MMA News

Drake Riggs - December 12, 2017

Initially reported as in the works by Luciano Andrade of Combate, the rumored bout between Valentina Shevchenko and Priscila Cachoeira is on as confirmed by the UFC.

Justin Golightly - December 12, 2017

He did it. Francis Ngannou held all of his hype on his shoulders and knocked out Alistair Overeem. Still, the people say what’s next? Stipe Miocic is what is next. Ngannou is one of the quickest catapults to the #1 contender in UFC history, allowing him to challenge Miocic for the UFC heavyweight title. Meanwhile, Fabricio Werdum looms just around the corner. He predicts that the rising heavyweight will indeed capture the title, only to lose it to him in his next fight. “[Francis] Ngannou has a lot of power, but I don’t think he’s very technical. However, I still believe he’ll surprise [Stipe] Miocic and knock him out. They both enjoy trading shots, so if Miocic doesn’t have the right strategy, that big black guy will knock him out. Ngannou is very confident and that can make a difference, if he really connects, you’re going down, as we saw with [Alistair] Overeem. I can already see myself submitting [Ngannou], though, and becoming champion again. That’s my goal, to have a third belt on my wall and I really do believe it’ll happen. I’m sure I’m next. I’ll be waiting for him in April or so.”

Justin Golightly - December 12, 2017

Just last week, Georges St-Pierre vacated his freshly won UFC middleweight title, directly promoting Robert Whittaker’s fight with Luke Rockhold in Perth for the undisputed belt. It was the fallout from his UFC 217 health scare that led to his decision. St-Pierre basically tortured himself to move up a division, which culminated in a ulcerative colitis diagnosis. It became so bad, the fight was almost called off. Now John Danaher admits he even though St-Pierre would lose in his impaired state. “Halfway through this camp we knew there was something very seriously wrong. There was a point where we lost a week and a half of training. Even the day of the [Michael Bisping] fight, [Georges St-Pierre] was dealing with serious medical problems. I’m not going to lie to you, two weeks out I had a talk with Firas Zahabi and I said that the St-Pierre I saw train today gets knocked out by Michael Bisping. He did exactly what the plan was designed to do. He finished the fight with a beautiful strike setting up a submission hold. […] And he did it on a man above him in weight class. What made it all the more impressive if he did this with all the health problems he was dealing with.”

Russell Ess - December 12, 2017

Now that UFC heavyweight Mark Hunt has been medically cleared to fight in the Octagon again, all he needs is an opponent. Speaking with Sporting News, “The Super Samoan” is still looking to get a rematch with former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum after losing by TKO at their UFC 180 match in 2014.

Tom Taylor - December 12, 2017

Shortly after winning the UFC middleweight title with an exciting, third-round submission of Michael Bisping, Georges St-Pierre vacated that title, citing ongoing health concerns that will likely keep him on the sidelines for the foreseeable future. Shortly after this development, the UFC elevated its interim middleweight champion Robert Whittaker to undisputed champion. Whittaker’s first defense as undisputed middleweight champion is now set, as he’s scheduled to take on former champion Luke Rockhold in the main event of UFC 221, which goes down this February 11 in Perth, Western Australia.

Justin Golightly - December 12, 2017

As Volkan Oezdemir prepares for his title shot against Daniel Cormier, Alexander Gustafsson has just had a successful surgery and has returned to training. When he comes back, he wants another chance at UFC light heavyweight gold against whoever wins, but there is one thing he wants even more. Back at UFC 165, Gustafsson put on a Fight of the Night performance against Jon Jones, putting the GOAT candidate in more danger than he’s ever faced in his career. Regardless of what Jones was on or wasn’t on, Gustafsson wants to run it back again with Jones to find out who is better once and for all. “…A fight is a fight, right?” – Gustafsson after Helwani asked if he still wants to fight Jon Jones even if he’s (allegedly) on PEDs. #TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/UmA4jfYLzX

Justin Golightly - December 12, 2017

It’s hard to believe it happened only two years ago. One night, Jose Aldo is an absolute monster who reigned supreme for a decade, carrying over the WEC featherweight title into the UFC and never losing it. The next night, Aldo’s title is gone and Conor McGregor is a new undisputed UFC champion. Somehow, he did it all in only “turteen” seconds. There has only been 24 months since McGregor beat Aldo, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but a lot has happened. While critics will be quick to point out he hasn’t defended a title, he sure has been busy doing a lot of other stuff. No one could beat Jose Aldo for 10 years. Conor McGregor did it in 13 seconds.

Justin Golightly - December 12, 2017

Saturday night in Fresno, California, something weird happened. For perhaps one of the first times in UFC history, a fight was paused and a point was deducted for … biting? While trying to take Gabriel Benitez down, it appeared that Jason Knight bite down on Benitez’s fingers. The fighter complained to the referee and he made his decision to take a point away. The only thing the internet was able to provide is a blurry screenshot, but Jason Knight himself admitted that it happened in a recent social media post. Although, he had a good reason. Yea I accidentally bit the dude this weekend, u put your fingers in my mouth I’ll bite them too , a fish hook is not a takedown defense pic.twitter.com/QuuTzjcQXo

Tom Taylor - December 12, 2017

The fighting future of UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor is currently shrouded in mystery. There is a chance, of course, that he’ll return to MMA, where is career began, where fights with interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson, lightweight contender Nate Diaz, welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, and welterweight legend Georges St-Pierre could await. He might also return to the boxing ring, where he recently battled Floyd Mayweather Jr., for potential bouts with Manny Pacquiao, Paulie Malignaggi and even Oscar De La Hoya. And finally, there’s a chance he simply never fights again, content to live off the millions he’s already earned. Indeed, we’re all wondering what the future holds for Conor McGregor, but in the opinion of top lightweight contender Edson Barboza, who battles Khabib Nurmagomedov in a possible title eliminator at UFC 219 this December 30, it really doesn’t matter. In his opinion, interim champion Tony Ferguson is now the true champion, and Conor McGregor is simply an afterthought.

