MMA News

Justin Golightly - January 3, 2018

Imagine watching Khabib Nurmagomedov dominating arguably the most dangerous striker in the lightweight division. Not only that, but somehow he’s talking to you while he’s doing it. Now imagine that this man is waiting on your car after UFC 219 to talk with you. That’s what happened to Dana White at UFC 219. Nurmagomedov greeted White with his signature ‘papakha’ hat and a speech to end all post-fight speeches. Making the point that Conor McGregor took a paternity leave from the UFC for his son’s birth, while Khabib stayed and beat Edson Barboza. “I tell [Dana White] hey, today when I fight, my son is born. I tell him hey, you remember one year ago? All MMA fans one year waiting for Conor [McGregor’s] son, but I’m here. For my fans, for my legacy, for my history, for everything. I need real fight. Tony [Ferguson] or Conor. Doesn’t matter. Please give me both. He said, ‘You deserve everything what you want.’ And he told me, ‘Performance of the night is yours.'”

Tom Taylor - January 3, 2018

UFC President Dana White certainly catches his fair share of criticism. Whether it’s for his profanity-laced diatribes, his ruthless approach to business, or the way he treats his fighter, it seems he’s always under fire for something. Somewhere underneath White’s prickly exterior, however, is a heart of gold, and every now and then, that heart reveals itself. Perhaps the best example of this occured in 2010, when White opened his wallet and paid for the emergency liver-transplant of a seven-month-old baby girl in Thailand.

Justin Golightly - January 3, 2018

Rose Namajunas pulled off the biggest upset of 2017 and then went back to living her life. She walked in her home, put up her new UFC strawweight title, and admired a tomato she grew. Flashing back to the tense build-up to her fight with Joanna, it was a startling juxtaposition of how two very different warriors deal with their own personal pre-fight process. A fist in her face, she recited the Lord’s Prayer and refrained from escalating or even insulting the former champion. It’s something that she came back to comment on yesterday, stating that it doesn’t make sense for her to finally achieve everything she wanted to become an asshole. “Me saying that this belt don’t mean nothing, it’s not really that it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just it doesn’t mean as much if you’re just an asshole, you know what I mean? Me being the best in the world, it doesn’t mean that much to me if I’m not a good person at the end of the day, if I’m not setting a good example for other people to be better to each other. What’s the point of being the best in the world if you scratch and claw your way to the top and you push everybody down instead of lifting everybody else up with you? I think we’ve been sitting around trying to figure out what’s different [now that I’m champion] and I think that’s what’s different. There’s not really much that has changed.”

Tom Taylor - January 3, 2018

Just days removed from her exciting UFC 219 victory over Holly Holm, UFC women’s featherweight champ Cris Cyborg is already looking ahead to her next fight. The champ is now hoping to fight Invicta featherweight queen Megan Anderson, ideally when the UFC touches down in Anderson’s native Australia with UFC 221 on February 11. While Cyborg has heard the calls for a superfight between herself and UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes, she feels that it’s important for her to fight a legitimate featherweight like Anderson in her next fight – and for a pretty noble reason.

Tom Taylor - January 3, 2018

Over the last few days, JacksonWink photographer Mark Aragon has been on the receiving end of a tidal wave of scorn, having made some truly ugly comments about UFC women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg on Instagram in the wake of her UFC 219 win over Holly Holm. The staff photographer from Jackson-Wink posted this last night. Apparently he was also credentialed to the fights. Would expect a lot more from such a well respected gym. https://t.co/EYXRLE4Vs4 pic.twitter.com/YaAMuEyJOA

Tom Taylor - January 3, 2018

Last weekend, the UFC touched down in Las Vegas, Nevada with UFC 219. In the card’s main event, we watched Cris Cyborg defend her women’s featherweight title by out-duelling Holly Holm to a unanimous decision win. In the co-main event, meanwhile, we saw lightweight star Khabib Nurmagomedov extend his record to an insane 25-0, bludgeoning Edson Barboza to a unanimous decision win. Elsewhere on the main card, we saw Dan Hooker tap Mark Diakiese, Neil Magny outwork Carlos Condit, and Carla Esparza sneak by rising prospect Cynthia Calvillo.

