Former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le tested positive for excess levels of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) in a post-fight drug test following his fourth-round TKO loss to Michael Bisping at UFC Fight Night 48, promotion officials announced on Tuesday.
Le (9-3) is expected to serve a nine-month suspension retroactive to the day of the event, August 23, as a result of the failed test.
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We answer your #themmahour questions on anything and everything going on in the MMA world.
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In a time when MMA wasn’t regulated by an independent body, promoters could do anything they wanted. According to MMA legend Renzo Gracie, that’s how things worked when PRIDE was launched.
In March of 1998, PRIDE 2 featured four Japanese fighters at the Yokohama Arena, and Sanae Kikuta was the one matched against Renzo Gracie. According to the Brazilian, he was drugged by the promoters the day before the fight.
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One FC will crown its first middleweight champion in November.
One FC officially announced Monday that Leandro Ataides and Igor Svirid will headline the One FC 23: Battle of Lions card in Singapore, on Nov. 7, in a five-round battle for the inaugural 185-pound championship.
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If there is a lesson of the week, it’s that quick main events are usually great for the fans, even better for the guy on the winning side of the fight, but for television broadcasters, they are far from the best thing.
This past weekend saw Bellator’s Friday night main event, where Brandon Halsey won the middleweight title from Alexander Shlemenko, only last 35 seconds. The next night on FS 1, for the prelims of UFC 178, what many considered the strongest TV main event on a prelim show to date, Dominick Cruz returning after a three-year absence against No. 5 bantamweight contender Takeya Mizugaki, saw Cruz finish the fight in 61 seconds.
The result is that both shows, due to no time to build up numbers for the main event, is they did below average numbers.
Bellator’s Friday night average was 656,000 viewers, very slightly below the 670,000 range the Friday night shows have averaged since the move, but down 12 percent from the prior week’s show that didn’t have a championship match, nor have as strong of an undercard. The first minute of Halsey vs. Shlemenko did 942,000 viewers, a number that would have likely started the growth of the show, peaking when the fight was over. If the fight had gone three rounds, while it may not have brought the average up to the previous weeks number of the Melvin Manhoef vs. Doug “The Rhino” Marshall fight, it would have pushed the show average past the 700,000 mark.
For the UFC 178 prelims, the story was even more pronounced. The show averaged 698,000 viewers, down 12 percent from the 2014 average, even with the Cruz fight that should have been a difference maker. Minute by minute ratings are not available for the show, but the highest quarter hour was for the Brian Ebersole vs. John Howard fight, at 774,000 viewers. Cruz’s fight didn’t have the time to draw the highest quarter, and the average was below usual partially because the last 20 minutes of the broadcast had no fighting.
Still, that figure was the highest for any event that day on the station, which included Major League Baseball, college football and NASCAR truck racing.
The number was up from the 436,000 for the prelims from UFC 177, but that was the lowest prelim audience before a pay-per-view ever on FS 1.
The issues at UFC 178, whether it was the wins by Cruz, Demetrious Johnson, Donald Cerrone, Conor McGregor and Cat Zingano, or the controversy stemming from the Yoel Romero vs. Tim Kennedy stool-gate finish, saw the post-fight show do 206,000 viewers on FS 1, which was 13 percent above the average.
The Ultimate Fighter rating for Wednesday was not good live, doing only 433,000 viewers, by far the lowest of the three episodes this season. The show featured a first-round match in the women’s strawweight title tournament where Jessica Penne beat Lisa Ellis. However, the first airing of the episode was also viewed by 358,000 people via DVR between Thursday and Saturday. The DVR viewership was the second largest for any episode of the show on FS 1. The 83 percent increase from DVR viewership to first night viewership was a record for the series and likely the largest for any UFC show in history.
For gross numbers, the prior week’s show did 574,000 viewers the night it aired and the record-setting total DVR viewership of 372,000.
The mentality for this season, and really the last three seasons of Ultimate Fighter, is that unlike the live events, where most viewers watch them as they take place, an increasing percentage of the Ultimate Fighter viewers are watching at their convenience.
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There was a lot to love about UFC 178. From the sensational main card to the return of long-missing fighters and much, the event was arguably the best of the year. Yet, there was controversial officiating, some languid performances and a fact about that card that wasn’t properly appreciated.
It’s time to separate the best from the worst, the winners from the losers and the signal from the noise from Saturday night.
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Tim Kennedy looks back at his controversial loss to Yoel Romero at UFC 178.
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UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman talks about his injured hand and working as a FOX Sports analyst at UFC 178.
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Renzo Gracie joins us in studio to discuss his upcoming Metamoris match against Kazushi Sakuraba.
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Conor McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh reflects on McGregor’s UFC 178 win and ahead to another big weekend.
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Sean McCorkle makes an announcement regarding his MMA career.
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Wrestling coach Kenny Monday talks about moving from the Blackzilians to Team Takedown, as well as Friday’s Battlegrounds MMA pay-per-view.
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TUF 20 competitor Aisling Daly talks about cornering Paddy Holohan at UFC Fight Night Halifax, her experience on the show and the rise of SBG.
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We go inside the vault and look back at one of our classic interviews.
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The Ultimate Fighter 20 Finale card is starting to take shape.
The UFC announced via its UFC Minute that a bout between featherweights Jeremy Stephens and Charles Oliveira has been booked as the co-main event on Dec. 12 at the Palms. The main event will of course feature the two finalists from TUF 20, who will square off to anoint a the promotion’s first-ever strawweight champion.
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UFC middleweight champ Chris Weidman has a reputation as a cool customer, a person who is able to let just about anything roll off his back.
