MMA News

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

The next big event for the UFC is UFC 223 on April 7th when they return to the state of New York for the seventh time. New York is the newest state to legalize MMA and we’ve gone through some definite growing pains since the first show after legalization in November of 2016. The most notable incidents would be at UFC 208, which also took place in Brooklyn, when Holly Holm took on Germaine de Randamie in the main event for the inaugural women’s featherweight title.

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).

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

There was a lot of history made at UFC 222 a couple of weeks ago. Frankie Edgar was not only finished for the first time in his epic career, but it was the first time he wasn’t able to stop a contender from getting past him at featherweight. Most of the time ‘gatekeeper’ is used as an insult regarding fighting, but Edgar literally held the key for years, only beaten by Jose Aldo himself in the division. With his second belt seemingly out of reach now, coach Mark Henry would love to see Edgar at bantamweight fighting for a title. “I’ll tell you one thing: I would love to see Frankie [Edgar] fight at 135. Every time Frankie has fought somebody his own size, he’s done very well. I re-watched the fight for the first time this weekend, and all these people had tweeted about how much bigger Brian [Ortega] looked. I watched it and said, ‘Holy cow, he was a lot bigger.’ It’s tough when you’re giving up size, height and range. Frankie got caught as he overstepped. He paid the price, but that’s what you have to do to compensate for that range. You have to come hard.”

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

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.”

Tom Taylor - March 14, 2018

Former UFC middleweight champions Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold – who have fought twice previously – have had plenty to say to each other on social media of late. Rockhold fired the first shot in this latest skirmish, and Bisping was quick to respond.

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

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

On April 7, in the main event of UFC 223, UFC interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson and undefeated contender Khabib Nurmagomedov will battle for the UFC lightweight title. The understanding is that Conor McGregor, who currently wears the UFC lightweight title, will be stripped somewhere in the immediate buildup to the UFC 223 event. According to Tony Ferguson, however, he and Nurmagomedov will not be battling for the vacant lightweight title. Instead, he claims that this fight will serve as his first title defense. If this is true, the implication is that, once McGregor is stripped, Ferguson will promptly be promoted to undisputed champion, and Nurmagomedov will challenge him for this title.

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.

Drake Riggs - March 13, 2018

Very few matchups have people buzzing so early as the next featherweight title fight between champion, Max Holloway and red-hot contender, Brian Ortega. The hype began as soon as Ortega iced his short notice opponent, Frankie Edgar at UFC 222 in the very first round, making him the first and only man to ever finish ‘the Answer’.

Drake Riggs - March 13, 2018

The UFC crowned their first ever female flyweight champion last December when capping off season 26 of The Ultimate Fighter. Of the sixteen competitors, the #14 seeded underdog, Nicco Montano would come out the victor by defeating all of the top three seeds on her way to doing so. Since Montano defeated seasoned veteran and pioneer, Roxanne Modaferri to win the title, Montano has been battling a very bad case of arthritic turf toe on top of a fracture in her foot that almost prevented her from even fighting for the title.