MMA News

Tom Taylor - May 17, 2017

From the early vantage point, December’s UFC 206 was widely considered to be a fairly weak card. In the end, however, the card delivered as one of the best year, making up for its lack of big names by producing some epic stoppages and perhaps the best fight in UFC history: a featherweight war between Cub Swanson and Doo Ho Choi. Despite a valiant effort against the far more experienced Swanson, Choi would lose this fight by decision, and return to South Korea with a new loss on his record, and plenty of bruises to show for it.

bjpenndotcom - May 17, 2017

UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson may arguably be the pound for pound kingpin, however Johnson hasn’t found the same superstardom as fighters such as Conor McGregor or Anderson Silva, despite reigning as the one and only UFC flyweight kingpin for five years now. While fighter pay is certainly one of the most controversial topics in MMA today, Demetrious Johnson didn’t shy away from discussing the topic during a recent interview with ESPN, when he spoke about CM Punk’s earnings in his UFC debut against Mickey Gall, where he lost in the first round:

bjpenndotcom - May 17, 2017

UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier has been extremely willing to engage in trash talk recently leading up to his summer rematch with former light heavyweight kingpin Jon Jones for the undisputed light heavyweight title. Leading up to the fight, Cormier appears to be extremely comfortable not only in the spotlight, but also with the microphone, as was evident at the UFC Summer Kickoff press conference, where he and Jones appeared onstage together. Daniel Cormier repeatedly slammed Jones, also going as far as to call the former champ a “junkie”. That struck a nerve with many people, who felt as though the champ may have crossed the line.

Tom Taylor - May 17, 2017

My new training partner #BackPack is going everywhere with me!!! Check out #TheMorningWoodShow to hear what I think about @demianmaia #MatchUp and #ufc211 recap 🚨LINK IN BIO🚨@DinThomas Produced by: @tjdesantis A post shared by Tyron Woodley (@twooodley) on May 16, 2017 at 8:23pm PDT

Tom Taylor - May 17, 2017

Rory MacDonald plans to rule @BellatorMMA's welterweights, but what does he think of the top contenders? He fights Paul Daley on Friday! pic.twitter.com/PXC97eZPL2

Tom Taylor - May 17, 2017

For a time, UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping was next expected to defend his title against former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. Given that St-Pierre has not fought in many years, and that he’s never fought in the middleweight division before, this booking was met with widespread criticism. Luckily for those fans and fighters that disapproved of this fight, the plan has been nixed. Though Bisping hoped the fight would occur sometime this summer, St-Pierre recently came out and announced that he would’t be able to fight until November or later. This prompted UFC President Dana White to scrap this undeniably lucrative plan, and award the next middleweight title shot to the far more deserving Yoel Romero.

bjpenndotcom - May 16, 2017

UFC President Dana White and former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold aren’t currently on the best of terms at the moment. Rockhold recently called for the UFC to create an interim title while Michael Bisping and Georges St-Pierre fought for the undisputed title, stating on The MMA Hour:

Russell Ess - May 16, 2017

Coming off a devastating KO over Jake Ellenberger at UFC Night Night 108 in April, it looks like Mike Perry is itching to get back to competition. With his next fight, “Platinum” is looking to knock off one of the names in the UFC’s top 15 welterweight rankings. On Tuesday, Perry sent a series of tweets aimed at Matt “The Immortal” Brown and also threw in a few F bombs at a few other names in the 170-pound division.

bjpenndotcom - May 16, 2017

This past weekend at UFC 211, UFC women’s strawweight kingpin Joanna Jedrzejczyk stepped into the Octagon against Jessica Andrade for a highly anticipated matchup of styles. Joanna Jedrzejczyk stepped into the Octagon in hopes of picking her opponent apart and using her elite level striking to defend her belt for the fourth time, while Andrade looked to use her power to hand the champion her first professional loss. ‘Joanna Champion’ passed the test with flying colors as she utilized her striking and movement to pick apart Andrade over the course of 5 rounds.

