MMA News

Tom Taylor - August 2, 2017

Last Saturday night, in the co-main event of UFC 214, Tyron Woodley defended his title for a third time, defeating dangerous grappler Demian Maia with an admittedly tepid unanimous decision. Earlier on the UFC 214 main card, former champion Robbie Lawler rebounded from a 2016 knockout loss to Woodley with an action-packed decision defeat of the ever-dangerous Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone. With this win, Lawler re-established himself as one of the welterweight division’s top contenders, and perhaps, the next man in line for a shot at Woodley’s well-guarded throne. Woodley himself, however, is not so keen on the idea of a Lawler title shot. He stomped on the former champ’s case on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour (h/t MMAFighting.com).

Tom Taylor - August 2, 2017

Head kick knockouts seem to be en vogue at the moment. Just days removed from Jon Jones’ thunderous UFC 214 head kick of Daniel Cormier (which was followed up with a strafing of ground-and-pound), Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series produced yet another violent head kick finish. This highlight-reel finish was authored by Julian Marquez. His victim was two-time World Series of Fighting veteran and Jackson’s MMA product Phil Hawes. See Marquez’ jaw-rattling KO below:

Tom Taylor - August 2, 2017

Last Saturday, Daniel Cormier lost the UFC light heavyweight title to his fiercest rival Jon Jones, succumbing to a third-round head-kick and followup punches. Shortly after this emotional loss, during his ill-advised Octagon interview with Joe Rogan, Cormier broke down in tears. In the opinion of UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping, Cormier should have done his best to hold back his tears until he got backstage. Crying out in the open, Bisping suggested, gave Jones just the revenge he was looking for. “Cormier shouldn’t have done that,” Bisping said on his podcast Believe You Me (h/t Jed Meshew of MMAFighting.com) . “I thought it was bad because – listen, I’ve never cried when I’ve lost a fight, that’s not what I’m saying though. What I’m saying is because how much they dislike one another, and for as classy as Jon Jones could be inside the octagon, don’t tell me that that wasn’t the ultimate f**king revenge for Jon Jones to see D.C. crying. So what I mean is that the way he should have handled that better is to save that for the private moments.

Tom Taylor - August 1, 2017

Over the weekend, Tyron Woodley defended his UFC welterweight title for a third time with a decision triumph over Demian Maia. Regrettably, the slow nature of Woodley’s win generated quite a bit of backlash, the most notable of which came from UFC President Dana White. On Monday’s edition of the MMA Hour, the welterweight champ defended his performance against Maia, and even threatened to leak sensitive information about the UFC boss.

bjpenndotcom - August 1, 2017

The ongoing saga of a potential Georges St-Pierre vs. Michael Bisping superfight has continued to result in a delay. Despite Robert Whittaker recently winning the interim middleweight championship, a Bisping vs. St-Pierre fight has once again picked up steam. Prior to the Robert Whittaker vs. Yoel Romero interim middleweight title fight, Georges St-Pierre texted both Michael Bisping and Dana White requesting a fight with Bisping in November. Following the fight, Bisping was guaranteed the winner, however a potentially lengthy sit has forced interim champion Robert Whittaker to the wayside for the next several months, bringing back the possibility of a Bisping vs. GSP fight once again.

Russell Ess - August 1, 2017

Jon Jones was able to get back the UFC light heavyweight championship title from Daniel Cormier on Saturday night, serving “DC” the first KO loss of his MMA career. Jones is the only man who has been able to fight Cormier in a professional mixed martial arts bout and come out the winner. Cormier went into the UFC 214 fight against Jones as the defending champion and earned the highest reported salary from the event with a guaranteed purse of $1 million. Jones’ reported salary from UFC 214 was $500,000. However, Malki Kawa who manages Jon Jones claims that the reported incomes don’t tell the full stories as far as earnings go.

bjpenndotcom - August 1, 2017

Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir has been absent from the Octagon for over a year now. After having a 2-fight win streak snapped by Andrei Arlovski at UFC 191, Mir looked to bounce back as he faced Mark Hunt at ‘UFC Fight Night: Australia’. Unfortunately for Mir, the fight was rather one-sided as Hunt picked up a first round walkoff KO win over the former champ. Following the loss, Mir was notified of a potential USADA anti-doping violation stemming from his fight night drug test. After a lengthy appeal process, Mir was handed a 2 year suspension retroactive to April of 2016, making him eligible to fight in just eight months from now. Subsequently, the UFC released the former champ from his contract, making him a free agent.

Russell Ess - August 1, 2017

UFC commentator Joe Rogan has stated that he personally does not think it’s a good idea to interview fighters in the Octagon after they just had been knocked out. However, he went against his own belief following the UFC 214 main event on Saturday by interviewing Daniel Cormier in the Octagon after he was knocked out by Jon Jones in their title fight. Rogan made a public apology to Cormier and upset fans on social media following the fights and stated that it was entirely his fault and didn’t even realize he was screwing up until it happened. Rogan then took some time to explain the situation with Eddie Bravo on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

Tom Taylor - August 1, 2017

Jose Aldo is no longer the UFC featherweight champion. That title now belongs to Hawaii’s Max Holloway who defeated the Brazilian great back in June. Now several months removed from his loss to Holloway, Aldo is beginning to weigh the options for his return to action. Given that Holloway is likely to be taking on Frankie Edgar next, Aldo seems to like Cub Swanson as the opponent for his next fight.

Russell Ess - August 1, 2017

UFC President Dana White was not happy with the UFC 214 welterweight title fight performance from Tyron Woodley, which took place over the weekend in Anaheim, California. White stated that Woodley and Maia set a record for the least amount of punches thrown in a five-round title fight. White also said that he thought Woodley could have taken some risks to finish Maia who had a very swollen eye from the first round that he likely could not see out of for the majority of the fight.

bjpenndotcom - August 1, 2017

This past Saturday at UFC 214, longtime rivals Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier stepped into the Octagon together for a highly anticipated rematch nearly three years in the making. When the two stepped into the Octagon together on Saturday, Cormier appeared to come out of the gate strong as he looked to take advantage of Jones potentially having any ring rust. That changed in the third round however when Jones caught the champ with a head kick that ultimately resulted in the fight being over.

bjpenndotcom - August 1, 2017

Prior to Jon Jones’ triumphant return to the Octagon this past Saturday in the main event of UFC 214, it was revealed that Jones and UFC President Dana White hadn’t talked since UFC 200, when Jones was pulled from the card for a potential USADA anti-doping violation just 48 hours before the fight was scheduled to take place. UFC President Dana White was understandably frustrated with the situation, and the rift between Jon Jones and Dana White grew. As previously stated, ahead of UFC 214, the rift continued to grow, as White stated that he hadn’t spoken to Jones since the incident. On the heels of the fight however, Jones’ manager, Malki Kawa spoke on The MMA Hour to discuss the rift between Jones & White, and why he isn’t overly worried about it, saying:

Tom Taylor - August 1, 2017

In preparation for his August 26 boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr., UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor recently sought the help of former boxing champ Paulie Malignaggi. McGregor also enlisted the aid of boxing referee Joe Cortez, who was put in charge of overseeing his sparring sessions with Malignaggi. Speaking to SiriusXM Boxing, Cortez recently shed some light on Malignaggi’s sparring sessions with McGregor. Apparently, McGregor actually held his own, and the two fighters got quite heated.

bjpenndotcom - August 1, 2017

In 2014, prior to Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones’ first meeting inside the Octagon, the pair both appeared onstage together at a press conference for the ‘tickets on sale’ event prior to the fight. During the course of the press conference, Jones declared that he had been able to pick out some rather glaring tendencies in the game of Daniel Cormier. He stated:

Tom Taylor - August 1, 2017

Over the weekend, in the main event of UFC 214, light heavyweight legend Jon Jones reclaimed the divisional title with a third-round knockout of his arch rival, Daniel Cormier. In the buildup to and fallout of this fight, the new champ generated dozens of headlines by calling for a fight with former UFC heavyweight champ and long-time WWE star Brock Lesnar. As outlandish as that callout initially sounded, it seems like the fight might actually happen.

Tom Taylor - August 1, 2017

In 26 days, UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will step into the boxing ring for the first time. His opponent in this professional debut will not be another green fighter, however, it will be undefeated boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. While McGregor is a tremendously talented mixed martial artist, he’s not being given much chance in this boxing match with Mayweather. The majority of fans and pundits seem to be leaning toward a dominant Mayweather win. That said, there are some notable members of the community who do foresee some success for McGregor, such as former UFC heavyweight Brendan  Schaub. Schaub weighed in on the fight in a recent interview on The Kicker and even went so far as to bet a “dick pic” on McGregor’s success.

Tom Taylor - August 1, 2017

On July 8, on the undercard of the anticipated UFC 213, Russian-Ukrainian heavyweight Alexey Oleynik built on the momentum of his dazzling, Ezekiel choke defeat of Viktor Pesta with a slick rear-naked choke defeat of former contender Travis Browne. With this impressive win, Oleynik set himself up for more big opportunities inside the heavyweight top-10, and from the sounds of it, he’s already got an opponent in mind. His desired opponent is legendary knockout artist Mark Hunt. Oleynik made his callout of Hunt on Instagram, explaining that he’d been waiting for Hunt to agree to fight him for two weeks.

Chris Taylor - July 31, 2017

Current UFC middleweight champion of the world Michael Bisping is known for being brash. “The Count” was exactly that during his recent appearance on FS1 where he took shots at both current UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley and former 170-pound kingpin Georges St-Pierre.