MMA News

Justin Golightly - September 9, 2017

Rick Glenn got an overwhelming chorus of boos at UFC 215 and it must have charged him up. He ran at Gavin Tucker like a man possessed in the very beginning of the first round and nearly got the low-percentage standing choke. Tucker caught on to Glenn’s wild moveset of spinning backfists and jerky movements, resulting in him tying him up with clinch and staying close peppering with shots. https://twitter.com/Jonnyboy_6969/status/906678130504499200

Justin Golightly - September 9, 2017

It started off normal enough. Mitch Clarke and Alex White exchanged kicks almost like a turn-based role playing game. There was a clinch battle and some knees, then back to more front kicks by Clarke and leg kicks by White. The fight was a rinse and repeat of violence chess. For mostly two whole rounds, both fighters kept doing exactly the same thing. It was almost gentlemanly, if it wasn’t two guys beating each other for money in the Octagon. Alex White delivers a beatdown in a big win over Mitch Clarke to get UFC 215 prelims started! https://t.co/usjTrVeG4e

Justin Golightly - September 9, 2017

We lost the main event, but the card still keeps trucking. Tonight is UFC 215 making Edmonton face the pain in Canada. Demetrious Johnson can’t break his record, but Amanda Nunes will still defend her UFC bantamweight title against Valentina Shevchenko. This is one of the best fights a promotion can make in any women’s division on Earth right now. That’s not all, Rafael dos Anjos makes his second venture at welterweight against lanky and dangerous Neil Magny. Seeing an RDA who isn’t drained anymore by a weight cut is interesting, especially against such a strong fighter. A win here definitely shows that Dos Anjos is seriously dangerous in a higher weight class, after winning his previous fight at welterweight against Tarec Saffiedine. Also a couple of cracking fights between Henry Cejudo and Wilson Reis, as well as Gilbert Melendez’s featherweight debut against “Who the Fook is Dat Guy” Jeremy Stephens.

Justin Golightly - September 9, 2017

When Kajan Johnson and Adriano Martins opened up the UFC 215 card, there were a lot of people not happy. The fight wasn’t that eventful, but it was two guys really evenly matched being cautious to not make a mistake. Until, that is, one did. https://twitter.com/davedoylemma/status/906659539797397504

Russell Ess - September 8, 2017

Both Kevin Lee and Georges St-Pierre have big fights coming up in the UFC. Lee will be fighting for the UFC interim lightweight title against Tony Ferguson in the main event of UFC 216 in October. St-Pierre will be making his return to the Octagon after stepping away from competition nearly four years ago and will jump up a weight class to take on Michael Bisping for the UFC middleweight title at UFC 217 in November.

Russell Ess - September 8, 2017

Another UFC main event has been canceled just days away from the scheduled date. This time it was for the UFC 215 flyweight title fight featuring Demetrious Johnson and Ray Borg. Borg, the challenger was forced to withdraw from the title fight due to being ill and was deemed unfit to compete by medical doctors. Members of the MMA community reacted to the disappointing news as the UFC released a statement on Borg’s illness and the process of UFC 215 ticket refunds.

Justin Golightly - September 8, 2017

Michael Bisping has been known to ruffle feathers wherever he goes. Ol’ Left Hook Larry always says what’s on his mind, whether it offends you or not usually is of no concern. However, it wasn’t bad behavior that got Bisping banned from Reddit. Matter of fact, it just a misunderstanding due to so many nefarious fiends looking to pose as someone they are not online. What made it so funny, is that the MMA subreddit wanted Bisping to get his son (and frequent R/MMA contributor) to verify his father’s identity. Needless to say, Bisping didn’t really want to have to give his son Callum the authority and vowed to talk about this on the next episode of his show. …And he did. “I was looking for something to read and I thought, I’ll go to Redidt. I went to Reddit and you got to sign up, so I put in my username — I think it was mikethecountbisping — and I started enjoying Reddit. There’s lots of topics on there and I was like, this isn’t bad actually. Then when I went back, I had some private messages: ‘You have been banned from Reddit. Parody accounts are not allowed.’ They just assumed I was not Michael Bisping and banned me from Reddit. I messaged them back like, oh my god, are you serious? I am Michael Bisping. Now, I feel like a d-ckhead going hey, I am Michael Bisping, but I’m just trying to get un-banned from Reddit. Then they say — this is the kicker — ‘Well, if you are Michael Bisping, get your son to send us a message. We know him.'” — Michael Bisping on his Believe You Me podcast.

