MMA News

Tom Taylor - December 2, 2016

On January 15th, the UFC will return to Phoenix, Arizona. The card will be topped by a battle between rising Mexican featherweight Yair Rodriguez, and our very own BJ Penn, who will be returning after more than two years away from the sport. The UFC announced three new fights added to the Phoenix event.

Tom Taylor - December 2, 2016

https://youtu.be/wEXb_ielH5Y Last December, UFC veteran Brandon Vera won the vacant One Championship heavyweight title with a thunderous first-round knockout of late-replacement Paul Cheng. Almost a full year later, Vera finally defended that title. He did so against the 43-year-old Hideki “Big Body” Sekine – who is also nicknamed “Shrek” – in the main event of One Championship: Age of Domination in the Philippines.

Tom Taylor - December 2, 2016

After a long stretch on the shelf, during which he fulfilled the two years of mandatory military service required of all South Korean citizens, “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung is ready to return to the Octagon. Though he’s called for a comeback fight with our very own BJ Penn, it sounds as though he’ll instead take on the ever-entertaining Dennis Bermudez in the main event of a February 4 Fight Night in Houston, Texas. Reports of this matchup come from Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com.

bjpenndotcom - December 2, 2016

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is currently serving a suspension for a failed random out-of-competition drug test back in June, which forced him out of his UFC 200 headlining scrap with Daniel Cormier just 48 hours before fight night. Jones maintained his innocence throughout USADA’s appeal process, and it was ultimately determined that the failed drug test was the result of a tainted supplement, which resulted in USADA handing the former champ a one year suspension retroactive to July, meaning Jones will be eligible to compete again on July 7th of 2017.

bjpenndotcom - December 2, 2016

Back in September, UFC heavyweight veterans Roy Nelson and Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva stepped into the Octagon at ‘UFC Fight Night: Sao Paulo’ in a highly anticipated heavyweight showdown. Nelson ultimately picked up a second round KO win over Silva, however it was the actions which occurred after the KO which resulted in the fight making headlines. After Silva was out cold on the canvas, Nelson believed that referee Big John McCarthy was slow on stopping the fight, and allowed Silva to take unnecessary blows after being KOd. Nelson promptly gave McCarthy the finger before then delivering a swift kick to McCarthy’s rear end while he was tending to Silva.

Russell Ess - December 2, 2016

When UFC superstar Conor McGregor makes any type of significant moves, the word spreads quickly. On Wednesday, Ariel Helwani and Brett Okamoto tweeted that current UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor was granted a boxing license in the state of California. It later came to light that McGregor applied for a boxing license in numerous states.

bjpenndotcom - December 2, 2016

Reigning & defending Invicta FC women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg has been campaigning for the UFC to create a women’s featherweight division for quite some time now. Cyborg made her UFC debut earlier this year at UFC 198 when she stepped into the Octagon against gritty MMA veteran Leslie Smith. Despite enduring a brutal weight cut, during which footage emerged of Cyborg crying while attempting to make weight, the Invicta FC champ won the fight via 1st round TKO, putting on a rather impressive display in her UFC debut. It would be four months until Cyborg returned to the Octagon, where she faced Swedish striking ace Lina Lansberg in the main event of ‘UFC Fight Night: Sao Paulo’. Again, despite a brutal weight-cut, Cyborg won the fight via 2nd round TKO in impressive fashion, dominating the fight from bell to bell.

bjpenndotcom - December 2, 2016

Later this month, PRIDE FC legends Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic and Wanderlei Silva were set to step into the ring in the second round of the Rizin World Grand-Prix. The fight was a highly anticipated one, and would mark the third time the two MMA icons would be stepping into the ring together.

bjpenndotcom - December 2, 2016

Earlier this year, former UFC light heavyweight kingpin Jon Jones was set to make his highly anticipated return to the Octagon at UFC 200, where he was to fight light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier in a highly anticipated rematch for the light heavyweight title. Unfortunately, just 48 hours before fight night, Jones was pulled from the card due to a failed random out-of-competition drug test the month prior. While Jones maintained his innocence throughout the process, it wouldn’t be until November when he was cleared of intentionally taking PEDs, with USADA determining that the failed drug test was the result of a tainted supplement. In early July of 2017, Jones will be eligible to fight again.

Tom Taylor - December 2, 2016

https://twitter.com/zpgifs/status/804679451892129792 Singapore’s One Championship may have recently outlawed the soccer kicks for which it was famous, but it still produces some truly incredible knockouts. One such knockout occurred this morning, during the organization’s latest show “Age of Domination,” which occured at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, the Philippines.

Tom Taylor - December 2, 2016

Earlier this week, we were introduced to the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association (MMAAA), an organization created with the goal of improving the way fighters are treated by the UFC’s new owners, WME-IMG. This organization has been helmed by a team of talented UFC stars: former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez, former bantamweight champ TJ Dillashaw, former lightweight title challenger Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, and former Strikeforce middleweight champ Tim Kennedy. The other face in the vanguard of this new initiative is estranged former Bellator president Bjorn Rebney.

Tom Taylor - December 2, 2016

England’s Michael Bisping has already had a very  long career. Where many fighters start dropping off by the juncture he’s at, however, he’s just hitting his stride. In fact, 2016 was probably the best year of his career thus far. It began with a back-and-forth war with middleweight legend Anderson Silva, who he defeated with a hard-fought decision win. Next, Bisping stepped up on short notice to snuff Luke Rockhold, who he’d lost to less than two years earlier. With this knockout win, Bisping defied the odds to become the UFC middleweight champion. Finally and most recently, Bisping capped off his incredible 2016 with a tooth-and-nail decision defeat of Dan Henderson, who handed him the most decisive loss of his career back in 2009.

Russell Ess - December 1, 2016

Mariusz Pudzianowski put in his time as a World’s Strongest Man competitor and took the title of World’s Strongest Man five times.

Russell Ess - December 1, 2016

If there is one thing the current #1 UFC ranked lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov is fed up with, it is the “bullshit.”

Russell Ess - December 1, 2016

The UFC has updated their rankings following the UFC Fight Night 101 event that took place in Melbourne, Australia over the weekend. Only two divisions were affected in the rankings following the event as Robert Whittaker’s exciting win over Derek Brunson bumped him up to the #6 spot in the middleweight division surging ahead of former UFC middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva.

bjpenndotcom - December 1, 2016

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has been very open about his past battle with addiction, and his pride in now being sober. Despite his past battles with addiction, Jones reigned as the youngest UFC champion in the history of the promotion for nearly five years as he dispatched of top ranked contenders such as Daniel Cormier & Alexander Gustafsson, while also defeating MMA veterans such as Rampage Jackson and Lyoto Machida.

bjpenndotcom - December 1, 2016

Wednesday evening, the MMA community learned that UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor had received his boxing license in California, but had been denied a boxing license in Nevada due to the fact that he has not proven his qualifications as a boxer. Of course McGregor receiving a license to box in California added fuel to the fires of speculation regarding a potential boxing superfight with undefeated boxing icon Floyd Mayweather. Earlier this year, McGregor and Mayweather were rumored to be fighting close to the end of 2017 after McGregor was pulled from his UFC 200 scrap against Nate Diaz for refusing to fulfill his media obligations.

Russell Ess - December 1, 2016

The UFC 208 event which was scheduled to take place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California on January 21 has been canceled. There will still be a UFC event in Anaheim but is now scheduled to take place much later in the year on August 5. The UFC released the following statement on their website on Tuesday: