Martial Arts News

Alexandre Pantoja doesn’t have a high opinion of former American Top Team training partner Colby Covington.

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Covington will challenge Leon Edwards for the welterweight crown in the UFC 296 main event, while Pantoja will defend his flyweight strap against Brandon Royval in the evening’s co-headliner on Dec. 16 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Pantoja recently revealed on MMAFighting’s Trocação Franca podcast that he wants to have nothing to do with Covington during fight week and would rather like to meet Edwards, whose story he relates to and respects.

“I don’t care,” Pantoja said. “I was born in Copacabana and we are disgusting towards everybody [laughs]. There’s an artist right next to you and you don’t care. I respect him a lot as an athlete, but in a way I’m more connected to Leon Edwards because of his life story and everything he’s done. Leon Edwards is definitely someone I would go out of my way to shake hands and wish him a good fi…

Sean Brady doesn’t think highly of Ian Garry and believes he can dominate the Irishman in a potential clash.

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Brady welcomed Kelvin Gastelum back to welterweight on Saturday at UFC on ESPN 52 at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas. Brady thoroughly dominated Gastelum for the entirety of the fight before submitting him in the third round. With the win, Brady bounced back from his first career defeat at the hands of Belal Muhammad at UFC 280 last year.

The standout grappler subsequently redirected a callout to Garry, whom he had also mentioned in the lead-up to UFC Austin. Brady had previously highlighted Garry’s questionable gym etiquette, which includes consistently recording sparring sessions.

Brady reiterated his dislike for “The Future,” and expressed confidence in his ability to impose his will on Garry during a post-fight media scrum on Saturday.

“Just the way he went about his whole thing with his team, it rubbed me the wrong way. He…

WHAT JUST HAPPENED!? #FuryFC84 pic.twitter.com/XPs41Vm9kr

— UFC FIGHT PASS (@UFCFightPass) December 3, 2023

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has added 6-foot-7 Cuban heavyweight Robelis Despaigne to its roster.

In his most recent outing, Despaigne scored a five-second technical knockout win over Miles Banks at Fury Fighting Championship 84 in Houston on Sunday. Shortly thereafter, it was confirmed on the broadcast that Despaigne had signed with the Las Vegas-based promotion.

Known as “The Bad Boy,” Despaigne won a bronze medal in taekwondo at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Despaigne made his pro MMA debut in 2022 and has finished all four of his opponents inside of a round. This includes three stoppages in 12 seconds or less.

Australian lightweight Tom Nolan is set to make his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut early next year.

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Nolan is slated to enter the Octagon against Nikolas Motta at UFC Fight Night 234 on Jan. 13 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Nolan confirmed the bout on social media following an intial report from Eurosport.

Nolan earned a UFC contract with a first-round knockout of Bogdan Grad on Dana White’s Contender Series this past August. The 23-year-old Team Compton Training Centre representative has finished his last four victories by knockout or technical knockout.

Also a former competitor on the Contender Series, Motta has gone 1-2 with one no contest thus far in his UFC tenure. His most recent appearance came at UFC Fight Night 232, when his bout against Trey Ogden was waved off prematurely by referee Mike Beltran, who incorrectly determined that Motta had been rendered unconscious by an arm-triangle choke. That resulted in the fight being over…

Mayra Bueno Silva believes upcoming opponent Raquel Pennington will quit in their upcoming title fight.

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Bueno Silva will face Pennington in the co-main event at UFC 297 on Jan. 20 in Toronto with the vacant women’s bantamweight strap on the line. Silva believes the fight will go out of Pennington in their upcoming clash like it did when “Rocky” faced Amanda Nunes at UFC 224 back in 2018.

En route to a lopsided fifth-round stoppage loss, Pennington was heard telling her corner that she was “done” after the fourth round.

“Do you remember Raquel fought with Amanda, Raquel said, ‘Alright, I’m done. I don’t want to fight anymore.’ Do you remember? For this reason, she doesn’t want to fight,” Bueno Silva said during an appearance on "The MMA Hour.”

“She doesn’t like to fight. She wants to hold [during] the fight because she doesn’t like fighting. Remember, when she was done, ‘I don’t want no more.’ In the first round, when I punch her hard, s…

Arman Tsarukyan believes he did enough to warrant another crack at reigning lightweight champion Islam Makhachev.

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Tsarukyan lost a hard-fought decision to Makhachev in his Octagon debut at UFC Fight Night 149 in April 2019, but he has been victorious in nine of his 10 promotional appearances since then. Perhaps none of those was more impressive than his work on Saturday, when he vanquished Beneil Dariush in just 64 seconds in the UFC on ESPN 52 headliner. The American Top Team product didn’t hesitate to point out that Oliveira needed longer to defeat Dariush in their matchup at UFC 289, which “Do Bronx” ended at the 4:10 mark of Round 1.

