MMA News

Tom Taylor - January 9, 2018

2017 was a crazy year for MMA. We witnessed perhaps the greatest submission ever, courtesy of flyweight champ Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. We were dazzled by some truly ridiculous knockouts, many of which happened to be dealt with knees. We enjoyed some thrilling, back-and-forth fights. We watched the meteoric rises of fighters like Max Holloway, Francis Ngannou and Volkan Oezdemir. No matter how you swing it, 2017 was a wild one for our sport. The crazy nature of the year 2017 is perfectly exemplified in the video at the top of this post (via Reddit user mikehutch) which shows the procession of insane shakeups and adjustments the UFC welterweight division experienced over the course of the year. Contenders rose and fell. Long-time staples of the top-10 like Carlos Condit and Dong Hyun Kim made their inevitable exits from the rankings, while a handful of talented young fighters like Colby Covington, Darren Till and Kamaru Usman shoehorned themselves into the division’s uppermost echelon… Relive it all by watching the video above.

Russell Sai - January 9, 2018

Nate Diaz has helped mold the fight game with his brutal honesty and never shying away from how he feels. In fact, the younger Diaz brother was the catalyst to make some changes to the UFC and the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) regulations, according to UFC Vice President of Athletic Health and Performance Jeff Novitzky.

Justin Golightly - January 9, 2018

Suddenly, it’s UFC 218 déjà vu all over again. Max Holloway was supposed to defend his UFC featherweight title against Frankie Edgar, but instead he went back-to-back against Jose Aldo. Not wasting any time, Holloway is determined to keep his promise of fighting every contender in line. His fight with Edgar has been re-booked for UFC 222. 12 straight wins later, Holloway is hoping that Frankie Edgar is the test that everyone keeps saying that he’ll fail. “[The UFC] needed a fight for Vegas and I’ve been asking to fight there. I also have a lot of questions and I heard [Frankie Edgar] got answers. We’re going to find out March 3rd. I can’t wait for this fight. Things happen and we didn’t get to fight the first time around, so I think it only makes sense to bring it back and do it. […] There’s a lot of history between [Edgar] and Hawaiian fighters. I’m going out there to bring one back home, and hopefully next time the UFC will bring my ass all the way back home. Fighting out in the ninth island of Las Vegas is nice, but I want to fight in Hawaii. First thing is first, and ‘The Answer’ is back up, and I got questions for the man. Let’s see if he can answer them for me.”

Russell Sai - January 9, 2018

Earlier this month, news surfaced that Bellator MMA had parted ways with long-time color commentator Jimmy Smith. They’ve already filled the void Smith left behind, and with a pretty surprising name: Big John McCarthy, legendary mixed martial arts referee. The promotion announced this interesting addition to their broadcast team in a Tuesday afternoon press release. McCarthy will split his color commentator duties with current Bellator heavyweight Grand Prix contestant Chael Sonnen, while Mauro Ranallo and Mike Goldberg will share play-by-play duties.

Justin Golightly - January 9, 2018

The danger of Francis Ngannou has reached mythic proportions as UFC 220 draws closer and closer. In his short but meteoric rise, Ngannou has become almost a folk hero. His documentary is a crazy eye-opening rags to riches story and we all know by now that he has record-breaking punching power. However, his head coach Fernand Lopez says there are still a lot more that no one has seen yet, from his ground game to even more lethal striking techniques. Quite frankly, he’s afraid of what Ngannou can do to opponents. “I think there are a lot of fighters in the UFC who we’ve never seen the best of because they’ve never had the opportunity to showcase the skills they have. If you’re going to a decision every time you fight, you may have time to show everything, but this guy [Francis Ngannou], he’s spent like one hour in [the cage] his whole career. People really don’t know what this guy can do. Submissions, heel hooks, if you see this guy does a heel hook or guillotine someone, it’s crazy. He’s got a very quick, very nasty guillotine, very nasty heel hook. There are so many skills he can do.”

Tom Taylor - January 9, 2018

The lineup for UFC on Fox 28, which goes down on February 24 in Orlando, Florida, has grown by one interesting bantamweight scrap, as former champion Renan Barao is scheduled to return to action on the card. Barao’s opponent in this fight will be Brian Kelleher.  This bout was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel.