Justin Golightly - December 12, 2017

Now that Max Holloway has cemented his reign as the new featherweight king, ushering in the Blessed Era, he focuses his eyes on a new accomplishment. Holloway’s mission statement now as UFC champion is to continue as an even stronger ambassador to his homeland and to finally bring UFC to Hawaii. It looks like his efforts have been noticed by all parties involved. The UFC contacted the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) to begin negotiations on a fight card. No word on how successful the talks were yet, but word is the HTA were hesitant about the idea. This prompted Holloway to take to social media. “The Hawaii Tourism Authority is concerned UFC Hawaii might attract problems outside the Octagon. Fair play to them. They’re trying to protect our home. But let’s let them know MMA is about respect and Hawaii fans will make sure of that. Fights stay in octagon. Fighters and fans from out of town, we’re gonna’ welcome you with open arms. We’re gonna cheer against each other, but when it’s over we’re gonna’ show you around and share our cultures. Just like Brazil did w us. Let’s tell the HTA mahalo and let them know what UFC Hawaii means to us.” — Max Holloway via his Twitter. 

Tom Taylor - December 12, 2017

Back in July, in the main event of UFC 214, UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier sought to defend his title opposite his fiercest rival, Jon Jones. Despite a strong start, Cormier was ultimately turned off by a Jones head kick, which signalled the end of his title reign – but only for a moment. Shortly after UFC 214, we learned that Jones had failed a pre-fight drug test. In the wake of this development, Jones’ knockout win was rendered a no contest, and the title was returned to Cormier.

Tom Taylor - December 12, 2017

Shortly after winning the UFC middleweight title with an exciting, third-round submission of Michael Bisping, Georges St-Pierre vacated that title, citing ongoing health concerns that will likely keep him out of action for some time. In the wake of this development, the UFC promoted its interim middleweight champion Robert Whittaker to undisputed champion. Whittaker’s first defense as undisputed middleweight champion is now set, as he’s scheduled to take on former champion Luke Rockhold in the main event of UFC 221, which goes down this February 11 in Perth, Western Australia.

Russell Ess - December 11, 2017

Go look at her ig watch her story posts she just running a money scam. Really really sad and disgusting. Tagging celebrities trying to get them to donate to her go fund me account smfh. @kimberlyjones_38 @danawhite @gracegracieworld @snoopdogg @plies A post shared by Joe Schilling 🦍 (@joe_schilling) on Dec 11, 2017 at 7:12am PST

Drake Riggs - December 11, 2017

Prior to the Max Holloway vs Jose Aldo rematch at UFC 218, it was supposed to be Frankie Edgar stepping into his ninth UFC title fight(his fifth as a challenger and third at Featherweight). Edgar is one of the greatest fighters to ever compete and a legend of the lighter weight classes. Prior to Brian Ortega’s huge win over Cub Swanson last Saturday, Max Holloway had fought and beaten everyone in the UFC’s Featherweight top 5 that wasn’t named Frankie Edgar. Therefore, it makes sense that Edgar would still want the fight that he was expected to get in the first place as he told Ariel Helwani on today’s MMA Hour.

Drake Riggs - December 11, 2017

Michael “Mayday” McDonald was at a time one of the UFC’s brightest young stars. At 135 lbs, his power and speed seemed unmatched for almost everyone he fought. McDonald went on an impressive eight-fight winning that consisted of six finishes(five KO/TKOs and one submission) before earning his first and only UFC title shot against the then interim champion, Renan Barao. McDonald would alternate wins and losses following his loss to Barao before asking for and receiving his release from the UFC. Still just the young age of twenty-six years old, McDonald is seeming much happier with his new Bellator deal than he was with his UFC deal. He spoke to MMA Fighting recently and didn’t hold back when discussing the difference in their contracts.

Drake Riggs - December 11, 2017

Nicco Montano is the UFC’s newest champion. And aside from a shiny gold title belt, what is the first thing that a new champion earns? If you guessed a target on their back then you would be correct. The biggest question a champion faces when they first become crowned that title is, “can they defend it?”. And for Nicco Montano, she has more than enough hungry challengers in the brand new UFC Flyweight division.

Tom Taylor - December 11, 2017

This Saturday, the UFC will return to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with UFC on Fox 26. This event’s stacked main card will air on Fox. In the main event, former welterweight champion Robbie Lawler will take on former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos in a bout that could well produce the next challenger for reigning welterweight champ Tyron Woodley. Elsewhere on the main card, long-time UFC featherweight contender Ricardo Lamas will take on Team Alpha Male prospect Josh Emmett, who steps in on short notice to replace Jose Aldo. The other two features of the four-fight main card, finally, are a welterweight contender bout between knockout artists Santiago Ponzinibbio and Mike Perry, and a light heavyweight showdown between top-10 fighters Glover Teixeira and Misha Cirkunov.

Tom Taylor - December 11, 2017

The latest Conor McGregor buzz surrounds a possible boxing match with legendary pugilist Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao himself is responsible for these swirling rumors, having recently divulged that his team had begun preliminary negotiations with the McGregor side.