Tom Taylor - January 3, 2018

Last week, the MMA world was hit with the news that Bellator MMA had parted ways with long-time color commentator Jimmy Smith. Given that Smith is a bottomless pit of MMA knowledge with charisma to boot, this news came as a definite surprise. Apparently, however, the broadcaster’s departure from Bellator was quite amicable. Jimmy Smith broke down his Bellator exit on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience MMA Show.

Drake Riggs - January 2, 2018

After UFC 219, Khabib Nurmagomedov has been all the rage when it comes to the hottest of MMA discussions. It doesn’t hurt that after such an impressive victory, he and the Lightweight champion, Conor McGregor have been going back and forth somewhat consistently on Twitter over the past few days. But today the top Lightweight announced the signing of his cousin, Abubakar Nurmagomedov on his Instagram profile. https://www.instagram.com/p/BddfaKXlg15/?taken-by=khabib_nurmagomedov

Drake Riggs - January 2, 2018

There hasn’t been a more hated man in MMA than Mark Aragon since UFC 219 came to a close… Aragon is the photographer for the JacksonWink MMA gym and after the UFC 219 main event that saw their fighter, Holly Holm lose to the champion, Cris Cyborg, he posted a rather offensive post on Instagram that upset Cyborg as well as many others on both sides of the subject and fans alike. But today the UFC released a statement that Aragon would no longer be allowed into UFC events(according to MMAFighting).

Drake Riggs - January 2, 2018

We’ve seen it on a few occasions where NFL players have made the transition from the top American football league to the world of MMA, for better and for worse results. Most recently, former defensive end for the Carolina Panthers and Dallas Cowboys, Greg Hardy has made the leap over and quickly found success. Hardy is undefeated at 2-0 with both of his wins coming by way of knockout(both under a minute and thirty-six seconds). Hardy is only twenty-nine years old but played six seasons in the NFL(although one of those seasons he only played one game in due to getting suspended for his domestic violence case). Now, MMAFighting reports that he is set to for his biggest fight on his biggest stage so far when he takes on the 2-1, Ryan Chester at Legacy Fighting Alliance(LFA) 33 on February 16 in his third amateur Heavyweight bout.

Justin Golightly - January 2, 2018

He’s back and everyone is terrified. Khabib Nurmagomedov made weight with no problems and went in there to take on arguably his biggest challenge yet in Edson Barboza. His performance was as dominant as any other fight he’s had. Against Michael Johnson, against former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos, it doesn’t matter, so far Nurmagomedov has done whatever he wanted to his opponents. On Joe Rogan’s MMA Show today, Rogan and new free broadcasting agent Jimmy Smith talked about how much of a beast Nurmagomedov is. “[Khabib] Nurmagomedov just mauled [Edson Barboza]. Mauled him. I mean, mauled him in a way that you go, ‘Oh God.’ He’s just on such another level that the odds of you beating him drop so substantially after the first minute and a half. After you get – you saw the look on Barboza’s face there’s like, two minutes plus into the first round and he’s trying to get up. You see the look on his face and he’s like, ‘F-ck, how am I going to deal with this?’ Like, this is so next level.” — Joe Rogan today on his MMA Show.

Justin Golightly - January 2, 2018

Even with a loss, Justin Gaethje has had an incredible year. He walked away from his five-time defended WSOF lightweight title to finally sign on with the UFC, much to the rallying cries of fans and the blessing of the violence gods. He put on MMA Fighting’s ‘Fight of the Year’ with Michael Johnson, then had another ‘Fight of the Year’ candidate with Eddie Alvarez at UFC 218. For now, he’s going to let the body and brain rest, but he’s already contemplating who he wants to fight next. Who better than Kevin Lee, the last fighter to lose to interim lightweight champ Tony Ferguson? “First time I ever met [Kevin Lee], he was nice. Then he talked sh-t saying I was fan-boying over him. He doesn’t know what respect is. I’ll never show him respect again, that’s for sure. I just like punching loudmouths in the face. I’m sure I’ll get the itch [to fight again] sooner rather than later. I said I wanted to wait around until June, July, but I’m sure I’ll get the itch sooner. It’s too soon [right now], but we’ll see how things play out. I might want to beat up Kevin Lee, that kid over there I want to beat up.” — Justin Gaethje speaking today on The MMA Hour.