But Vitor Belfort has demonstrated that someone can, actually, succeed in pushing his buttons.
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Yoel Romero scored the greatest win of his MMA career on Saturday night, but it did not come without some controversy.
Romero conquered Tim Kennedy via third-round TKO at UFC 178 in Vegas, but that stoppage arrived seconds after he got more time to recuperate between rounds. Kennedy protested following the loss, saying that he should happen to be given the TKO success when Romero did not answer the bell, but Romero’s team is convinced nothing will change.
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Alan Patrick was forced from UFC 179 having a fractured jaw, as well as the UFC called another undefeated Brazilian to replace him about the pay per view card.
Beneil Dariush will now confront Carlos Diego Ferreira, who scored notable successes underneath the UFC banner before in 2013, in the main card’s opening fight in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Oct. 25. UFC declared the replacement on Monday night.
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In a very Chael Sonnen-esque creative reason for his activities, former UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen considers he and PRIDE star Wanderlei Silva were just victims of circumstance in MMA’s bigger development.
After Sonnen and Silva were handed down a two-year and life prohibition, respectively, by the Nevada Athletic Commission, the former says he ‘was actually disappointed how things shook out’ for his Brazilian cohort.
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A former WSOF winner is headed back to Bellator.
Georgi Karakhanyan, the former WSOF featherweight champ, has signed a multi-fight contract with Bellator, in accordance with promotion officials. Karakhanyan returns to Bellator after most recently losing the WSOF 145-pound title to Rick Glenn in June. The elements surrounding his next fight have not yet been established.
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MMA Fighting gets the UFC Fight Night 53 fight card for the Nelson vs. Story fight card for the Oct. 4 event at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.In the main event, Gunnar Nelson will square off against Rick Story in a welterweight contest. Max Holloway confronts Akira Corassani in a featherweight fight in the co-main event. Check out the UFC Fight Night 53 fight card below. Chief card (UFC Fight Pass at 3 p.m. ET)Gunnar Nelson vs. Rick StoryAkira Corassani vs. Max HollowayIlir Latifi vs. Jan BlachowiczNiklas Backstrom vs. Mike WilkinsonUndercard (UFC Fight Pass at 12:10 p.m. ET)Magnus Cedenblad vs. Scott AskhamNico Musoke vs. Alexander YakovlevDennis Siver vs. Charles RosaCathal Pendred vs. Gasan UmalatovTor Troeng vs. Krzysztof JotkoMairbek Taisumov vs. Marcin BandelZubaira Tukhugov vs. Ernest Chavez
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Tim Kennedy may be held out of action for half a year after enduring a controversial third-round TKO loss to Yoel Romero at UFC 178, based on information released to MMAFighting.com from the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Kennedy seemed to be to the brink of knocking Romero out in the closing seconds of round two of the pair’s middleweight competition, yet Romero lived to the horn, subsequently was given nearly a minute-and-a-half to recuperate between rounds as a result of number of outrageous situation which UFC President Dana White called “the dirtiest trick in the book.”
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An adversary for Patrick Holohan continues to be located in a rush.
After Louis Gaudinot dropped from their fight at UFC Fight Night 54 before Monday, Holohan will now confront Chris Kelades to the key card this Saturday night in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in accordance with Holohan’s supervisor John Kavanagh about The MMA Hour.
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Scheduled to take on Beneil Dariush on the key card of UFC 179, climbing lightweight Alan Patrick will not compete in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Patrick (12-0), who has not competed since a close decision triumph over John Makdessi in February, has endured an injury on Thursday, and will not be able to compete on Oct. 25.
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Heavyweight Sean McCorkle is retiring from competing in mixed martial arts. “Big Sexy” appeared on Monday’s version of The MMA Hour to allow it to be official.
The 38-year old McCorkle last fought on Sept. 20 in a rematch with Richard White in Square Ring Promotions, and lost via first round armbar. Over his last six fights, McCorkle lost five, including his rematch with Polish strongman Mariusz Pudzianowski at KSW 24 in Sept of this past year. That one came via unanimous decision in a two-round main event.
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If time is money, then Conor McGregor did pretty well for himself at UFC 178. The Irish featherweight ace brought in a little over $1,415 per second in purse winnings alone in only his fourth UFC fight, cashing in a $150,000 check for his sub two-minute triumph over Dustin Poirier on the night’s pay per view card, according to information released to MMAFighting.com by the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Throughout weeks of pre-fight hype, McGregor called he’d knock out Poirier inside the initial round, and finally he did just that, earning himself an added Performance of the Nighttime bonus in the procedure which brought his disclosed gains to $200,000. Poirier took home $34,000 in the losing effort.
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Only days prior to the return of the Octagon to Canada, UFC should locate an adversary for Patrick Holohan at UFC Fight Night 54.
Louis Gaudinot, who had been scheduled to take to the Irish flyweight at Saturday’s card in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was forced from the fight with the injury. The UFC told MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani the promotion is trying to find a replacement on days’ notice. MMA Junkie first reported the news.
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only at that time, Dennis Siver is simply expecting that there is somebody standing across from him on Oct. 4 in Stockholm, Sweden.
That Is because once again there is been an adversary substitution. Siver was slated to fight 22-year old Parisian combatant Taylor Lapilus at UFC Fight Night 53, but the Swedish commission has deemed Lapulis an unsuitable competition to confront the skilled Siver (21-9-1), that has fought 17 times in the UFC against a number of the planet ‘s best sportsmen.
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‘The pimp is here.’
UFC president Dana’s White’s post-fight launch of Conor McGregor at UFC 178 was not highbrow, but it was inclined.
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