MMA News

Tom Taylor - December 21, 2017

Earlier this week, surging UFC welterweight contender Colby Covington and Fox Sports UFC analyst Kenny Florian got into a heated verbal skirmish on Twitter. If this exchange didn’t make it abundantly clear, Colby Covington is not a Kenny Florian fan, and he greatly disagrees with some of the analyst’s recent comments.

Tom Taylor - December 21, 2017

According to a report from Bartek Stachura of Lowking.PL, Rose Namajunas will defend her new strawweight title at UFC 221 in Perth, Western Australia on February 11. Her opponent will be Tecia Torres, who she has fought twice before. Rose Namajunas vs. Tecia Torres III in the works for #UFC221 in Perth.

Tom Taylor - December 21, 2017

On January 20, the UFC will return to Boston, Massachusetts with UFC 220. Though UFC 220 will be the first pay-per-view of the year 2018, it already looks like it could be one of the best. In the main event of the evening, UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic will look to make history with a record-breaking third-straight defense of the UFC heavyweight title. His opponent will be hulking French-Cameroonian knockout artist Francis Ngannou, a man widely touted as the next big thing in MMA.

Drake Riggs - December 20, 2017

Retired UFC fighter, Ultimate Fighter season 10 contestant, analyst, comedian and podcaster Brendan Schaub is never short of opinions. Schaub is one half of the Fighter and the Kid podcast with fellow comedian, Bryan Callen but he also has started up his own podcast to talk all things involving the sport he once competed in. On this week’s episode of the Big Brown Breakdown, Schaub discussed the latest news and discussed the recent action as usual. But he also took a moment to talk about the UFC’s often criticized ranking system.

Drake Riggs - December 20, 2017

Everybody loves Jim Miller. I mean how can you not? Whenever he steps foot in the cage he’s nothing but pure entertainment. The case seems to be the same outside of the octagon as well. You would never think it, but thankfully the spirit of Christmas and the holiday season has brought out just how talented Jim really is. Without further ado…a Jim Miller holiday special. My holiday album dropped today. The conservative estimate is that it goes platinum by the end of the weekend. @ufc pic.twitter.com/TOfKMaQjly

Drake Riggs - December 20, 2017

In the first month of 2018, the UFC returns to Charlotte, North Carolina for the third time.  It will be UFC on Fox 27 and in the main event, we will see a rematch from the Strikeforce days, between Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Derek Brunson. Their first fight took place back in 2012 and it didn’t last very long… Jacare walked through the green Brunson, needing only forty-one seconds to get the TKO victory. Since this fight, Jacare has gone 8-2 while Brunson has gone 8-3 and grown tremendously as a fighter since his first encounter with the Brazilian. Prior to today, we already had a handful of good fights on tap(those of which you can see below) but now we’re just getting more! As reported by Guilherme Cruz, a very exciting Featherweight matchup between top 145er Dennis Bermudez and rising Team Alpha Male member, Andre Fili is set.

Chris Taylor - December 20, 2017

Conor McGregor sends Floyd Mayweather a message following UFC discussions. Earlier this week undefeated boxing legend Floyd Mayweather mentioned that he was interested in fighting under the bright lights of the UFC.

Justin Golightly - December 20, 2017

The year 2017 is about to leave us behind and we’re all weary about 2018. Things were so insane this year, what awaits us when the ball drops? Floyd Mayweather already wants to make his UFC debut. Hell, Demetrious Johnson is willing to welcome him. There are two RIZIN cards and UFC 219 all within two days from each other, if that doesn’t make your brain hurt, this sure will. Japanese combat sports and folk hero Bob Sapp may actually be fighting a real live grizzly bear for our entertainment at KYOKUGEN 2017.

Russell Ess - December 20, 2017

There was a time not long ago that talk of Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor fighting in a boxing match was laughed at by many. Even UFC President Dana White once stated that the fight would never happen. Well, it happened and people tuned in to watch. The world was shocked to hear Joe Rogan say that White told him via text message that Mayweather was serious about fighting in the UFC and that they had been in talks. White then confirmed it himself to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto that he and Mayweather have been talking about doing a UFC deal.

Justin Golightly - December 20, 2017

Georges St-Pierre waltzed into the UFC after being out for four years and added another ridiculous accomplishment to his career by taking the UFC middleweight title from Michael Bisping. It was a gigantic moment, but UFC 217 somehow seems like a distant memory now, especially after he dropped the title only a month later due to his health issues. As the combat sports year starts to close, Bisping reflects on the controversial aftermath of St-Pierre’s win. The former champ still thinks he’s a prick, but concedes that it was actually a really smart move. “[Georges St-Pierre]’s a prick. He’s a prick, god bless him. I’m gonna be brutally honest here, [him vacating the title is] a double-edged sword. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. By the way, Dana White threw me under the bus when he first found out. He wasn’t happy with Georges and he said, ‘Yeah, well he cherry-picked Bisping.’ That doesn’t do me any favors! He didn’t cherry-pick me, but I did say that. I said Georges wanted to fight me because he thought I was an easy fight and this and that, and he got the win, and then he vacated the belt. Now he vacated the belt because apparently he had to go to the hospital after our fight and he thought he was gonna be paralyzed and he had a bad neck and all this type of stuff. I don’t know. He just doesn’t fancy doing it again.”