Justin Golightly - January 9, 2018

Out of nearly the entire top 15 of welterweights got booked at the tail end of 2017, one was missing. Darren Till wasn’t able to capitalize off the hype of finishing Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone. He was in talks and rumored to fight everyone and none of them seemed to finalize. Despite Mike Perry losing in his last fight, Till was still open to fight him to build off their UFC Gdansk hollering match, but he’s already got a fight. Which brings us back to Gunnar Nelson. The two verbally agreed to a fight on Twitter in early November and Nelson is wondering what’s up. “I had a little back and forth with Darren Till there online not too long ago and I thought that was going to happen. Well, they haven’t scheduled anything yet, but it looks like he’s calling everyone out. I said I’m here. Nothing’s happening, I don’t know. I’d love that fight. He’s saying he’s not getting any opponents, he’s a good fighter, he’s up there and he’s online saying nobody wants to fight him or whatever, and I said ‘I’m ready’ and that’s it. He’s ranked up there, and I’m willing to fight. He’s good, he’s very good.”

Tom Taylor - January 9, 2018

In an era of combat sports where terms like “super fight” and “money fight” are such popular buzzwords, the UFC has been catching some flack for its matchmaking strategy. The widespread worry is that the promotion is focused on booking the most lucrative fights, rather than fights between the best competitors available. In the opinion of UFC Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Epstein, however, these worries are a little unfounded. Epstein defended the UFC’s matchmaking strategy in a recent chat with ESPN, assuring that it’s still based on competition, not profit.

Tom Taylor - January 9, 2018

Back in the summer of 2016, the UFC was sold to WME-IMG for a whopping 4.2 billion dollars. While this initially looked like a great investment, with fighters like Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey still actively competing, 2017 was a much slower year for the UFC. Conor McGregor didn’t fight at all. Neither did Ronda Rousey. Neither did Brock Lesnar. Jon Jones fought once, but then failed a drug test. Georges St-Pierre fought once, but seems to have re-retired post-fight. You get the picture… According to UFC President Dana White, however, there’s no cause for alarm. In fact, the UFC is still doing great business – such that WME-IMG is probably pretty pleased with their investment.

Drake Riggs - January 8, 2018

To say the least, it’s been an unfortunate way to end a year if you’re Jimmie Rivera. When everything was all announced, he was supposed to take on the former Bantamweight king, Dominick Cruz at UFC 219. That is until Cruz was forced out with a broken arm, continuing his own bad luck. After that, Rivera found a replacement in a fellow top contender, John Lineker. But…of course, Lineker was forced out of a chance at fighting as well when he had to get an emergency surgery done on a tooth infection. This left Rivera with about a week left to find an opponent for the final UFC event of UFC 219. After the UFC looked through many options in and out of the UFC, Marlon Moraes appeared as the front-runner asking for the fight…but on his terms. This led to both men going back and forth on social media trying to settle on a weight to fight at. They couldn’t come to an agreement as Moraes says he was at around 165 lbs during that week making it impossible for him to get to 145 lbs which was the highest weight discussed for the potential fight.

Drake Riggs - January 8, 2018

Nothing is set in stone regarding the UFC’s current Featherweight division. Matter of fact, there has yet to be a UFC Featherweight fight between two fighters that haven’t fought below 140 lbs. There have been three Featherweight fights so far in the UFC. Starting things off with UFC 208, where the inaugural champion was crowned when Germaine De Randamie defeated Holly Holm via unanimous decision. Both fighters were previously Bantamweight contenders before that fight. The second fight was for the vacant title after De Randamie gave up the title making it Cris Cyborg vs Tonya Evinger. Evinger was coming over as the Invicta FC Bantamweight champion, filling in for Invicta’s Featherweight champion, Megan Anderson. And most recently, Cyborg defended her title against Holly Holm at UFC 219. In an effort to break this trend, the champion, Cyborg wants to fight a fighter with a recent win at 145 lbs for her next title defense. Then she will be open to a super fight with the Bantamweight champion, Amanda Nunes who is clamoring for the fight as are the fans. Cyborg had this to say on Twitter in response to Nunes’ coach at American Top Team, Conan Silveira when he said he thinks Nunes vs Cyborg will “1000% happen”.

