MMA News

Tom Taylor - March 15, 2018

Last week, we learned that UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley had offered to help undefeated boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. prepare for his much-discussed move to MMA. Speaking to TMZ this week, Mayweather confirmed that he plans to take Woodley up on this offer. “I’m going to start soon,” Mayweather said (h/t MMAJunkie). “We’ve been texting back and forth. We talked a couple times, but we’re going to start working out real soon.”

Tom Taylor - March 15, 2018

Fabricio Werdum, who takes on Alexander Volkov in the main event of the UFC’s Saturday night return to London, England, recently almost had his nose broken by legendary heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson. The former UFC heavyweight champion Werdum recounted this wild story in an interview with TMZ. Apparently, it went down on the set of the movie Kickboxer: Retaliation. The former UFC heavyweight champ was running through a fight scene with Tyson, during which Tyson inadvertently blasted him in the nose with one of his devastating punches.

Tom Taylor - March 15, 2018

The UFC’s return to London, which is headlined by a heavyweight tilt between Fabricio Werdum and Alexander Volkov, and co-headlined by a light heavyweight rematch between Jimi Manuwa and Jan Blachowicz, is now just days away. With the card just around the corner, the many fighters on the bill are all getting their weight cuts underway, hitting the sauna and depriving themselves of any real quantities of food or water. Unfortunately, they’re also required to engage in a bevy of media obligations as they attempt the shed the remaining pounds required for their fights.

Tom Taylor - March 15, 2018

Yesterday, we got an interesting look into Tony Ferguson’s UFC 223 training camp, as the interim lightweight champ shared a video of himself kicking a steel pipe to condition his shins. While his opponent Khabib Nurmagomedov doesn’t seem to be getting quite as –  er… innovative – with his training, it looks like he’s killing it in the gym all the same. On Wednesday afternoon, the undefeated lightweight contender shared some images from his training camp. According to these post, he’s been drilling Cain Velasquez style wrestling, and sparring in standard-size MMA gloves (rather than bag gloves).

Drake Riggs - March 14, 2018

Daniel Cormier is back! (on @UFCTonight) @dc_mma gives details on season 27 of @ultimatefighter plus explains why he believes he'll be successful vs. @StipeMiocicufc at #UFC226! pic.twitter.com/sBeKziETqD — FOX Sports: UFC (@UFCONFOX) March 15, 2018

Drake Riggs - March 14, 2018

One of the most inspirational and captivating fighters we’ve ever seen has to be “Notorious” Nick Newell. Newell is most well known for being the fighter with one arm. But this hasn’t affected the highly decorated college wrestler what so ever as he’s amassed a professional MMA record of 14-1 with eleven of those wins coming by way of finish(nine submissions, two knockouts).

Drake Riggs - March 14, 2018

The twenty-four-year-old undefeated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu phenom, Mackenzie Dern finally made her UFC debut earlier this month when she defeated Ashley Yoder at UFC 222 by split decision. With a UFC return to Brazil on the horizon, Dern made it very clear that she wanted to get on the card if possible. And that appears to be the case. MMABrasil reports that Dern’s sophomore appearance in the UFC will come against The Ultimate Fighter season 23 finalist, Amanda Cooper on May 12th.

Justin Golightly - March 14, 2018

Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum will attempt to improve his two-fight win streak this Saturday against Alexander Volkov. It’ll be his journey back to the title, which is well underway. He’s on the up and up as a whole recently. He had a meeting with the WWE, he got his UFC Spanish commentary gig back, now he’s shooting his shot to try and get on UFC 226 with a win at UFC London. “I’m very happy to have my commentator job back. I love doing it in Spanish since I’m fluent. I lived in Spain for several years. I have a Spanish passport. So I enjoy it. I have a lot of fans who were very happy to see me back in the booth. I received thousands of notes supporting me. Latin Americans, also in the United States, supported by return.”

Justin Golightly - March 14, 2018

We hope you’re tip-toeing into this article and holding your breath alongside of us. This is the fourth time we’ve been through a fight booked between Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov. Every time, we get our hopes up on the best lightweight fight in the world and we end up screaming and crying that it never happens. That’s not stopping Ferguson from implementing his hard body training to prepare for his biggest test yet. Although, fans may be scared to watch the footage. Time For Some Body Conditioning. Ya’ll Don’t Know Shit About That, Except My Hardcore. Shoutout To My H.C. I Ain’t Changing One Bit. #Squad

Tom Taylor - March 14, 2018

Over the last few weeks, the MMA world has been abuzz about a potential trilogy fight between former UFC middleweight champions Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold. Yet while the beef between these two former champions is clearly still sizzling, Bisping isn’t sure it’s a fight he wants. In fact, he’s not even sure he’ll ever fight again. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to fight again,” Bisping said on his Believe You Me podcast (via MMANytt). “I was going to fight in London, which is happening this weekend. I was supposed to fight but we couldn’t get the deal done and now it’s giving me more time to reflect. I don’t know, maybe I will, maybe I won’t [fight again].”

