After Saturday's UFC Vegas 123 Main Event, McCarthy Says Miragliotta Gave Nolan an Unfair Advantage

After Saturday's main event at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas, the story of UFC Fight Night 292 — also billed as UFC Vegas 123 — is no longer only about who won. It is about how the winner got his chance.

After Saturday's fight, Tom Nolan left with a third-round stoppage win over Renato Moicano, a six-fight winning streak and a callout of Mateusz Gamrot. After Saturday's fight, Moicano left with a third loss in four fights, a blunt message for referee Dan Miragliotta — and, notably, no plan to appeal the result.

What happened after Saturday's second round

After Saturday's opening rounds, the pattern was clear. Moicano had taken Nolan down in the first round, taken his back and controlled long stretches. In the second round, the same grappling threat returned: Moicano again secured back control and locked in a body triangle, alternating strikes with attempts to find an angle for a rear-naked choke, a finish he has used repeatedly in his career.

After roughly eight seconds of a brief stall, according to MMA Junkie, Miragliotta stood the fighters up. Moicano did not protest loudly in the moment, but the broadcast team and much of the MMA world reacted immediately. The criticism was not that a stand-up is never allowed; it was that this position — back control with a body triangle — is one of the most dominant positions in the sport, and Moicano had earned it.

Moments later, Nolan hurt Moicano late in the second round and seized the momentum. In the third, he kept the pressure on and finished Moicano with punches at 1:28, improving to 12-1 in MMA and 6-1 in the UFC. Moicano fell to 21-8-1 in MMA and 13-8 in the UFC. Nothing about that sequence erases Nolan's finish — but it does explain why, after Saturday's fight, the second-round stand-up has become the central talking point.

Why John McCarthy says the stand-up changed the fight

On November 2, longtime referee John McCarthy addressed the controversy on the Weighing In podcast, which he hosts with former fighter Josh Thomson. His verdict was blunt: Miragliotta had changed the outcome, and the reason — even if it was simply a desire for more action — did not justify the call.

"When you look at why did Dan stand them up, I think Dan looked at it as, 'We've had this position now a good portion of this fight and nothing's happened – let's get some action into it,'" McCarthy said.

"He stands them up, and it's completely unfair to one fighter – Moicano. Moicano earned that position. He worked for that position. It's not an easy position to get to, and once he gets to it, it's his to have."

McCarthy also rejected the idea that a referee should intervene to rescue entertainment value. In his words, a referee cannot make a bad fight good, but can definitely make a good fight bad. Nolan, he argued, was given opportunities to escape a position he should have had to escape on skill alone — and that, McCarthy said, was an unfair advantage, even though he believed Miragliotta was not trying to be unfair.

McCarthy further challenged the suggestion that Moicano was stalling. Pointing to the final minute before the stand-up, he noted Moicano had thrown roughly 20 to 25 strikes while working for a finish — looking for the shot that would force Nolan into a mistake and open the choke. That detail matters, because a stand-up is supposed to follow inactivity, not interrupt a fighter who is actively hunting a finish from a dominant position.

Moicano's response after Saturday's loss: anger, accountability, no appeal

After Saturday's loss, Moicano did not wait for others to speak for him. Speaking to MMA Fighting, he said the stand-up caught him by surprise because he did not remember receiving a warning to increase his activity — and he added that he had never heard of anyone being stood up from mount or from someone's back.

"I was a little frustrated with the referee standing the fight up," Moicano said. "It caught me by surprise when he said, 'Stand up.' I don't remember him giving me any warnings… But I clearly lost focus, I was clearly frustrated, and I got caught with some shots afterward."

What comes next after Saturday's main event

After Saturday's win, Nolan's next step is already taking shape: he called out Mateusz Gamrot, a grappling-heavy test that would show whether his six-fight winning streak can carry him into the lightweight top 10. BJPenn, meanwhile, suggested Moicano — now a gatekeeper after three losses in four fights — could face Esteban Ribovics in a last chance to prove he remains a contender.

That contrast is the lasting picture after Saturday's card. In the co-main event, Jacobe Smith beat Randy Brown by unanimous decision, 30-26 on all three scorecards, to move to 14-0. Yet the night will be remembered less for that dominance than for a single refereeing decision — and for a loser who, after Saturday's defeat, blamed himself first and refused to appeal.