Russell Ess - December 20, 2017

November 12, 2016, was the last time we saw Conor McGregor fight in the Octagon. McGregor became the UFC lightweight champion that night, capturing the belt from Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 and also became the first fighter in history to hold two UFC weight division’s titles simultaneously. Over a year has passed since and McGregor has only competed once and it was outside of the Octagon in a highly lucrative boxing match against Floyd Mayweather, which was the second highest pay-per-view event of all time.

Tom Taylor - December 20, 2017

Derrick Lewis, the UFC’s sixth-ranked heavyweight, is currently scheduled for a stark test, as he’s expected to take on Marcin Tybura when the UFC touches down in Austin, Texas this February 18. While this fight is currently at the forefront of Lewis’ mind, he’s hoping a big win over Marcin Tybura will set him up for a heavyweight title shot, and more importantly, a battle with his rival Francis Ngannou, who battles Stipe Miocic for the title this January 20. Speaking to MMAJunkie earlier this week, Lewis gave his take on this upcoming heavyweight title fight, and shared his hope that Ngannou wins so he can fight him.

Justin Golightly - December 20, 2017

Nate Diaz turned down the fight. We heard it over and over from Dana White. Nate Diaz turned down the fight. We’ve offered him a fight with everyone on the roster and he turned it down. The latest conversation centered around a welterweight title shot against Tyron Woodley to boast UFC 219’s selling power, but it faded out with the culprit supposedly being a lack of compensation. In a recent interview covering everything from his contract, rap, weed and Conor McGregor, Diaz himself broke down exactly why he’s made himself unavailable to the UFC. “I have some ideas for this year [for a fight] so when it’s time to pull the trigger and finally tell them what’s going down, I’ll but it out, but I want to see how the fights this weekend go and see how some stuff goes. That’s the thing, there’s a lot of fighters that are bad mouthing me too. Fighters are like, ‘He ain’t no fighter, he ain’t no fighter.’ I already fought more than everybody in the UFC. Everyone in the UFC except Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, BJ Penn, Michael Bisping – who has actually done a lot. I have more fights than anyone on the roster. In the whole roster. That’s from activity from 21 to 30-years old and I’ve been slow the last few years just chilling, fighting once a year. They’ll say, ‘he’s not a fighter, he don’t even fight, he don’t even fight,’ because I haven’t been that active in these last few years. I’m like, hold up. I’m not fighting because I am a fighter. You’re fighting because someone’s telling you to fight.”

Tom Taylor - December 20, 2017

Holly Holm’s brutal, head-kick knockout of Ronda Rousey ranks among the biggest upsets in UFC history. Leading up the fight, Rousey glimmered with an era of invisibility. One well-placed kick later, and she was crumpled on the canvas in a dazed heap. Cris Cyborg, who will attempt to defend her UFC women’s bantamweight title against Holm in the main event of UFC 219 on December 30, has a hunch as to why Rousey’s fight with Holm went the way it did. The featherweight champ believes Rousey was looking past Holm – and right at her.

Justin Golightly - December 20, 2017

Tyron Woodley couldn’t get Nate Diaz to come out and speak when they were potentially in talks for a superfight. The only thing Dana White could draw out of Diaz is a social media Stockton slap. At the end of the day, it took hometown battle rapper Okwerdz for Diaz to walk out of the shadows and pick up a mic. …And it didn’t disappoint. In his first all-encompassing interview since May on a special episode of The MMA Hour, Nate Diaz spits more fire than can be contained within the boundaries of this article. He goes off on Conor McGregor, the UFC’s suspect marketing tactics, and being on lockdown preventing his move to boxing. “Conor [McGregor]’s their guy. They just give him what they want to do with him and they build who they want to build and I’m not one of them, but it’s all good now, I’ll build myself. […] Yeah, a lot [of boxing promotions wanted to buy out my contract]. Years ago. They promote him as the money guy and he became bigger than everybody because that’s what they promoted him as. I was the guy bringing all the views and all the numbers. They didn’t announce it as that, so that’s why when they were going to buy out my contract [the UFC] were like, ‘Are you kidding? This is our guy. We just don’t want to tell anybody this is our guy or why because then his value goes up and he gets what he wants and we don’t want to give him what he wants, we want to give little Irish dude what he wants.'”

Tom Taylor - December 20, 2017

Bellator MMA’s upcoming heavyweight Grand Prix is one of the most talked about events in MMA right now. This tournament, which seeks to fill Bellator’s vacant heavyweight throne by crowing a new champion, kicks off this January 20 when former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson battles three-time UFC title challenger and infamous MMA mouthpiece Chael Sonnen.

Tom Taylor - December 20, 2017

Former Alabama Crimson Tide starting linebacker Eryk Anders is getting the fast-track in the UFC. Just two wins into his stint with the promotion, he’s been pencilled in for a headlining bout with a former champion, as he’s scheduled to meet Lyoto Machida in the main event of the UFC’s upcoming trip to Belem, Brazil.  Now that he’s firmly rooted in MMA, Anders believes the sport is actually safer and all-around less damaging than football.

Tom Taylor - December 20, 2017

On December 30, the UFC will return to it’s home in Las Vegas, Nevada with UFC 219. In this stacked card’s co-main event, undefeated lightweight star Khabib Nurmagomedov will take on Edson Barboza in hopes of reasserting himself as the division’s top contender, and earning a fight with interim champion Tony Ferguson. While fans are very excited to see Nurmagomedov return to the cage, there is also widespread worry that he’ll fail to make weight. He was previously forced out of a planned bout with Ferguson as the result of a disastrous cut, after all.