LOS ANGELES – In July 2017, at UFC 214, Renato Moicano was handed his first career loss. As far as roads to recovery go, though, his has been quite a textbook one.

After the loss to Brian Ortega (14-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC), Moicano packed up and relocated from his native Brasilia to Florida, where he’s now training at American Top Team. Whatever they did there seemed to work, as he’s now back on a two-fight winning streak.

The wins were emphatic: First, Moicano (25-10 MMA, 10-6 UFC) took a unanimous call over Calvin Kattar and, on Saturday, a first-round submission of a battle-tested veteran in Cub Swanson (25-10 MMA, 10-6 UFC) in the pay-per-view main card of UFC 227.

After the biggest win of his career, Moicano has a an idea as to what would make sense next. And while it’s ambitious, it’s not entirely unreasonable.

“I think Brian Ortega,” Moicano said backstage at Staples Center. “Because my only loss is to Brian Ortega. I think Frankie Edgar has a fight. And (champ Max) Holloway can’t fight. (Jeremy) Stephens lost to Jose Aldo, so I think a good matchup is me and Ortega.”

If that could be for the interim belt, Moicano added when asked, that would just be a “dream come true.”

Of course, there’s still a lot to be hashed out there. Ortega, as we know, was supposed to have met Holloway for the 145-pound belt at UFC 226, but then health concerns forced Hollloway out. The champ has recently given an update on his status, saying that doctors haven’t quite figured out what went wrong to create his concussion-like symptoms, but that he wasn’t “worried” about his fighting future and spoke of possibly returning later this year.

Ortega, in the meantime, remains unbooked, and had said that he’s going to wait for a title fight – which he hopes happens to be against Holloway. Edgar, as Moicano said, has a fight scheduled, against Chan Sung Jung, and Stephens suffered a TKO loss to ex-champ Jose Aldo in the first-round of their recent encounter.

So there’s plenty to unfold before we know if Moicano will get his wish. But you can’t blame a guy for trying, especially after it’s worked out so well for him; Swanson, as we know, was also the product of a call-out – one that Swanson picked out of a long line to answer.

As far as that goes, though, Moicano would like to clarify: He never meant any disrespect when he asked Swanson to tango. The call-out, he explained, was merely the product of his assessment of what made sense for him to ascend in the UFC’s 135-pound division.

In fact, Moicano has a ton of respect for Swanson and wanted to show it directly to his opponent by going down on his knees instead of instantly celebrating his massive win.

“I say to everybody, I’m a big fan of Cub Swanson,” Moicano said. “Not only Cub Swanson, but all top-5 fighters. I watch this guys a long time and a fight with a guy like Cub is great.”

For more from Moicano, check out the video above.

And for complete coverage of UFC 227, check out the UFC Events section of the site.