Russell Sai - January 8, 2018

On Monday, MMA Junkie reported that UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway was set to defend his title against former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar at UFC 222 in March. The official announcement from the UFC came later in the day confirming MMA Junkie’s report. From the UFC:

Drake Riggs - January 8, 2018

Cleveland Ohio’s Stipe Miocic is the UFC Heavyweight champion and along with that comes with the title of “baddest man on the planet”. Hard to argue…Miocic has been pretty bad throughout his career(and by bad I mean very good. Words.). Since losing an all-out war in a competitive fight with Junior Dos Santos in 2014, Miocic has absolutely laid waste to everyone who’s been put in front of him since. But when it comes to his next opponent, Francis Ngannou…he’s been doing that as well, most commonly with incredible one-punch knockouts. Because of Ngannou’s impressive tear, he has garnered plenty of attention and hype. So much so that maybe the champion’s own organization could be overlooking him. He happens to think so as he said today on the MMA Hour:

Drake Riggs - January 8, 2018

UFC 219 left us with two big questions. Those being, “who’s next for Cris Cyborg?” and “who’s next for Khabib Nurmagomedov?”. These are both questions we have yet to get answers too. But…we appear to be getting closer to the answer for Cyborg more than we are for Khabib. The reigning UFC Featherweight champion, Cyborg has called for a fight with top 3 Featherweight, Megan Anderson since her win over Holly Holm at UFC 219. That fight, however, isn’t possible just yet as Anderson has yet to be cleared to compete. The second name that was brought up was current Bantamweight champion, Amanda Nunes who is all for the fight. She isn’t the only one though, UFC president, Dana White also voiced that that’s the fight he would like to make next and today, American Top Team head coach and coach of Nunes gave his take on the fight when he spoke with MMAJunkie: “People want to see it, I think they have the best opportunity to leave their marks on history. I believe for the weight division, Amanda is going to be extremely well-prepared,” he said. “She’s not going to have to make the weight. She’s probably going to be strong in that division. I do believe the compensation (for) the strength that comes from Cyborg definitely will be the tools that Amanda has on her side. I think it’s the perfect fight. It’s a perfect match. It’s a champions fight – it’s something we don’t see happen often.

Russell Sai - January 8, 2018

It looks like UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway will return to defend his featherweight title at UFC 222, which takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 3. According to a report by MMA Junkie’s Simon Samano, Holloway is set to take on former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar. MMA Junkie reported that a “person with knowledge of the situation” asked to remain anonymous with the UFC having yet to announce the fight.

Tom Taylor - January 8, 2018

On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, fan favorite UFC welterweight “Platinum” Mike Perry announced that he’ll return to the cage when the UFC touches down in Orlando on February 4. That said, he would not divulge the name of his opponent, admitting only that it’s somebody Colby Covington has fought. From there, we all began frantically examining Covington’s record, trying to narrow down the possible options. While most fans and pundits suspected former Covington opponents Max Griffin and Mike Pyle, it was hard to say for sure.

Tom Taylor - January 8, 2018

Late last week, former World Series of Fighting bantamweight champion and surging UFC bantamweight contender Marlon Moraes Tweeted out a signed contract for a bout agreement with fellow contender Jimmie Rivera. Here you go @JimmieRivera135 I signed my bout agreement. @ufc on fox. I also agreed to fight you on march 3rd choose what day you want me to beat your ass B-I-T-C-H @seanshelby @danawhite @AliAbdelaziz00 pic.twitter.com/nrU8WTjacF

Tom Taylor - January 8, 2018

It’s now been well over a year since Nate Diaz’s last fight, an August 2016 decision loss to current UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. If you’re willing to read into his latest Instagram post, however, there seems to be some reason to believe he’ll be back in the cage someday soon. Good work wit my boy @luke_1er Back in action #beast 👊🏼