MMA News

bjpenndotcom - September 12, 2016

CM Punk may have only spent a little over two minutes in the octagon, but he got some serious money for those two minutes. Punk earned $500,000 in a losing effort to Mickey Gall at UFC 203, where Gall submitted Punk with a rear naked choke after dominating the former pro wrestler on the ground for the duration of the fight.

Tom Taylor - September 12, 2016

Once widely considered the greatest mixed martial artist on the planet, Russia’s Fedor Emelianenko has fallen off pretty severely over the last few years. First, he experienced three consecutive losses under the Strikeforce banner, falling to Fabricio Werdum, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, and Dan Henderson. Next, he scored three wins over less than stellar competition, before retiring for several years. Then, in late 2015, he made a massively hyped comeback, first crushing an overmatched Jaideep Singh under the Rizin FF banner, and then battling a hot and cold light heavyweight in Fabio Maldonado to a controversial majority decision – which was later ruled a draw.

Tom Taylor - September 12, 2016

https://youtu.be/YD9ILxGGiZw On Saturday night, former WWE star CM Punk’s MMA dreams came crashing down, as he was defeated by 24-year-old prospect Mickey Gall in his long-awaited UFC debut. The fight was a quick one – 2:14 long to be exact. It began with Punk charging bravely, if recklessly, across the ring to trade strikes with Gall. Gall then took Punk down before a single punch was thrown, where he battered him with ground and pound, before locking up a rear-naked choke to coax out the tap.

bjpenndotcom - September 12, 2016

Jon Jones may be dealing with a potential two-year USADA suspension for two failed tests leading into UFC 200, but that hasn’t stopped the 28-year-old light heavyweight kingpin from thinking big. Like, heavyweight big.

Tom Taylor - September 12, 2016

In the main event of UFC 203, UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic clobbered challenger Alistair Overeem for a first-round knockout win – but not before surviving an early knockdown and guillotine choke attempt. In the moments after Miocic’s victory, the vanquished Overeem – surely still dazed from his knockout loss – told UFC color commentator Joe Rogan that he had felt Miocic tap during the aforementioned guillotine attempt.

bjpenndotcom - September 12, 2016

Upstate New York native Jon Jones won’t be able to fight in time for the UFC’s debut event in the Empire State, according to a twitter exchange with a fan on Sunday. https://twitter.com/BlackBartSon/status/775172408428859394

Tom Taylor - September 12, 2016

CM Punk’s long-awaited, long-debated jump from pro wrestling to MMA has come and gone, and it did not go the way he planned. The former pro wrestler, who had no real martial arts experience prior to signing with the UFC, was abruptly submitted by a much more experienced fighter in Mickey Gall on the main card of UFC 203 last Saturday. Given Punk’s experiential deficit, nobody was particularly surprised by his failure against Gall. Though many fighters were quick to offer Punk props for his courage, most also admitted the fight unfurled exactly as they expected.

Tom Taylor - September 12, 2016

For awhile there, it looked as though it could be some time before we saw former middleweight champion Luke Rockhold back in the UFC’s Octagon. He’d expressed some serious disappointment with the money the UFC was offering him, and seemed to be focused on his burgeoning modelling career. Luckily, however, the UFC has found a way to lure Rockhold back to the cage. Yesterday, it was announced that the former champion will be taking a trip to Melbourne, Australia this November 26, where he’ll take on an old foe in Brazil’s Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza.

Chris Taylor - September 11, 2016

Former WWE champion CM Punk made his mixed martial arts debut at this Saturday’s UFC 203 pay-per-view event in Cleveland, where he suffered a first-round submission loss to prospect Mikey Gall. The fight turned out to be quite lopsided, as Gall was able to score an early takedown and promptly dominate Punk on the canvas with solid ground and pound before sinking a fight-ending rear-naked choke submission.

Chris Taylor - September 11, 2016

Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum turned heads on two occasions during last night’s UFC 203 event in Cleveland, Ohio. Werdum’s first jaw dropping moment came when he started his co-main event bout with Travis Browne by throwing a flying side kick that connected.

Chris Taylor - September 11, 2016

Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold will return to the octagon this November when he squares off with Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza in the main event of UFC Fight Night Melbourne. UFC officials just announced the bout.

Chris Taylor - September 11, 2016

Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum scored a unanimous decision victory over Hawaiian Travis Browne in the co-headliner of yesterday’s UFC 203 event in Cleveland, Ohio.

Chris Taylor - September 11, 2016

Former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) champion CM Punk made his highly anticipated octagon debut against Mickey Gall at last night’s UFC 203 event in Cleveland, Ohio. The bout served as Punk’s first ever professional mixed martial arts fight and came against a very young and talented prospect, Gall, who had gone 2-0 thus far in his professional MMA career.

Chris Taylor - September 11, 2016

Former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum scored a unanimous decision victory over Travis Browne at last night’s UFC 203 event in Cleveland, Ohio. The win marked the second time that Werdum had defeated Browne in the past 30 months, having scored a decision victory over “Hapa” previously in April of 2014.

Tom Taylor - September 11, 2016

UFC 203, which went down in Cleveland, Ohio on Saturday night, is now in the rear-view. While fighter purses for the event have not yet been disclosed, we do now know how much each fighter took home through the UFC’s Athlete Outfitting Program  – the result of the organization’s oft-criticized partnership with sports apparel giant Reebok. In sum, the 20 fighters who stepped into the Octagon in Cleveland took home $215,000. The bulk of that amount went to the evening’s headliners, UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, and challenger Alistair Overeem, who took home $40,000 and $30,000 respectively. The other big earners of the night were those fighters with the most bouts under the Zuffa umbrella. Bantamweight veteran Urijah Faber, for example, took home $20,000 on the strength of his 26 bouts in the UFC and Zuffa-era WEC. Nik Lentz, meanwhile, took home 15,000 thanks to his 17 UFC bouts.

Chris Taylor - September 11, 2016

UFC heavyweight contender “Big” Ben Rothwell was supposed to square off with former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum at last night’s UFC 203 event in Cleveland, Ohio. Unfortunately for fight fans, Rothwell suffered an injury just weeks ahead of the scheduled bout and was forced to pull out of the contest.

Tom Taylor - September 11, 2016

On the main card of UFC 203, Jimmie Rivera earned a unanimous decision win over Urijah Faber, becoming the first bantamweight to defeat the long-time contender in a three-round, non-title fight. The decision win goes down as the biggest of the 27-year-old prospect’s career, and is likely to have earned him a spot deep inside the bantamweight division’s top-10 rankings. Unfortunately, Rivera did not escape the encounter unscathed. In the third round of the fight, the Puerto Rican fighter found himself on the receiving end of a nasty eye-poke, which forced a momentary break in the action. And though he was ultimately able to continue fighting to the final bell, Rivera has since revealed the extent of the damage caused by Faber’s eye-poke.

Tom Taylor - September 11, 2016

UFC 203, which emanated from Cleveland, Ohio’s Quicken Loans Arena, produced a number of strange moments. The majority of these moments were shoehorned into the evening’s co-main event, during which former heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum took a unanimous decision from Hawaii’s Travis Browne, who stepped up on short notice to replace an injured Ben Rothwell.