Russell Ess - September 8, 2017

The MMA community was struck with appalling news late Thursday. With less than 24 hours away from the UFC 215 weigh-ins, the main event UFC flyweight title fight between Demetrious Johnson and Ray Borg was canceled. The cancellation, first reported by Ariel Helwani for MMA Fighting, was due to Borg being ill and deemed unfit to compete by medical doctors.

Justin Golightly - September 8, 2017

Once again, a UFC card this year has been disrupted at the last minute. Ray Borg had to pull out of his fight with Demetrious Johnson, the original main event is gone and Amanda Nunes gets bumped up to headline. The world is a strange place, readers. There is a pattern that emerges when you go back and look at Canada and Amanda Nunes. Stick with us, we know it sounds weird, but not as weird as these stats. The folks at MMA Junkie looked back at UFC events in Canada and found nine instances where the main event had to be changed: UFC 215 in Edmonton, UFC Fight Night 105 in Halifax, UFC 206 in Toronto, UFC 186 in Montreal, UFC 161 in Winnipeg, UFC 152 in Toronto, UFC 149 in Calgary, UFC 131 in Vancouver, and UFC 115 in Vancouver. That’s all just a little eerie, but another thing that is interesting is that Georges St-Pierre never had a problem in all his trips to Canada.

Justin Golightly - September 8, 2017

Ovince Saint Preux is about to gear up and fight Mauricio “Shogun” Rua  in Japan, but there is another fight still in the back of his mind. Back at UFC 197, Saint Preux jumped in to replace Daniel Cormier and fought Jon Jones for an interim UFC light heavyweight title. Losing the bout and suffering a broken arm in the process, OSP took the loss hard but moved on. However, the recent controversy over Jon Jones’ drug test has all of the feelings rushing back. Was Jones’ allegedly on performance enhancing drugs during their fight as well? Saint Preux wants to know the answers. “I mean, I did an article a while back saying, I just wanted [Jon Jones] to tell the truth. But at the end of the day, with me, I just wanted to know. But at the end of the day, what can I do about it? It’s a situation where I’ve learned, especially like my fight when I fought Volkan. You know, I walked in the locker room and I caught myself screaming, and I was like, why am I mad for? I mean, I did everything I did, I poured my heart out in the fight, you know, I trained hard, I felt like I won the fight.”

Justin Golightly - September 8, 2017

  The “Fertitta Era” is over. Billionaires Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta bought the UFC in 2001 and have been running it ever since. After a long and arduous road losing money and dealing with the legal complications of trying to monopolize the bloodsport industry, the Fertitta’s made the UFC extremely profitable and eventually sold most of their ownership last year. Forbes reports in an exclusive that they have sold their remaining shares, pushing the evaluation of the UFC even higher and leaving the business totally.

Justin Golightly - September 8, 2017

Back before 2008, Angel Heredia was supplying performance enhancing drugs to make sure that the athletes who were on top of their sports, stay on top. We’re talking even Olympic-level athletes. He was eventually forced to cooperate in court by becoming a chief witness for the U.S. Justice Department. All this to say, Heredia knows this enhancement game in-and-out. Now, he has joined Jon Jones’ defense team as a legal adviser and spoke to Submission Radio on why he thinks his testing procedure doesn’t add up from an expert’s perspective. “If somebody takes a designer [steroid] and they pretty much identify any of it’s metabolites, they would pretty much know what steps to follow next, and eventually they will break it down and they will come out with the name of the structure that was not identifiable at the time. So, at this point there’s nothing like that. Pretty much, they’re accusing [Jon Jones] of one particular metabolite. They’re not accusing him of six different metabolites. One single metabolite. And that metabolite is the one that stays up to seven weeks. So frankly, to me, it’s backwards. It doesn’t make any sense.” 

Justin Golightly - September 7, 2017

Back for the first time since 2015, the UFC will return to Winnipeg to bring the fights to Canada on December 16th. The free card on big FOX doesn’t have much scheduled yet, but it just got a some heat in a flyweight bout. Wildman Tim Elliott will square off with Justin Scoggins in a fight that is sure to cause sparks, rain dogs and probably contain backflips. https://twitter.com/ScogginsFlow/status/901948099756679168

Justin Golightly - September 7, 2017

Demetrious Johnson is one win away from breaking Anderson Silva’s title defense record, the only man who stands in his way is Ray Borg. What “Mighty” Johnson has accomplished so far is unheard of in a sport where it’s usually very difficult to win consistently. For instance, in the heavyweight division, no champion in the history of the UFC has ever defended the heavyweight title three times in a row. If Demetrious Johnson beats Borg, he’ll have defended his title 11 times. Georges St-Pierre, former UFC welterweight champ and GOAT candidate, recently took time out to give Johnson some recognition. “Becoming champion is hard, but staying champion is even harder.” The legend @GeorgesStPierre w/ some words on @MightyMouseUFC #UFC215 pic.twitter.com/DINPuYF4OZ

Justin Golightly - September 7, 2017

If you didn’t know better, one look at Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone’s Instagram would make you think his MMA training consists of taking wakeboards off of sweet jumps and cold beer at the lake. Don’t worry, he takes time out for his muay thai and jiu jitsu and it shows. This dude ran off an eight fight win streak (and four post-fight bonuses) in the lightweight division, book-ended by losses to Rafael dos Anjos. After jumping up to welterweight, he won four straight until running into Jorge Masvidal and Robbie Lawler. It’s clear he’s not slowing down or taking time to smell the roses. He didn’t even know who Darren Till was and he just agreed to fight him. “[I knew] Absolutely nothing [about Darren Till]. No. Never seen his fights. I don’t know where he’s from. I’m not bagging the dude, just f-ck, I don’t know anybody. I said yes before I even had an opponent. That was [the UFC’s] job to find the opponent. […] My grandma sent me a thing this morning all mad. ‘He called you a c-nt,’ I said, no grandma, that’s just how they speak over there.”

Russell Ess - September 7, 2017

Although Amanda Nunes may be feeling a lack of promotion after pulling out of UFC 213, the UFC women’s bantamweight champion is still just focused on one thing: fighting. Nunes was given a hard time after pulling out of the UFC 213 championship title fight against Valentina Shevchenko the day of their scheduled fight. Nunes stated that she had chronic sinusitis and was not feeling well enough to fight. Shevchenko believes that Nunes had a rough weight cut and was feeling week after making the 135-pound limit, which ultimately caused her to pull out of the fight.

Justin Golightly - September 7, 2017

In just a couple of days, Neil Magny welcomes Rafael dos Anjos into the welterweight division at UFC 215. However, it’s in-fighting between other UFC fighters that is also on his mind. He’s tried to convince his fellow UFC fighters to form an unofficial organization of support, but unfortunately it hasn’t prospered as much as he’d like. The culprit according to Magny, is that most fighters are always stepping on each other for their own shots. “It’s not going so well at all, actually. It’s pretty sad that, like, the fighters’ biggest downfall is the other fighters. I know that people are like, trying to turn it into saying ‘it should be us against the business,’ but in the reality of the business, it’s just, fighters are looking out for themselves and are screwing over all the other fighters.”

Justin Golightly - September 7, 2017

Stipe Miocic has systematically taken out the best of the best: Mark Hunt, Andrei Arlovski, Fabricio Werdum, Alistair Overeem, and Junior dos Santos. That’s a murderer’s row of murderer’s rows. As Miocic enjoys an incredible reign as the UFC heavyweight king, there is one fighter that he hasn’t been tested against. Former heavyweight champ, Cain Velasquez will have been out of competition for a whole year in two days. Hopeful fans had their fingers crossed that Miocic would defend against Velasquez this year, but unfortunately it seems like it won’t happen. “This year? Probably not. [Early next year], we’ll see. […] I’m close. I’m not there yet but I’m close. Focusing on this time as far as the baby we have coming along. I want to be there for that. He’s due in November, so it’s been a good process of healing and being with the family. I want to 100% ready for the fans. I need to stop messing around and coming back too early. You know what I mean? I can’t do that. I can’t afford that anymore. I gotta’ be 100% ready to come back. […] That’s not up to me [to get an immediate title shot]. I’ll ask for whoever. We haven’t talked. But I’m with the family and just recuperating  still.” – Cain Velasquez to Ariel Helwani for UFC 215 media day.