Tom Taylor - May 16, 2017

When it was announced earlier this year that the next shot at Michael Bisping’s middleweight title would go to former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre – a man riding a multi-year layoff with no experience in the division – there was widespread backlash. While much of this backlash came from the fans, the most visible responses to the news came from Bisping and St-Pierre’s fellow fighters. And of all the fighters to sound off against this strange title fight, it’s possible that none were as vocal as former champ Luke Rockhold. “Our division is hot right now, they’ve got good matchups, but they’re just not putting the champion to work,” Rockhold said on a recent episode of The MMA Hour. “It’s ridiculous. Are they really going to wait until October to make the Georges St-Pierre fight?” 

bjpenndotcom - May 16, 2017

This past weekend, on the main card of UFC 211, top ranked UFC prospect Demian Maia picked up a win over Jorge Masvidal to extend his win streak to 7, and cement his place as the UFC welterweight #1 contender. With his win over Masvidal, Maia now has likely secured himself a fight for the UFC welterweight championship. With that being said however, UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley still has his eyes on another opponent while Maia takes some time off following his win over Masvidal.

Russell Ess - May 16, 2017

For many fighters that moved over to Bellator from the UFC, the sponsorship dollars were likely a big factor in their decisions to switch things up. Take Ryan Bader for example. Bader said he would be making three to four times as much in personal sponsorship money fighting under Bellator than he was getting with Reebok’s uniform sponsorship deal with the UFC. Bader was also near the top of the pay tier of the Reebok sponsorship program.

Tom Taylor - May 16, 2017

Last month, in the main event of the UFC’s visit to Kansas City, UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson – widely known as “Mighty Mouse” – defended his title with a submission defeat of BJJ blackbelt Wilson Reis. This marked the champ’s tenth straight defense of the UFC strawweight title, and tied Anderson Silva’s all-time record for consecutive title defenses. Given that Anderson Silva is no longer a UFC champion, and Johnson is looking more dominant than ever, he now has the opportunity to set a new record for consecutive title defenses with an eleventh straight defense. Johnson has made no secret of the fact that this is his plan – but he doesn’t plan on stopping at eleven.

bjpenndotcom - May 16, 2017

Saturday night in the preliminary card main event of UFC 211, former UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez stepped into the Octagon against streaking lightweight Dustin Poirier for a highly anticipated showdown. Dustin Poirier began to land early, stunning Alvarez with hard shots throughout the first round before ultimately then rocking Alvarez in the second. Miraculously, Alvarez survived the brutal onslaught, and even managed to flip the script as he rocked Porier in the second. This unfortunately led to a sequence of events that saw a ‘Fight of the Year’ candidate cut short as Alvarez unintentionally landed several illegal knees that dropped Poirier, who was deemed a ‘grounded fighter’ at the time of the knees.

Tom Taylor - May 16, 2017

On July 22, the UFC will debut in Long Island, New York with UFC on Fox 25. As this card draws ever closer, it is beginning to come together with several key matchups.The latest matchup that has been pencilled onto the bill is a featherweight scrap between top-15 ranked fighters. In one corner, we’ll have hard nosed Team Alpha Male fighter Darren Elkins. In the other, we’ll have New York’s own Dennis Bermudez. This matchup was first reported by Ariel Helwani on Twitter. At the time of this writing, the UFC has not officially announced the matchup.

bjpenndotcom - May 16, 2017

Recently, former UFC light heavyweight contender Anthony Johnson announced his retirement from MMA following his 2nd round submission loss to Daniel Cormier at UFC 210, marking his second defeat to Cormier. In his post-fight Octagon interview, Johnson revealed that he would be retiring from MMA to pursue other ventures. While Anthony Johnson didn’t immediately reveal his future plans, he recently revealed that he had partnered with someone, and would be opening up a medicinal marijuana dispensary.

Tom Taylor - May 16, 2017

Could a Stephen Thompson vs. Jorge Masvidal fight be in the cards?  Last weekend, on the main card of the stacked UFC 211, Jorge Masvidal took on Demian Maia in what looked like a welterweight number one contender fight. Though Masvidal was the sharper man on the feet, he fell victim to Maia’s legendary grappling skill, succumbing to four takedowns and giving up almost eight minutes of control time on the mat. And while there were some members of the MMA community that believed he’d done enough to eke out the win, the judges ultimately sided with Maia by split decision.

Tom Taylor - May 16, 2017

Last weekend, on the main card of UFC 211, Demian Maia scored a close but impressive win over Jorge Masvidal, and appeared to earn himself his long awaited shot at the UFC welterweight title in the process. On Monday’s edition of the MMA Hour, UFC welterweight champ Tyron Woodley discussed Maia’s performance and weighed in the possibility of a fight with him. As ever, Woodley made no secret of the fact that bouts with Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz excite him far more than a possible fight with Maia. That said, the champ assured he would fight Maia, and that he considers the Brazilian grappling wizard his easiest top-10 foe.