn’t want to implicitly agree that the UFC was a monopoly or that he was underpaid early in his career.
Schaub dedicated significant airtime on The Fighter and the Kid podcast to criticizing Moicano’s decision, calling him “dumb” and suggesting his handlers failed to explain the situation properly. He argued that rejecting the money showed poor business sense and wouldn’t earn Moicano any goodwill with UFC brass.
Moicano’s response was swift and brutal. During his Helwani show appearance, the Brazilian didn’t just defend his position – he went directly after Schaub’s entertainment ventures. “If you think I’m dumb, think about the people that watch the Brendan Schaub show on YouTube, the comedy special – that’s terrible,” Moicano said. “Even I can do better than that, brother. And I don’t even speak English and I can be funnier than you, my brother.”
The comment struck a nerve with Schaub, who spent considerable time on a subsequent podcast episode attempting to downplay the criticism while simultaneously addressing it in detail. Schaub’s response included arguments about response timeframes, claiming Moicano took too long to reply and had therefore missed his window to engage in the beef.
“You can’t wait 10 days to respond,” Schaub argued. “I’ve moved on. When someone hits me up like, ‘Oh, Moicano’s taking shots,’ I went, ‘What? Who? About what? I’ve moved on, dude.'”
Despite claiming to have “moved on,” Schaub proceeded to dissect Moicano’s comments line by line, suggesting the Brazilian fighter’s team used “chat GPT” to formulate responses and criticizing everything from the platform choice to the timing of the rebuttal.
The situation highlighted Schaub’s tendency to escalate conflicts while claiming indifference – a pattern observers have noted in previous feuds with figures like Nate Diaz.
His co-host Brian Callen attempted to interject with logic during the discussion. He suggested that Moicano might have simply been responding to questions rather than specifically targeting Schaub. However, Callen was quickly shut down.
