MMA News

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

Bellator’s Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament is nearing closer. Kicking things off will be Chael Sonnen, who makes his Heavyweight division debut by taking on former UFC Light Heavyweight champion, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson on January 20. The second fight of the tournament’s opening round will be a rematch between favorites to win it all as Matt Mitrione looks to get back the loss that Roy “Big Country” Nelson handed him in 2012. That will take place on February 16. Following that big fight will be another big one to kick off the opening round as two bonafide legends collide when two-time UFC Heavyweight champion, Frank Mir makes his Bellator debut to take on one of the greatest to ever do it across all divisions, Fedor Emelianenko in April. And closing out the opening round is a fight that was very well expected to be current Bellator Light Heavyweight champion, Ryan Bader’s second title defense but I suppose it still could be at some point. Bader will take on former Strikeforce Light Heavyweight champion, Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal in May. Like Sonnen, this will be Bader’s first fight at Heavyweight.

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.

Jason Kindschy - December 20, 2017

BJPENN Radio is live at 8PM ET/5PM PT with more of what you crave! 8:15PM ET- First up, one of the most exciting young athletes to join the UFC roster in 2017, “Sugar” Sean O’Malley. Coming off his UFC debut at the TUF 26 Finale, Sean has gone from unknown to someone the MMA community has their eyes on. We’ll recap the victory, discuss what’s next for the bantamweight prospect, what he thinks of the current title picture, and the pressures of having so much hype behind him. Of course, we’ll also hear about his backstage experience with Snoop Dogg.

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

Next year, a huge fight is in the works. UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw is supposed to go down to fight UFC flyweight champion and title-defense king, Demetrious Johnson. It very well could be the most highly skilled MMA fighter in history if the UFC can pull it off. However, there is a fight that could be even bigger. Just imagine Floyd Mayweather stepping into the Octagon across from Mighty Mouse for a historic superfight only rivaled by Conor McGregor. It sounds absolutely insane and it will probably never happen in a million years, but remember when we said that before? @floydmayweather 🐐 vs 🐐 I’ll move up 20 pounds to welcome you proper pic.twitter.com/R400vMz0dX

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

Oluwale Bamgbose received quite a bit of boos and back lash for the tepid strategy he employed in his UFC on Fox 26 knockout loss to Alessio Di Chirico. From the sounds of it, the UFC middleweight is tired of receiving flack from disrespectful fans who aren’t brave enough to step into the cage themselves. Bamgbose went off on his haters in a series of heated posts to Twitter.

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.

Drake Riggs - December 19, 2017

It’s been a rather up and down year for the UFC’s television rankings…well…mostly a down year numbers wise. And that trend continued with the UFC’s stacked Fox card this past Saturday which featured the likes of several top fighters like the former champions it was headlined by, Robbie Lawler and Rafael Dos Anjos. Final same day ratings were 2,107,000 viewers. This made it the fourth-lowest number for a Fox card ever, even crazier about this is that it is the second most-watched MMA event on television this year and the most viewed since January. Along with being the new Star Wars movie’s opening weekend, the NFL also had a special Saturday night game between the Chargers and Chiefs that competed with the Fox 26 main card. The football game did 6,993,000 viewers. Fox 26’s peak was during the final three rounds of Lawler vs Dos Anjos, which averaged 3,071,000 viewers.