MMA News

Tom Taylor - July 18, 2017

On August 26, UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will compete in his first-ever professional boxing match. Despite his complete lack of experience in pro boxing, this fight will not see him battle some journeyman in a community center basement. Instead, he’ll battle undefeated boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a fight that is widely considered the biggest of all time. Considering the scale of the test in front of him, you might expect McGregor to put his MMA training completely on hold to focus exclusively on boxing. Apparently, however, this has not been the case.

bjpenndotcom - July 18, 2017

Recently, UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and UFC President Dana White were involved in a very public spat following Johnson’s refusal to fight former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw at flyweight. While many fans were quick to criticize Mighty Mouse for allegedly “ducking” Dillashaw, the champ revealed in an open letter than the UFC had recently just pressured him into signing a fight with Ray Borg, a deal they then wanted him to go back on.

Tom Taylor - July 18, 2017

On July 29, in the co-main event of the stacked UFC 214, Demian Maia will challenge Tyron Woodley for the UFC welterweight crown. Though this is an undeniably massive fight for the Brazilian grappling specialist, he’s determined not to think of it as the biggest fight of his life – he learned not to do that in his first UFC title fight: a 2010 middleweight battle with Anderson Silva. Maia explained this thought process on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

Tom Taylor - July 18, 2017

On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, retired boxer Paulie Malignaggi confirmed that he would be helping UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor prepare for his August 26 boxing match with the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. On the same episode, Malignaggi gave his take on how McGregor might upset the odds and author the victory in this blockbuster battle.

Tom Taylor - July 18, 2017

Over the weekend, former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones blasted his UFC 214 opponent, reigning light heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier, with some pretty significant trash talk. This bit of trash talk served as the spark for yet another fiery social media exchange between the two, which occurred on both Twitter and Instagram. See their latest exchanges below, which also involved Chi-Lewis Parry, a kickboxer and One Championship heavyweight who has served as one of Cormier’s training partners for his rematch with Jones.

Chris Taylor - July 17, 2017

UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic (17-2 MMA) successfully defended his title for a second time at May’s UFC 211 event in Dallas, where he scored a first-round TKO victory over former division title holder Junior dos Santos. The victory served at Miocic’s fifth in a row, as he had previously scored finishes over Mark Hunt, Andrei Arlovski, Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem.

Russell Ess - July 17, 2017

As the world waits to see how the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor plays out on August 26, many are taking a look at their training videos to make early predictions. One video, in particular, puts Mayweather and McGregor side-by-side and compares the two fighters training. Mayweather is seen looking very quick and precise as he hits a double end bag while McGregor looks slower as he hits a much bigger, heavier, specialty bag. People have been comparing the two and are quick to assume that McGregor will have no chance when the two are in the boxing ring together.

Russell Ess - July 17, 2017

Horrible news struck the MMA community over the weekend as reports surfaced that a fighter died in Kentucky following an amateur bout. 37-year-old Donshay White was pronounced dead on Saturday after he was taken to a hospital after collapsing backstage following his fight against Ricky Muse at the Hardrock MMA 90 event. White suffered a second round TKO loss due to strikes and was responsive and walked backstage on his own power, according to BluegrassMMA. White appeared to be exhausted and was given medical attention. However, White ended up collapsing backstage and was unresponsive and was given CPR and transported to a hospital by ambulance where he later died.

Russell Ess - July 17, 2017

The women’s bantamweight title fight between champion Amanda Nunes and challenger Valentina Shevchenko has been rescheduled for UFC 215, according to a report by Combate. UFC 215 takes place in Edmonton, Canada, on September 9. The two were supposed to fight in the main event of UFC 213. However, Nunes withdrew from the competition the day of their fight after claiming that she felt ill.

