Martial Arts News

All 10 athletes slated to compete on Week 6 of Dana White's Contender Series made weight on Monday.

The Contender Series takes place on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and features a bantamweight clash between Aaron Tau (135.5) and Elijah Smith (136). The card airs on ESPN+ beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

New Zealand’s Tau has compiled an 8-0 professional mark while competing primarily in the Xtreme Fighting Championships promotion. The City Kickboxing representative has finished six of his eight triumphs inside the distance.

A native of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Smith has already won two fights in 2024. Most recently, he scored a first-round stoppage of Josh Walker at Fury FC 92 on June 16. The Team Victory product owns a 6-1 professional mark overall.

Contender Series Weigh-in Results:Aaron Tau (135.5) vs. Elijah Smith (136)Talisson Teixeira (259) vs. Arthur Guilherme Lopes Pereira (218)Benjamin Bennett (171) vs. Joey Hart (170.5)Yura Naito (186…

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Coach Javier Mendez believes Umar Nurmagomedov would have finished Sean O'Malley had he been in the same positions as Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306.

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O’Malley put his bantamweight title on the line against Dvalishvili in the main event at UFC 306 at the Las Vegas Sphere on Saturday. For the majority of the fight, Dvalishvili thoroughly dominated O’Malley on the ground to earn a unanimous decision win.

Mendez believes Nurmagomedov is a better submission artist than the newly-crowned champ. According to the American Kickboxing Academy head coach, Nurmagomedov would have likely submitted O’Malley had he taken the Montana native down like Dvalishvili did.

“It would have played out different,” Mendez told Submission Radio. “It wouldn’t have been the same. I’m sure on the ground it would have been bad for O’Malley. But he might have got finished on the ground with Umar. Had Umar been able to take him to the ground, more than likely…

Sean O’Malley @SugaSeanMMA is handling his defeat to Merab like a boss! Respect, Suga! pic.twitter.com/xo10jjTVy3

— Red Corner MMA (@RedCorner_MMA) September 15, 2024

Sean O'Malley is taking his title loss against Merab Dvalishvili in stride.

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O’Malley put his bantamweight strap on the line against Dvalishvili in the main event at UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Saturday. With the exception of visibly hurting Dvalishvili in the final round with front kicks to the body, O’Malley was thoroughly dominated by the Georgian on the way to a unanimous decision loss.

While a title loss is bound to take a toll on everyone, O’Malley is seemingly not letting it break him mentally. O’Malley is treating it as his first professional loss, as he refuses to acknowledge a prior loss against Marlon Vera that occurred after he suffered a leg injury in the August 2020 bout.

“Sugar” was seen getting teased by his friend who mocked t…

#PFLSuperFights drops teaser trailer for Oct. 19 #BraceForImpact PPV 🔥🏆 pic.twitter.com/Okt3C5qDcg

— Sherdog (@sherdogdotcom) September 16, 2024

Anticipation for the biggest fight in Professional Fighters League history continues to grow.

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In a teaser video released Monday morning, the “Battle of the Giants” pay-per-view event on Oct. 19 is featured with no words needed as the impact of former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou breaks through city streets and buildings.

It will be a historic night for PFL, with their reigning heavyweight champion Renan Ferreira welcoming former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou to the SmartCage.

The co-main event will feature mixed martial arts’ only grand slam women’s champion back in action for the first time since Bellator 300 when Cris Cyborg collides with knockout artist Larissa Pacheco, who is also the …

Tom Aspinall reacts to the announcement of Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic:

“I of course will be there… if I need to I’ll fight both of them on the same night. No problem.

Give me my undisputed title.”

🎥 YT / @AspinallMMA #UFC #MMA pic.twitter.com/qz37InwewI

— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) September 15, 2024

Tom Aspinall plans on being ready if anything goes wrong with the UFC 309 headliner.

UFC CEO Dana White recently announced that Jon Jones (27-1) will defend his title against Stipe Miocic (20-4) in the main event at UFC 309 on Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Interim champion Aspinall is glad that the long overdue matchup is finally confirmed and has already asked the UFC for a backup spot in case someone pulls out.

“The heavyweight title’s on the line at long last,” Aspinall said on his YouTube channel. “Finally we’re confirmed for it. I, of course will be there to watch these two gentlemen go at it. I, of c…

Umar Nurmagomedov’s camp is confident that he fights Merab Dvalishvili for the title next.

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Dvalishvili dethroned Sean O’Malley to win the bantamweight title via a dominant unanimous decision in the main event at UFC 306 at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Saturday. Nurmagomedov has been discussed as the next likely title challenger for Dvalishvili.

However, Dvalishvili has consistently downplayed the undefeated Dagestani’s claim to a title shot. “The Machine” claims Nurmagomedov was quickly moved up the rankings because he is the cousin of former lightweight champ and MMA GOAT contender Khabib Nurmagomedov.

After Dvalishvili’s win over “Suga,” UFCcommentator Joe Rogan asked him about potentially defending his title against Nurmagomedov, who was also in attendance at UFC 306. Understandably emotional after his title victory, Dvalishvili wanted to soak in the moment, refusing to plot his next move immediately. The Georgian also downplayed Nurmagomedov…

Valentina Shevchenko felt she was robbed at the inaugural Noche UFC event, so she wasn’t about to leave anything to chance on Saturday night.

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Shevchenko dominated Alexa Grasso through takedowns and positional control to earn a unanimous decision victory in their trilogy fight in the UFC 306 co-headliner at Sphere in Las Vegas. Shevchenko, who is already widely regarded as the top women’s flyweight in UFC history, says she felt better than ever in reclaiming the belt she lost more than a year ago.

“It was my third fight with Alexa and I don’t know, I just feel so different, so powerful, so strong — even better than I was a few years ago,” Shevchenko said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “This strength, I just felt it through my veins, through everything. I think it’s something good for a fighter. If you’re not evolving, it’s kind of like, ‘OK, it’s time for retirement.’ But if you feel strong and powerful and continue to do these hard thi…

While the UFC 306 headliner was largely a clear-cut victory for Merab Dvalishvili, the bout also included a couple of unusual moments.

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The first occurred early in Round 1, when referee Herb Dean halted the bout to warn both Dvalishvili and Tim Welch for their interactions during the fight. According to Dvalishvili, Sean O'Malley’s coach was trying to distract him from his cageside position.

“I’m a professional fighter,” Dvalishvili said at the post-fight press conference. “I’m focused and it never happens to me. I never pay attention to other corner. But Tim’s voice was very familiar because he was doing the same thing to [Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292]. There’s the clip on social media everybody saw that. He was doing the same thing. He was doing already, disrespectful, ‘Merab, you’ve got to go.’

“He was talking s—t to me. I told him, ‘Stop it.’ Nobody was telling him to stop. He just kept doing this. If you do the same thing in basketball or s…

Sean O'Malley has been marketed as a star since his arrival in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

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While he has largely delivered on that promise, he couldn’t live up to the hype in the UFC 306 main event on Saturday night. The “Suga” show was derailed at the Sphere in Las Vegas, as he had no answer for the grappling and pressure of Merab Dvalishvili in a unanimous decision defeat in the evening’s championship headliner. O’Malley didn’t find much success until the final frame, when he hurt Dvalishvili with a front kick to the body and continued to target that area for much of the round. By then, it was too late for the MMA Lab product to sway the scorecards in his favor.

“He looked flat. He didn’t look sharp. He didn’t look crisp until the last round,” UFC CEO Dana White said at the UFC 306 post-fight press conference. “He hurt him with that body shot. He knew he hurt him with the body shot and kept going, trying to finish. I looked at the punch s…

Bo Nickal will take a step up in competition when he locks horns with Paul Craig at UFC 309.

The promotion announced the middleweight booking during the UFC 306 broadcast on Saturday night. UFC 309 takes place on Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden in New York and is headlined by a heavyweight title clash between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic.

One of the most highly-touted prospects in recent memory, Nickal has kicked off his professional tenure with six straight triumphs. The former three-time NCAA national champion from Penn State University is 3-0 in Octagon, including a second-round submission of Cody Brundage in his most recent appearance at UFC 300. That fight marked the first time Nickal has been outside of the first round in his MMA career.

Craig enters the matchup having lost four of his last five fights. He is 1-2 since moving to 185 pounds from light heavyweight and has been finished by Caio Borralho and Brendan Allen in back-to-back outings. The Scot…

Esteban Ribovics and Daniel Zellhuber brought the Sphere to life with their memorable clash at UFC 306 on Saturday night.

As a result, the lightweights received “Fight of the Night” honors and $50,000 apiece. Ribovics and Zellhuber traded willingly throughout the contest, culminating in a wild final frame that saw both men hurt at different points in the stanza. Ultimately, Ribovics was able to pour it on down the stretch to emerge with a split-decision triumph in a fight that will end up on plenty of year-end awards lists when all is said and done.

Elsewhere, Ignacio Bahamondes garnered a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” award for his first-round stoppage of Manuel Torres in a preliminary lightweight affair. Bahamondes was able to floor his foe with clean counters on two separate occasions, the second of which set the stage for a technical knockout victory at the 4:06 mark of Round 1.

Finally, Ketlen Souza captured the evening’s other $50,000 “Performan…

“The Machine” rolls on, and “The Suga Show” is on hiatus, at least for the time being.

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In the main event of UFC 306 inside Sphere at the Venetian in Las Vegas, Merab Dvalishvili (18-4, 11-2 UFC) plied his relentless wrestling and his legendary pace and cardio to dethrone Sean O'Malley (18-2, 1 NC, 10-2, 1 NC UFC) and claim the bantamweight belt. The first round was a tense affair, with both men feeling out the range and rhythm, but the challenger landed two takedowns with relative ease in the second half of the frame, landing some solid strikes as O’Malley worked his way back to his feet and briefly threatening with a mounted guillotine choke late. Dvalishvili wasted little time bringing things back to the canvas in Round 2, timing the champ for an easy double-leg and doing work from top position for the balance of the round. By the end of the second frame, Dvalishvili was grinning and clowning, planting a kiss on the head of the seated champ and dra…