Carla Esparza’s 2014 may have felt long, but it also has to feel good.
The former Invicta strawweight championship not only matriculated to the UFC by being the top-seeded cast member on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 20, she won the show and in the process, became the first-ever UFC women’s strawweight champion when she defeated Rose Namajunas at the TUF 20 Finale.
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Jon Jones and his old friends at the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) got reacquainted with one another on Tuesday. Two weeks out from Jones’ UFC 182 title challenge against Daniel Cormier, the UFC’s light heavyweight champion posted an Instagram video of himself undergoing a random drug test at the behest of the NAC.
“The Nevada State Athletic Commission just stopped by my house and hit me with that random,” Jones wrote. “Only thing I’m on is that #PHW pure hard work! They’re probably wondering how my chicken legs are so strong. I’ve had a few @muscletech products but that’s all legal :)”
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UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis has fought only three times in the last two years, including his title defense against Gilbert Melendez at UFC 181 on Dec. 6.
Not that Pettis likes taking time off. A series of injuries and circumstances have led to his relative inactivity, a fact that Pettis bemoaned leading up to UFC 181. Pettis has made it know he wants to stay active going forward. In fact, Pettis’s manager Mike Roberts told UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani that if the champ has it his way, he’ll fight three times in 2015.
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Cris Cyborg will not cut down to 135 pounds after all.
Two and a half months after announcing her decision to drop to the bantamweight division for a bout at Invicta FC 10, the first and only Strikeforce and Invicta FC featherweight champion confirmed she won’t try cutting the extra 10 pounds anymore.
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The numbers are in for UFC on FOX 13 and the preliminary figures give the event 2.27 million viewers and an .9 in the coveted 18-49 demographic, according to TV By The Numbers.
Saturday’s numbers are a jump up from the UFC on FOX 12 overnights, which only saw 2.02 million viewers and .8 in the 18-49 demographic.
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LAS VEGAS — Randa Markos has viewed war. She is seen homicide. She’s become the victim of maltreatment.
Markos has experienced the worst of life and made it out the other end undamaged. She might have just began training in MMA when she was 23 years old, but she is been a combatant as far back as she could recall.
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LAS VEGAS – In the opening seconds of the UFC 181 lightweight fight, Abel Trujillo dropped Tony Ferguson straight to the mat using a strong right hand.
For a split second, it seemed like it might be short work for Trujillo in the Mandalay Bay Events Center. But not only did Ferguson survive the opening onslaught, the TUF 13 winner summoned for the largest win of his career.
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Travis Browne surprised lots of folks when he said in a interview which he was merely merely “learning to fight” with new trainer Edmond Tarverdyan.
After all, this is a man who spent the past couple of years training at Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA in Albuquerque, N.M., regarded among the top teams on the planet. Tarverdyan tried to describe to Ariel Helwani what Brown meant when he talked to FOX Sports two months past. The trainer told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s The MMA Hour that he “saw lots of errors” in the heavyweight’s match when he arrived at Glendale Fighting Club.
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Gilbert Melendez is confronting UFC lightweight champ Anthony Pettis for that division’s most esteemed title on Saturday. Melendez is definitely a winner in other organizations or highly rated in the UFC. Yet, his present position is one which did not occur organically or by chance. It turned out to be a unified attempt just made possible by contractual openings, the fiscal readiness and skill of some other suitor, and maybe above all, efficient direction.
let us fast piece together the timeline of the important parts of Melendez’s mixed martial arts profession to aid us better comprehend these facts.
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As if Conor McGregor’s coming Jan. 18 fight against Dennis Siver did not already have high enough stakes, it seems the silver screen has now come calling the popular Irishman as well.
MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani reported on Wednesday’s episode of ‘UFC Tonight’ that several film deals are “in the works” for the 26-year old, based on manager Addie Attar, but that McGregor is only going to focus his attention in the chances after he takes care of business against Siver.
