MMA News

BJPENN.COM News - September 24, 2015

Former Bellator bantamweight champion Joe Warren lost his title to Marcus Galvao in March, when he verbally tapped to a knee bar in the second round. Now he’s set to return to action this weekend against L.C. Davis in the main event of Bellator 143. Ahead of that scrap Warren talked to MMAFighting and said that he was obviously upset after the loss to Galvao, but he got over it, got back in the gym and says the desire to reclaim his title is still there.

BJPENN.COM News - September 24, 2015

Fedor Emelianenko was in the house at this past Saturday’s Bellator ‘Dynamite’ event in San Jose, California and apparently took photos with everyone in the arena. I mean, it’s not everyday you run into an MMA legend like Fedor, so of course you’re going to ask to take a picture. One of the photos making its way around the web is of Fedor standing next to Cris Cyborg’s pole dancing instructor.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

Former UFC lightweight and Strikeforce champion Josh Thomson made his promotional debut for Bellator MMA this past Saturday in front of his home crowd. It was a winning effort and afterwards Thomson had nothing but great things to say about his new boss and new promotion, which he considers to be like a family, something that was missing from the UFC.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

At this past Saturday’s Bellator ‘Dynamite’ event it was announced that Fedor Emelianenko will be headlining an event in Japan, put one by the former boss of PRIDE FC, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, on New Years Eve. The card will air on Spike TV. It seemed like the popular thought was that he’d finally sign with the UFC, but everyone was duped.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

There was a strange feeling in the air when Bellator said they wold have a major announcement during their live broadcast this past Saturday. With Fedor Emelianenko in attendance many wondered if it had anything to do with him, even though both him and Bellator president Scott Coker had said he will not be signing with the promotion. Well, it turns out they were telling the truth, sort of. The announcement did have to do with Fedor and Bellator, but technically he isn’t signed with the promotion, he’s signed with the former boss of PRIDE FC, Nabuyuki Sakakibara, and will headline an event in Japan on New Years Eve, which will be cross promoted by Bellator and will air on Spike TV.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

Bellator MMA welterweight Paul Daley fought in the GLORY kickboxing ring this past Saturday at ‘Dynamite.’ He took on Fernando Gomez, who put up a tough fight but ultimately lost to Daley via unanimous decision. Daley is already in line for a shot at Bellator’s welterweight title but recently said he’d be more than willing to challenge for the GLORY belt as well, if the promotions let him.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

This past Saturday we finally got to see what Bellator’s ‘Dynamite’ event would actually look like. There were a lot of questions leading into the cross promoted event, featuring both MMA fights in a cage and GLORY kickboxing matches in a ring. The night also featured an old school one-night tournament in which former UFC fighter Phil Davis ended up winning. In the night’s main event champ Liam McGeary took on MMA vet Tito Ortiz. Ortiz seemed to have control of the fight, taking Liam down and working from top position, but eventually got trapped in an inverted triangle and tapped out.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

So there’s some good news and some not so good news when it comes to Bellator’s ‘Dynamite’ event this past Saturday. The event, which featured GLORY kickboxing and MMA action also had a four-man, one-night light heavyweight tournament, debuts of Josh Thomson and Phil Davis, and a main event between champ Liam McGeary and Tito Ortiz.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

Invcita FC featherweight champion Cris Cyborg is supposedly making the drop to 140 pounds for her next fight in the organization. That would be the first step towards an eventually attempt to make 135 pounds. Right now that looks like it will be the only way she’ll ever get a shot at UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. The thought is that she will have to fight at least once at bantamweight in Invicta before getting a shot in the UFC’s bantamweight division.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

At this past Saturday’s Bellator ‘Dynamite’ event the light heavyweight champion Liam McGeary successfully defended his belt, submitting MMA vet Tito Ortiz with an inverted triangle. The fight started out with Ortiz getting an early takedown and it looked like it was going to be a classic Tito fight, full of ground and pound and top control. However, McGeary had different plans.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

Here’s a side of Fedor we don’t normally see. Usually it’s just a stoic face looking emotionless and calm no matter what’s going on around him. Is it just me, or does Fedor seem more lively in his return to MMA? He’s smiling more, he’s doing interviews in english and making jokes and now we see him sparring in the gym and messing around with his partner.

BJPENN.COM News - September 23, 2015

Man, it seems like this just keeps happening more frequently now. Obviously, the most notable is the injury suffered by former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, from when he fought Chris Weidman the second time. More recently, we saw an M-1 Global fighter suffer a very similar injury and now, we have another one.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

Bellator added another big fight to their already stacked Bellator 145: Vengeance event. The show will take place on November 6, at the Scottrade Center in Saint Louis. On Tuesday the promotion announced that a lightweight rematch between Michael Chandler and David Rickels will take place on the main card of the big event. In the main event we’ll see a title fight between featherweight champion Patricio Freire and Daniel Straus. The lightweight title fight will also be on the line when the champ Will Brooks takes on Marcin Held in the co-main.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

Stud Show Radio (formerly Team Alpha Male Radio) is a biweekly MMA podcast that airs Tuesday and Thursday right here on BJPENN.COM. The show features hosts Justin Buchholz and Chris Carlino aka Sir Studboy talking to callers and guests about all the latest stories in MMA and beyond.  Guests from Team Alpha Male appear on the show regularly, including UFC champion T.J. Dillashaw, Urijah Faber, Joseph Benavidez, Chad Mendes and many, many more.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

There are fans and then there are super fans. You know, the kind that would instantly spend $2,500 on a Louis Vuitton bag just so he could get a signature from Manny Paquiao on it. Yup, that’s what one extremely excited fan in Tokyo did when he spotted the boxer walking through the store. Pacquiao obliged and added his signature. The funny thing? There’s a good chance with the addition of the signature the bag is now probably worth less. I guess unless another super Pacquio fan was in search of a signed designer bag.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

Last Monday UFC fighter Nick Diaz was handed a five year suspension and a fine of $165,000. The suspension came from the Nevada State Athletic Commission who cited past offenses and what they saw as a lack of respect for the commission as their reasons for giving such a lengthy and controversial suspension. In the last week we’ve seen an overwhelming amount of support for Diaz, from fighters to fans. There was a White House petition started, which caught on like wildfire and is on track to reach it’s 100K signature goal, and we also had fighters announcing that they would no longer be fighting in Nevada to show their support. Things blew up.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

Bellator’s ‘King Mo’ Lawal was scheduled to fight in the ‘Dynamite’ light heavyweight tournament final this past Saturday, against Phil Davis. That didn’t happen. Mo won his first fight, defeating Linton Vassell, to advance to the final where he would fight for the chance to be the next title challenger. Unfortunately during that first fight he injured a rib and between fights determined that he wouldn’t be able to fight later that night. So, the alternate Francis Carmont stepped in and lost to Davis via TKO.

BJPENN.COM News - September 22, 2015

Sometimes fighters are exhausted and do their best during post fight interviews to make sense and answer the questions that are being thrown at them. Those post-fight cage interviews sometimes deliver some of the best entertainment of the night. From Ben Rothwell’s creepy laugh, to basically all of Rampage Jackson’s interviews, we always seem to get at least one memorable one for every event.