Russell Sai - January 2, 2018

Conor McGregor was described as “obsessed” after he lost to Nate Diaz at UFC 196. Coach John Kavanagh even mentioned that the loss to Diaz stung much worse for the current UFC lightweight champion than the Mayweather loss did. However, according to Dana White, the loss to Mayweather seems to be growing on “The Notorious.” “Conor wants that fight again really bad,” White said recently on FS1 (transcribed by Damon Martin for MMA Weekly). “I told Conor what you did was amazing. I was sitting there with my partner Lorenzo [Fertitta] and I kept saying, ‘Oh my god, we found this kid in Ireland four years ago. He’s going into the sixth round with Floyd Mayweather. He’s going into the seventh round with Floyd Mayweather.’

Tom Taylor - January 2, 2018

Now that UFC 219 is in the rear-view mirror, the UFC has updated its official rankings to reflect the results of the card. The most notable changes to the UFC rankings occured on the pound-for-pound list, where Khabib Nurmagomedov made his long-awaited debut, a distinction he earned by pounding Edson Barboza into applesauce in the UFC 219 co-main event. UFC 219 main event winner Cris Cyborg also moved up the list in the wake of her thrilling victory of Holly Holm, while Georges St-Pierre and Conor McGregor arbitrarily switched spots on the pound-for-pound list, despite the fact that neither has competed in recent weeks.

Justin Golightly - January 2, 2018

UFC flyweight champ @MightyMouseUFC addresses recent rumors of him fighting T.J. Dillashaw that came out of Twitch stream. Watch #TheMMAHour LIVE: https://t.co/7soW7KTArj pic.twitter.com/iG6T44Qqiy — MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) January 2, 2018

Russell Sai - January 2, 2018

You may have heard former UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt talk about the incident, but the video of what went down with movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme has just recently surfaced. Van Damme was over at Team Alpha Male not long ago showing the guys in the gym some technique. Garbrandt explained on the Real Quick with Mike Swick podcast that he and Van Damme were going through some kicking techniques where the martial arts movie star turned things up a bit too much and hit Garbrandt with a kick “right in the teeth.”

Tom Taylor - January 2, 2018

On January 14, in the main event of the UFC’s anticipated stop in St. Louis, MO, “The Korean Superboy” Doo Ho Choi will make his long-awaited return to the cage. His opponent will be a fellow knockout artist in long-time featherweight contender Jeremy Stephens. This bout will mark Choi’s first steps into the Octagon in over a year, as he’s been on the sidelines since he came up short in arguably the greatest fight in UFC history, a December 2016 slugfest with Cub Swanson.

Justin Golightly - January 2, 2018

The accomplishments of Jose Aldo speak for themselves. For a decade, he reigned supreme over the featherweight division; through the WEC, the UFC, and the entire world. Much like the pioneers of BJ Penn and Jens Pulver before him did with lightweight, he put the 145-pound class on the map and made people tune in to see his dominance, frightening speed and crushing leg kicks. After such a long time at the top, and losing his title twice, Aldo is finally wanting to part ways with the UFC according to his coach Andres Pederneiras. “We’re still talking to see how much [Jose Aldo] wants to keep fighting or not. I think Aldo’s career is a career that nobody can talk badly about. He can do whatever he wants. To retire, to continue, to make a superfight. He is thinking. He is a guy who has managed to make a lot of money over the course of his career and he can retire today without depending on anyone. He will never go hungry in his life. He invested his money, he knew how to save it. I’ve never heard him talk about stopping. I think Aldo has been at it for a long time, in a very continuous time. I think Aldo could take a vacation and feel that motivation to return. I already talked to him, but he wants to end the UFC contract as soon as possible.”