Tom Taylor - July 17, 2017

The four-day, four-city press tour for Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather’s August 26 mega fight was a doozy. It created all of the hilarious, intense, and memorable moments we hoped for. Unfortunately, it also created a few less savoury moments, as some of McGregor’s comments were deemed racist, and Mayweather uttered a homophobic slur. According to McGregor’s father, Tony McGregor, however, any opinions that the Irish mixed martial artist is racist are inaccurate. The elder McGregor defended his son on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

Tom Taylor - July 17, 2017

On August 26, UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will battle Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the boxing ring. Though his training camp for this massive showdown began in his native Ireland, he has now relocated to Las Vegas, where he will undertake his remaining preparations for the undefeated great. As it turns out, a key facet of these preparations will indeed be former two-weight world champion and current boxing analyst Paulie Malignaggi. Malignaggi detailed his role in McGregor’s camp on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. Apparently, he’ll serve as more of a sparring partner and less of a coach.

Tom Taylor - July 17, 2017

Last night, in the main event of the UFC’s anticipated return to Glasgow, Scotland, Santiago Ponzinibbio scored an upset, knockout win over the highly regard Gunnar Nelson in just 82 seconds. Unfortunately, Ponzinibbio’s win was not without controversy, as he appeared to badly eye-poke Nelson just moments before the fight-ending blows were landed. Nelson gave his take on the alleged eye-poke at the event’s post-fight press conference:

Tom Taylor - July 17, 2017

In little less than two weeks’ time, in the main event of the stacked UFC 214 on July 29, UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier and former champion Jon Jones will have the chance to settle one of the fiercest rivalries in MMA history. That doesn’t mean they’ve dialled back the trash talk in the meantime, though. The latest chapter in the volumes of trash talk between the two light heavyweight stars was written by Jones.

Tom Taylor - July 17, 2017

If Conor McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh is to believed, the Irish MMA star should be ready to fight – and beat – Floyd Mayweather any day now. On a late June episode of The MMA Hour, Kavanagh claimed McGregor would be ready for the undefeated pugilist in just three weeks’ time, far less than eight weeks he actually had left to prepare at the time. “We have two more weeks in Ireland, then the guys will head to Las Vegas,” Kavanagh said  (h/t MMAMania). “We’ll then have six weeks in Vegas before the fight, but I watched the session today and said we would be ready in three weeks.”

Tom Taylor - July 17, 2017

It has now been several months since we’ve seen former UFC middleweight champion and bona fide MMA legend Anderson Silva in the cage. Though he was briefly scheduled for a UFC 212 battle with surging middleweight contender Kelvin Gastelum, this plan fell through when Gastelum was flagged for marijuana metabolites, leaving Silva glued to the sidelines without a fight. Based on a Sunday evening Instagram post, it seems as though the middleweight legend is attempting to rectify his inactivity. In his post, Silva called out Nick Diaz, who he battled back in early 2015.

Tom Taylor - July 17, 2017

Whether you thought it was exciting, or a little over the top, you can’t deny that Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather’s four-city press tour, which stopped in LA, Toronto, Brooklyn and London, was big. The tour drew out upward of 50,000 fans and generated countless headlines. The tour was also very exclusive. Tickets were expensive, and they weren’t easy to get even if you could afford them. Media credentials were also pretty difficult to acquire. Backstage access, finally, was as locked down as Area 51. The inner workings of these tour stops were only accessible to members of the two fighters’ teams, the promoters, and the crew.

Chris Taylor - July 16, 2017

During tonight’s UFC on FOX post-fight show current UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping took a shot at co-worker Karyn Bryant. “The Count”, who is well known for being hasty, had just finished sharing his thoughts on why Gunnar Nelson had suffered his first-round knockout loss to Santiago Ponzinibbio in the UFC Glasgow main event.

Chris Taylor - July 16, 2017

Santiago Ponzinibbio picked up the biggest win of his mixed martial arts career tonight in Glasgow by knocking out perennial division contender Gunnar Nelson in the very first-round. Here is how the pros reacted to Santiago Ponzinibbio’s stunning first-round finish of Gunnar Nelson.