Justin Golightly - March 14, 2018

You may not know who John Phillips is, but chances are you will after UFC London this weekend. He’s been waiting for his shot at the UFC for over a year now. With his UFC debut mere days away, Phillips can finally say he’s made it to the big leagues after successful fights in Cage Warriors and BAMMA. So where is a guy who is about to fight for the biggest MMA organization in the world staying? In a caravan parked in his coach’s yard. “When I first came over [to Ireland] I stayed in an Airbnb. It cost me a lot of money and I couldn’t really afford it if I was going to be here full time. […] I came up with a plan that I would sell my jeep and buy a mobile home. […] It was actually okay for a day or two. I guess when most people use this kind of living space they’re on holidays. They’re out for the whole day with the missus and they only have to come home and sleep in it — they only spend a very short amount of time in it. I was in that f-ckin’ thing for three months solid. I could’ve done more research. I just got a van that I liked the look of.”

Justin Golightly - March 14, 2018

We’re all waiting for it. We all believe it’s the only fight for the UFC to make right now. Yet, there has been little progress made in getting a fight with TJ Dillashaw done since Demetrious Johnson revealed they were in negotiations. Both fighters were holding out for the best deal, but it seems like the UFC is hesitant. The UFC flyweight champion’s reaction? He just shrugged like when the UFC threatened to close his division the last time he tried to negotiate. If the TJ Dillashaw fight doesn’t go down, he’ll fight whoever is next in line and move on. “At the end of the day, UFC is a business. TJ [Dillashaw] obviously just won the belt and he’s been the champ for maybe five or six months, and so there’s still a line of contenders he could fight in the division. You have your Dominick Cruz, Jimmie Rivera, the Cody Garbrandt rematch, so they have options for that one. Whereas for me, I have options as well and rematches and whatever. But I think TJ wants this fight because it is probably a bigger paycheck for him, and hopefully for me too, so we’ll see what the UFC wants to do.”

Justin Golightly - March 14, 2018

When Andre Soukhamthath took a one-legged Sean O’Malley down in their UFC 222 fight, he probably didn’t even think about it. He was just going off of instinct. It cost him the fight, but the punches keep coming long after that bell rang. People have been trolling the UFC fighter relentlessly since then and haven’t let up yet. He’s got so much abuse that he’s decided to take a leave of absence from social media.

Tom Taylor - March 14, 2018

On January 20, in the main event of UFC 220, hulking French-Cameroonian knockout artist Francis Ngannou stepped into the Octagon to challenge Stipe Miocic for the UFC heavyweight title. Though Ngannou entered this contest with mountains of hype attached to his name, he was blown out of the water by the champion, losing a lopsided unanimous decision after five, lopsided rounds. In the wake of this loss, Ngannou promised to learn from the experience and come back stronger – after a brief hiatus, during which time he planned to reconnect with family.

Tom Taylor - March 14, 2018

Over the years, we’ve heard several Brazilian fighters express disinterest in fighting their fellow Brazilians. This is not to suggest Brazilian vs. Brazilian matchups don’t happen – they certainly do – but there seem to be a few fighters from the country who frown on fighting their countrymen. UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes doesn’t seem to be one of these fighters. Though Nunes is currently signed to take on Raquel Pennington at UFC 224 this May, there has recently been much discussion surrounding a potential fight between her and women’s featherweight champ Cris Cyborg – a fellow Brazilian.

Tom Taylor - March 14, 2018

Conor McGregor isn’t the only UFC champion to star in a commercial for a major brand. Days after McGregor’s Burger King ad hit our screens, a Modelo beer commercial starring UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic has begun making the rounds. Miocic’s Modelo commercial comes a few months after the UFC inked a multi-year deal with the beer company. Miocic is the first of what we can assume will be multiple fighters to star in Modelo beer ads. See the champs’s ad, which focuses on his background, in the video at the top of this post.

Tom Taylor - March 14, 2018

Back at UFC 219, which went down on December 30 of 2017, Team Alpha Male strawweight prospect Cynthia Calvillo lost a close decision to former champion Carla Esparza. Regrettably, things went from bad to worse for Calvillo from there, as we learned that she failed an in-competition drug test, testing positive for the dreaded marijuana metabolites. Earlier this month, Calvillo received her USADA administered suspension for this offense. The Agency hit her with a six-month suspension, which could have been reduced to three months had she completed a “drug awareness and management program.” This meant she could have returned to action as soon as March 30.

Drake Riggs - March 13, 2018

Former UFC and Strikeforce middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold has made it pretty clear who he’s interested in fighting next and has plenty of confidence that he’ll get the job done if he gets it. That fight being the trilogy fight between him and fellow former UFC champion, Michael “the Count” Bisping. In all of Bisping’s career, he has only rematched two people and he’s won them both. One of those was against Rockhold, who defeated Bisping the first time they met at UFC Fight Night 55 in 2014 by second-round submission.