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Yesterday, the UFC and Reebok declared a fresh uniform and, within this, a fresh UFC uniform policy. Among various other changes, Combatants will not find a way to have their own patrons within any official UFC action, from fights to consider-ins to ‘Countdown’ shows and much more. The changes will not go into effect until July of next year.
In the interim,, there is a whole lot to unpack. We do not understand what the final sum of money Reebok is offering and UFC claims they are just taking enough cash from the plan to insure a tiny fraction of the prices. However, what exactly does this mean for the MMA clothing market? Is this transfer a death blow for supervisors or representatives? Does this help Bellator by giving their combatants an opportunity to advertise or damage them, also, by bringing down all sponsorship opportunities across the board? Above all, is this reasonable to the combatants?
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UFC bantamweight Michinori Tanaka has been issued a nine-month suspension after testing positive for two banned materials in a pre-fight urine evaluation before his split decision loss against Kyung Ho Kang at UFC Fight Night 52, promotion officials declared on Tuesday.
Tanaka, 24, tested positive for ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, each of which are stimulants usually seen in over the counter medicine but are prohibited by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) guidelines.
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From a lover’s standpoint, Alexander Gustafsson would not mind seeing Daniel Cormier become the UFC light heavyweight champion by defeating Jon Jones at UFC 182.
But selfishly, Gustafsson has another rooting interest. There is only one man he really wants to see across from him with the belt in the line. Also it is not Cormier.
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Without question, a featherweight title fight between champion Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor would be not only the greatest bout which can be produced in the division, but also among the largest at any weight class. An Aldo McGregor tilt could fill a stadium in Brazil or Ireland.
As for whether McGregor is really the most worthy competitor at 145 pounds right now? Well, that is another narrative.
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Tyron Woodley may just be 32 years old, however he is already preparing for his post-fighting life. The UFC’s No. 3 ranked welterweight, Woodley lately finished filming his part in the coming NWA biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ and he described his encounter working alongside the rap legends as nothing short of “surreal.”
“It was kind of mad,” Woodley said on Monday’s version of The MMA Hour. “I am sitting on set and Ice Cube’s coming up and speaking to me, asking me [questions]. There were a couple scenes where it was only me and the two lead actors, therefore it absolutely was truly just like a superb cozy set.
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UFC welterweight Gilbert Burns took on Leandro Lo in a entry-only jiu jitsu match on Saturday as element of Copa Podio’s most recent occasion. Despite having conquered Lo, a multiple-time world champion, three preceding times, Lo got his vengeance using a cross collar choke. See the complete match here.
make sure you read MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz’s writeup in the occasion.
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While Conor McGregor and Cub Swanson debated who had the better right to next face UFC featherweight champ Jose Aldo, former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar was a lost third wheel.
Sadly for Swanson, and perhaps Edgar, the prior winner just got to fight once Saturday night in Austin.
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When Nick Diaz retired in March 2013 fresh from losing a lopsided unanimous decision to then-UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre, he told reporters that the only fights to could coax him back to the cage will be a rematch contrary to the Canadian or a superfight against Anderson Silva. At that time, Diaz’s requests were mostly scoffed at. This is a man who had lost two straight trips; he was not just in the position to barter for another huge chance.
But a funny thing occurred in the 16 months that followed that night. St Pierre retired, lifting the curtain to the sport’s drug outbreak on his way outside; Silva lost simply not once, but twice in outrageous manner; Chael Sonnen unceremoniously left the limelight; a rash of harms sailed from the other side of the UFC’s top echelon; the promotion’s fading draws disappeared only somewhat more.
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Gilbert Burns’ return to the jiujitsu mats did not go as he anticipated.
Fresh off a first-round submission triumph over Christos Giagos at UFC 179, the Brazilian lightweight returned to Copa Podio on Saturday night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a entry-only, no-time limitation jiu jitsu match against fellow BJJ world champion Leandro Lo.
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