Month: März 2025

Waldo Cortes-Acosta might soon make it impossible for Ultimate Fighting Championship matchmakers to ignore him.

The former Legacy Fighting Alliance champion wiped out Ryan Spann with punches in the second round of their featured UFC Fight Night 254 prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Cortes-Acosta (13-1, 6-1 UFC) drew the curtain 4:48 into Round 2, winning for the fourth time in as many outings.

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Spann (22-11, 8-6 UFC) was out of his depth in his first assignment as a heavyweight. Cortes-Acosta punished him with a persistent jab and buzzed the tower repeatedly with overhand rights. He caught Spann moving backward late in the middle stanza, decked the Fortis MMA rep with a beautiful left hook and pounded him unconscious with a volley of follow-up punches.

Meanwhile, ex-Renaissance MMA titleholder Carlos Vera dispatched the heavily favored Josias Musasa with a rear-naked choke in the first round of their bantamweight encounter. Vera (1…

Belal Muhammad (24-3) believes he can beat Jack Della Maddalena (17-2) on the feet.

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Muhammad puts his welterweight title on the line against Maddalena in the main event at UFC 315 on May 10 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. While Muhammad was originally expected to defend his title against Shavkat Rakhmonov, the Kazakh couldn’t accept the matchup due to an injury.

While Muhammad is arguably one of the best wrestlers on the UFC roster, Maddalena has devastating knockout power in his hands. However, Muhammad claims it won’t be a typical striker vs. wrestler matchup. “Remember the Name” vows to not be gun shy against Maddalena and prove himself as the best boxer at 170 pounds.

“I’m gonna go in there and I’m gonna outbox Jack,” Muhammad said on “The Coach and the Casual” podcast. “I’m not gonna shoot one takedown, and I’m gonna show him the meaning of Canelo hands. I’m gonna show the UFC fighters [and] the fans that I’m the best bo…

Big Ank 🤝 Big Tom

— Muhammad big ANK Ankalaev (@AnkalaevM) March 14, 2025

Magomed Ankalaev and Tom Aspinall seem to have bonded over the Jon Jones saga.

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While Jones is the heavyweight champ, he has long been avoiding a matchup against interim champ Aspinall. “Bones” was even considering fighting former light heavyweight champ Alex Pereira in a super fight instead of facing Aspinall. However, Ankalaev recently ended hopes of that matchup by dethroning Pereira via unanimous decision at UFC 313 earlier this month.

Ankalaev has since named himself “Big Ank” and been unhesitant in taking shots at others. The Dagestani most recently targeted Jones, bringing up his history of failed drug tests and accusing him of ducking Aspinall. Ankalaev believes Jones isn’t happy that the Pereira matchup is now out of the equation.

“Jonny steroid machine was very disappointed,” Ankalaev wrote on X. “I beat Alex. Please fight big [Tom …

Main Event rematch is OFFICIAL 🫡@MarvinVettori hits the scale at 186lbs!

{ #UFCVegas104 | TOMORROW 7pmET on @ESPNPlus ] pic.twitter.com/TNpQxu30Tx

— UFC (@ufc) March 14, 2025 Editor's note: The article has been updated at 4 p.m. ET to reflect one fighter returning to weigh in at his proper marks.

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship's busy March continues with a UFC Apex card featuring a key middleweight matchup that is now official after the UFC Vegas 104 weigh-ins took place with two fighters coming in heavy.

Former title challenger Marvin Vettori is looking to bounce back from a loss to Jared Cannonier by beating a recent foe for a second time. Looking for revenge is Roman Dolidze, who lost a unanimous decision to the Italian fighter in 2023. Both men successfully made weight for the five-round rematch. As for the rest of the card, two fighters missed weight: Co-main event fighter Chidi Njokuani came in 1.25 pounds…

Main Event rematch is OFFICIAL 🫡@MarvinVettori hits the scale at 186lbs!

{ #UFCVegas104 | TOMORROW 7pmET on @ESPNPlus ] pic.twitter.com/TNpQxu30Tx

— UFC (@ufc) March 14, 2025 The Ultimate Fighting Championship's busy March continues with a UFC Apex card featuring a key middleweight matchup that is now official after the UFC Vegas 104 weigh-ins took place with three fighters coming in heavy.

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Former title challenger Marvin Vettori is looking to bounce back from a loss to Jared Cannonier by beating a recent foe for a second time. Looking for revenge is Roman Dolidze, who lost a unanimous decision to the Italian fighter in 2023. Both men successfully made weight for the five-round rematch. As for the rest of the card, three fighters missed weight: Co-main event fighter Chidi Njokuani came in 1.25 pounds over the welterweight limit for his fight against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos; Josias Musasa weighed in .5 pounds over the…

𝘽𝘼𝙉𝙂𝙀𝙍 𝘼𝙇𝙀𝙍𝙏! 🚨

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Gavin Hughes 🆚 Claudio Pacella 🇮🇹

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Gavin Hughes joins the PFL Europe Lightweight Roster after a long history competing at the highest level of the sport, including stints with Bellator and EFC. With ten stoppage victories on his record, Hughes… pic.twitter.com/JV67IoDmSm — PFL Europe (@PFLEurope) March 14, 2025 The Hughes family name—no relation—will be well-represented in the Professional Fighters League’s first Europe card this year.