“Charles knocked him out, and if I won by decision, how am I going to fight for the title?” Tsarukyan said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “But I knocked him out faster than Charles, and he didn’t take me down like he did with Charles. I performed better than Charles. Charles already had the opportunity,…

Bobby Green had nothing but praise for short-notice foe Jalin Turner following their co-main event bout at UFC on ESPN 52.

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Turner, who was a late replacement for Dan Hooker, knocked out Green 2:49 into the opening stanza of their lightweight clash at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, on Saturday night. That snapped a two-bout winning streak for Green, who was coming off back-to-back finishes of Tony Ferguson and Grant Dawson.

Green appeared to absorb some unnecessary punishment before referee Kerry Hatley stepped in to wave off the bout, but “King” didn’t mention the stoppage in a post-fight statement on his Instagram stories.

“What up, guys?” Green said. “You win some, you lose some. I guess I want to show people that you’ve got to keep it G and you’ve got to keep it G when you lose.

“Shout out to Jalin, you did your thing, brother. I’m so happy for you. It means the world that you stepped up on short notice and you had your success, …

Neil Magny claims Ian Garry’s trash talk during the lead-up to their UFC 292 clash profoundly impacted his life outside the Octagon.

Magny said he’d put on a father-like “ass whooping” on Garry leading up to their bout in August, which “The Haitian Sensation” went on to lose via decision. “The Future” turned Magny’s trash talk against him, implying that that the veteran was a child abuser during the same presser.

Magny recently revealed that the label had far-reaching impacts on his personal life as he was going through a custody battle for his children. According to Magny, headlines of articles associating him with “child abuse” were admissible as evidence against him in court.

“[Garry’s comments] in itself had a lot more consequences than just nonsense at the press conference. There were literally screenshots being taken of headlines saying that I'm a child abuser and I'd do this to my kids. There were screenshots being taken and put into apps and thin…

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Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White isn’t impressed with rival promotion Professional Fighters League’s recent acquisition of Bellator.

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The PFL officially announced the purchase earlier this month with plans of hosting separate one-off events under the Bellator banner in the near future. PFL founder Donn Davis subsequently laid claim to industry “co-leader” status alongside the UFC based on their new roster.

When asked about Davis’ comments, White dismissed the deal as one failing company buying another.

“Good for them. I wish them all of the luck in the world... One s——y organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches buys another s----y organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches,” White said at the UFC Austin post-fight press conference. “Sounds like a f---ing winner to me, boy”

The UFC frontman further sounded off on a reporter who said PFL now has a “sound” roster. The 54-year-old went…

Jalin Turner KO’s Bobby Green! 😱 #UFCAustin pic.twitter.com/fDsmqhXyvD

— bjpenndotcom (@bjpenndotcom) December 3, 2023

Jalin Turner’s Round 1 knockout win over Bobby Green at UFC Austin was marred by a stoppage that came much later than it needed to be.

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Turner stepped up on 10 days’ notice after Dan Hooker pulled out of the event due to an injury. Not only did “The Tarantula” make weight despite a worrisome cut, the 28-year-old went on to dismantle Green 2:49 into the opening frame.

Turner dropped “King” with a devastating right hand and then landed a series of follow-up punches on the canvas, which were more than enough to call the fight. However, referee Kerry Hatley elected to let Green turn his back and take a barrage of unanswered shots before deciding to step in.

UFC CEO Dana White called the stoppage one of the worst ever at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. However, White also revealed that Hatley, …

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor Jimmie Rivera now juggles his roles as a Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship star and a police officer.

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Rivera parted ways with the Las Vegas-based promotion in August 2021 before signing with BKFC last year. “El Terror” co-headlined BKFC 56 on Saturday in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he suffered a technical knockout loss to Jeremy Stephens at the end of the third frame via doctor stoppage.

When he is not slugging it out in bare knuckle contests, Rivera is also a cop at the Elmwood Park Police Department. Rivera, who admittedly needs to keep himself busy, initially tried his hand at dispatch during the pandemic as a sense of uncertainty engulfed the world of sports.

“I won’t say I have ADHD, but I can’t stop. I always have to work. I’ve always got to do something. I’m all about the grinding. … It’s also very bad mentally, to not do anything. You see people who retire and they don’t do anything. The…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship was feeling especially generous following a memorable evening in the Lonestar State.

When all was said and done, $500,000 in bonus money was given out to the athletes from UFC on ESPN 52 in Austin, Texas, on Saturday night. This included $50,000 “Performance of the Night” checks to eight fighters on the card who secured finishes: Arman Tsarukyan, Jalin Turner, Sean Brady, Dustin Stoltzfus, Miesha Tate, Cody Brundage, Drakkar Klose and Jared Gooden.

Particularly noteworthy in this group were the efforts of Brundage and Klose, who became the first two fighters in UFC history to win bouts via slam KO on the same card. Elsewhere, Tsarukyan stopped Beneil Dariush in just 64 seconds in the evening’s lightweight headliner, while Turner dispatched Bobby Green 2:49 into the opening stanza of their 155-pound co-main event.

The only finisher who didn’t receive a “Performance of the Night” check was Rodolfo Bellato, but that was because he …