MMA News

Tom Taylor - April 22, 2017

Amanda Nunes had a banner 2016. She kicked off the year with a decision defeat of talented Kyrgyzstani striker Valentina Shevchenko. Then, in the main event of the landmark UFC 200, she claimed the UFC women’s bantamweight title with a first round destruction of WMMA great Miesha Tate. Finally, in December, she closed out the year with a 48 second mauling of former champion and MMA superstar Ronda Rousey. Yet while 2016 couldn’t have gone better for Nunes, 2017 has been pretty quiet for her so far.

Tom Taylor - April 22, 2017

On June 11, the UFC will head to the South Pacific with UFC New Zealand. The card, which will go down inside Aukland’s Spark Arena, already has fans very excited. Much of the excitement surrounding this card can be attributed to its dynamite main event. This main event will pit brick-fisted heavyweight veteran Mark Hunt against the streaking Derrick Lewis. Now, this main event is represented in an official, promotional fight poster – and it’s a good one. While the typical UFC promotional poster simply features the card’s competitors, side-by-side, this one shows Lewis and Hunt squaring off with crazed expressions on their faces.

Tom Taylor - April 22, 2017

Yesterday, it was reported that BJJ star and rising MMA talent Mackenzie Dern had failed to make weight for the Abu Dhabi World Pro jiu jitsu championship, and that she had been scratched from the tournament bracket as a result. Dern was expected to face Belgian brown belt Amal Amjahid in the opening round. One day removed from the news of this weigh-in miss, Dern has now released a statement, clarifying that she did not miss weight for the event, but that she decided to remove her own name from the tournament because she was not feeling up to par. Dern made her statement on Instagram.

Tom Taylor - April 22, 2017

Last night, news broke that former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir had been slapped with a two-year ban from the United States Anti-Doping Agency. His suspension stems from an in-competition test, conducted after his knockout loss to Mark Hunt. Mir tested positive for metabolites of the banned substance dehydrochloromethyltestosterone. USADA broke down their investigation of Mir’s failed test, and his resulting ban, in the following statement:

Russell Ess - April 21, 2017

https://youtu.be/xWD4RLtYnRc Knockout finishes are one of the greatest spectacles in combat sports.

Russell Ess - April 21, 2017

Bellator MMA has picked up a few of the UFC’s high-ranked fighters including former UFC welterweight challenger Rory MacDonald. MacDonald is set to make his Bellator MMA debut against knockout artist Paul Daley in Bellator 179’s main event on May 19 at the SSE Arena in London.

Russell Ess - April 21, 2017

The UFC bantamweight title fight between champion Cody Garbrandt and former champion TJ Dillashaw is heating up as they are set to meet in the Octagon at UFC 213 on July 8. With the two former teammates also starring as opposing coaches in the current season of The Ultimate Fighter, there is a ton of history between the two opponents. Once friends and training partners, they now find themselves on opposite sides set to do battle in the Octagon.

Russell Ess - April 21, 2017

https://www.facebook.com/MMAvids/videos/1904291833120762/ It’s not often that you see a flying kick attempted in mixed martial arts.

Russell Ess - April 21, 2017

What could possibly top Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather’s superfight boxing match? At this point, it doesn’t look like any fight in the UFC will get “The Notorious” the kind of money that he will be compensated for in the Mayweather bout.

Tom Taylor - April 21, 2017

After years away from the sport, former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre is soon expected to return to the UFC’s Octagon. Instead of returning to the welterweight division where he was once so dominant, however, the Canadian star will make his return at middleweight, where he will take on Michael Bisping for the divisional throne. This fight is expected to occur sometime later this year – though Bisping has suggested that he’ll give the title shot to somebody else if he gets tired of waiting.

Tom Taylor - April 21, 2017

Tomorrow night, the UFC will take over “Music City,” Nashville, Tennessee, with an action packed night of fights. One of the most exciting of these fights will occur in the co-main event, when The Ultimate Fighter Season 1 winner Diego Sanchez takes on Al Iaquinta, who will be returning to the Octagon after a contract dispute with the UFC. Though Iaquinta has not been seen in the cage for some time, he remains one of the top lightweights in the UFC, and as such, a tough test for the veteran Sanchez. Speaking to MMAJunkie.com in advance of this fight, Sanchez has assured that he plans to pass this test, and catapult himself up the lightweight rankings.

Tom Taylor - April 21, 2017

Tomorrow night, the UFC will touch down in the music mecca of Nashville, Tennessee to compose some rather percussive tunes of its own. It will do so with UFC Fight Night 108, a fun looking 13-fight card. Nashville’s main event will pit the UFC’s fourth-ranked featherweight Cub Swanson against Conor McGregor training partner Artem Lobov. Given Swanson’s station in the division, and the fact that Lobov sits outside the top-15 with a 13-12-1 overall record, many fans have suggested that this is an opportunity the McGregor stablemate doesn’t deserve. Sensible matchmaking or not, however, this fight looks like it should be a fun one. 

Tom Taylor - April 21, 2017

https://youtu.be/BZqW6q-kmrI Brazilian middleweight Maiquel Falcao, who you’ll remember as a member of the UFC and Bellator rosters – and for his infamous gas station brawl – recently had a very bad night in Russia. He was visiting the port city of Vladivostok for a Fight Nights Global scrap with Vladimir Mineev. To say it didn’t go his way would be an understatement.

Tom Taylor - April 21, 2017

Mackenzie Dern is one of the best female grapplers on earth. Having gone 3-0 in the cage, she’s also one of the brightest young stars in women’s MMA. If there’s one knock against the Brazilian-American grappling star, however, it’s that she seems to have real difficulty keeping her competition weight in check. Her indiscretions in this area are becoming quite numerous. She missed weight for her sophomore mixed martial arts bout, tipping the scales at 118.8 lbs rather than 115. She also missed weight for her third MMA bout, clocking in at 120. Now, Dern has missed weight again, this time failing to reach the required 55 kg (121 lbs) for the Abu Dhabi World Pro Tournament. As a result, Dern has been removed from the tournament.

Tom Taylor - April 21, 2017

During a recent visit to beautiful Moscow, Russia, former UFC welterweight champion and upcoming middleweight title challenger Georges St-Pierre spoke to RT Sport on a number of MMA-related topics. Perhaps the most interesting comment this interview produced occurred when St-Pierre was asked about Russian fighters. This question prompted him to praise undefeated UFC lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters on earth – if not the best outright. “I think actually one of the best pound-for-pound in the world, maybe the best pound-for-pound in the world, is Khabib Nurmagomedov,” St-Pierre said. “I always said it. For me, he’s probably the best pound-for-pound. Unfortunately, I believe people don’t give him enough credit. Maybe because he’s not American, he’s not someone who talks a lot of trash like Conor McGregor, he’s someone who’s very respectful, he doesn’t make a lot of noise by talking. But the same thing, like I said before about me, is that the resume speaks by itself. You know, the guy’s undefeated, he beat everybody. I’m just sad that the fight with [Tony] Ferguson didn’t happen, because it would have been an amazing fight.

Tom Taylor - April 21, 2017

Tomorrow night, Artem Lobov will face the biggest test of his career in the UFC’s fourth-ranked featherweight, Cub Swanson. He’ll enter this fight on a two-fight win-streak, and if he scores the upset, he’s likely to burst into the featherweight top-10, where more high-stakes challenges await. Things haven’t always been so good for Lobov. Speaking to Peter Carroll of NewsTalk.com, Lobov explained that, after losing his first two fights with the organization – decisions to Ryan Hall and Alex White – he actually contacted the UFC and asked to be released from his contract. Apparently, he was offered a fight with a champion in another promotion.

Tom Taylor - April 20, 2017

Last night, the first episode of season 25 of The Ultimate Fighter hit our screens, and as expected, the majority of the drama hinged on the beef between coaches Cody Garbrandt and TJ Dillashaw – the bantamweight champ and number-one-contender respectively. Garbrandt and Dillashaw, who used to train together at Team Alpha Male, share one of the most visible rivalries in MMA today. Today, when they are serving as rival coaches on the current season of The Ultimate Fighter, and are scheduled for a bantamweight title fight at UFC 213 this July 8, their beef is reaching new heights. It seems we can’t go a day without one side trashing the other in the media, or on social media.

Tom Taylor - April 20, 2017

The biggest story in combat sports today surrounds a boxing mega fight between undefeated great Floyd Mayweather, and Irish MMA superstar Conor McGregor. While this potential showdown initially looked nearly impossible, it is looking more and more probable by the day. And now, Artem Lobov, one of McGregor’s main training partners, wants in on the action. Though Lobov is just days away from the biggest fight of his career, a Saturday night, main event battle with the UFC’s fourth-ranked featherweight Cub Swanson, he has found time in his schedule to initiate a Twitter feud with another titan of the boxing world: Amir Khan.