Per a release from the organization on Friday, the entirety of the eight-man 155-pound bracket has been revealed. The four lightweight matches plus one more at the division in a non-tournament headliner, will play out at PFL Europe 1 on May 10 inside of the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Paul Hughes, Connor Hughes and Gavin Hughes will be among the participants, of which they are not closely related.

The main attraction of this fight card will be a …

[embedded content] According to Glover Teixeira, it’s not about who wins and loses, but rather the friends we made along the way.

In the main attraction of UFC 313, former two-division champ Alex Pereira lost a close decision to Magomed Ankalaev. Not all spectators firmly believed that “Poatan” had a been defeated, with nearly half of the media scorers either scoring the bout a draw or having Pereira getting his hand raised. Count Teixeira among those, who discussed his pupil with pride and confidence on Pereira’s YouTube channel on Wednesday, remarking that Ankalaev should have been the victor.

The video captured plenty of moments shared by the Teixeira MMA & Fitness team, ranging from them actually in the Octagon towards the end of the evening to them boarding a private jet. The beloved figured Teixeira was eternally upbeat, highlighting the harmony surrounding his team while emphasizing that everyone was together and having fun, maintaining the same positive e…

The Octagon is coming to DES MOINES 🚨@CorySandhagenx vs @Daico_Deiveson headlines the first ever #UFCDesMoines!

🎟️ Tickets on sale March 21#LiveFromDSM | #WellsFargoArena | @IAEventsCenter pic.twitter.com/Vz5wMmwVbG

— UFC (@ufc) March 13, 2025

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first-ever trip to Des Moines has picked up a couple of intriguing bouts.

The promotion on Wednesday announced that Bo Nickal will square off against Reinier de Ridder at middleweight, while Jeremy Stephens will return to the Octagon to face Mason Jones at lightweight on May 3 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa. UFC Des Moines is headlined by a bantamweight tilt pitting Cory Sandhagen against Deiveson Figueiredo.

Nickal has kicked off his professional MMA tenure with seven straight triumphs, including four in UFC competition. Most recently, the former Penn State University national champion wrestler defeated Paul Craig via unani…

Andrei Arlovski is set to return to action for the first time since parting ways with the Ultimate Fighting Championship last year.

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Arlovski will square off against Terrance Hodges under the Dirty Boxing banner on March 22 at the Regatta Harbour in Miami, the promotion announced Wednesday. DBX 1 is expected to be headlined by a clash between Yoel Romero and Ras Hylton. DBX uses four-ounce gloves, with elbows and “conditional ground-and-pound” allowed.

A former heavyweight champion, Arlovski fulfilled his last UFC contract with a split-decision loss against Martin Buday at UFC 303 this past July. He was also drafted by the Los Angeles team in the fledgling Global Fight League earlier this year, but the promotion has yet to formally confirm any dates or locations for upcoming events.

Arlovski initially rose to prominence during his first UFC stint from 2000 to 2008, when he captured heavyweight gold and had a memorable trilogy with Tim Sylvia.…

Cristiane Justino is staying active in her combat sports career.

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For the second time this month, Justino will compete in a professional boxing match in Columbia. This time, “Cyborg” will lock horns with 23-year-old Josefina Travecedo (3-3, 2KOs) in a four-round bout at 154 pounds. “Cyborg” announced the bout in a release on Wednesday.

The pairing comes on the heels of the Brazilian’s second-round knockout victory over Karen Fernandes in Medellin, Columbia, on March 3. According to the release, “Cyborg” remained in the country “to receive post fight therapy at BioXcellerator, the leading stem cell treatment and research facilities in the world.”

With a win over Travecedo, Justino is targeting a boxing match against WBC champion Cecilia Braekhus this winter.

The Chute Boxe standout’s lone MMA bout of 2024 occurred at PFL Super Fights "Battle of the Giants: Brace for Impact,” where she took a five-round verdict over former PFL two-divisi…

Mauricio Ruffy had some special inspiration for the highlight-reel kick that dispatched Bobby Green at UFC 313.

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In an interview with Sherdog.com, The Fighting Nerds representative confirmed that Brazilian soccer idol Neymar Junior motivated him to unleash that maneuver.

“Neymar always does a sequence of dribbling that confuses his oponents. I just thought how it could be applied in MMA, and that’s the movement I did with Green, a sequence of hand feints that confounded him and permitted the kick to enter,” Ruffy said. “I´ve been practicing that movement alone for a long time. I have to avoid using it in sparring because there is no way to control the speed, which may hurt my training partners.”

To make the move even more impressive, Ruffy revealed that he had to undergo an urgent meniscus surgery in January that prevented him from kicking until two weeks before UFC 313.

“It was at the limit,” he said. “I was just allowed to kick in the last …

Paul Hughes has a dance partner for his upcoming Professional Fighters League appearance.

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The promotion announced on Wednesday that Hughes will lock horns with Bruno Miranda in the PFL Europe Belfast headliner on May 10 at the SSE Arena. The card will also include PFL Europe tournament pairings, where fighters must win three bouts to earn a $100,000 cash prize. Participants in the tournament will be announced at a later date.

A former Cage Warriors champion, Hughes was a prized free agent before signing with the PFL in 2024. He made his presence felt at PFL “Brace for Impact” last October, when he defeated ex-Bellator MMA featherweight champ A.J. McKee via split decision. “Big News” then challenged Usman Nurmagomedov for the lightweight belt at PFL Road to Dubai, losing a narrow majority decision in one of the best fights of 2025 thus far.

Miranda is coming off a split-decision triumph over former Bellator stalwart Patricky Freire at a PF…