Martial Arts News

Sherdog's live UFC on ESPN 49 coverage will begin Saturday at 7 p.m. ET. BETTING PREVIEW | SCOUTING REPORT | ODDS: Perez (-200), Evans-Smith (+170)Round 1 Sherdog Scores ? Jay Pettry scores the round:Edwin Ayala scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round: Round 2 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Edwin Ayala scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Edwin Ayala scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:The Official Result BETTING PREVIEW | SCOUTING REPORT | ODDS: Munoz (-150), Deaton (+130)Round 1 Sherdog Scores ? Jay Pettry scores the round:Edwin Ayala scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Edwin Ayala scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Edwin Ayala scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:The Official Result BETTING PREVIEW | SCOUT…

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight champ Deiveson Figueiredo is confidently taking the next steps to further his career.

Figueiredo (21-3-1) spoke to Sherdog on Friday about his plans for the future and what will differ following his expected relocation to 135 pounds. The former flyweight king decided that wholesale changes to his life, ranging from getting a new manager to switching camps. “Daico” parted ways with Wallid Ismail in 2022, and his subsequent arrangement with Urijah Faber was not working out the way he expected. According to Figueiredo, the language barrier played a factor.

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“…I don’t speak English, [and] I was having a hard time communicating with Urijah Faber, so I decided to start to work with Alex Davis,” Figueiredo told Sherdog. “Urijah Faber is a great person and friend, and he totally understood my point.”

Figueiredo was recently expected to face Manel Kape at flyweight, but when that fell through, the 35-year-old co…

A pivotal Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight contest is the first official fight booked for the Abu Dhabi card in October.

The promotion intends on returning to the Etihad Arena on Yas Island at Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Oct. 21. No fight had been booked for the show in a little over three months until Friday, when Eurosport NL reported that Tim Elliott (19-12-1) would be battling it out with Muhammad Mokaev (10-0, 1 NC) on the billing. The Missouri-based flyweight confirmed the pairing on Instagram along with other outlets shortly after its announcement.

Triumphant in his last two, Elliott is currently riding the longest win streak of his two UFC stints. On two previous occasions, Elliott had strung a pair of victories together, but he had never been able to amass a third. In 2022, he upset Tagir Ulanbekov to remain a ranked contender. In June, the former Glory MMA & Fitness staple picked up a hard-fought decision over Victor Altamirano. Elliott h…

[embedded content] The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to ESPN airwaves with an intriguing women's bantamweight main event.

The five-round headliner of UFC on ESPN 49 will see former women's bantamweight champion Holly Holm go up against Mayra Bueno Silva. Both main eventers successfully made weight, and so did all the other fighters on the 13-fight card. Initially, Bassil Hafez came in at 171.5 pounds, which was half a pound over the limit for his co-main event against Jack Della Maddalena, but he came back and hit 171 pounds.

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"The Preacher's Daughter" is looking to keep her momentum going after defeating Yana Santos in her last outing. Despite being 41, Holm (15-6) has won three of her last four fights, with the lone defeat being a split decision to Ketlen Vieira. The boxing standout stepped on the scale at 135.5 pounds.

Silva (10-2-1) enters her first UFC main event on a three-fight win streak. The submission artist is coming off impress…

[embedded content] Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki heavyweight kingpin Philip De Fries will have nearly 30 pounds on his opponent in his headlining affair.

July's offering from KSW of KSW 84 will be headlined by a heavyweight championship fight between titleholder De Fries and Szymon Bajor. The English heavyweight weighed in considerably heavier than his foe, and he will be attempting to extend his record among all major promotions for the most defenses at that weight class. All fighters made weight for the show in Gdynia, Poland.

Ahead of the title tilt, the champion weighed 265 pounds. De Fries (23-6, 1 NC) is on an impressive 11-fight win streak that dates back to 2017 and spans his entire KSW tenure. He most recently defeated Todd Duffee in under a round via TKO. Meanwhile, Bajor came in at 238 pounds, and is riding a four-fight win streak that includes victories over Ronny Markes and Bartosz Szewczyk.

KSW 84 will air live on the promotion's website on Saturday, be…

[embedded content] The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s 205-pound throne is once again vacant.

Early Friday morning, UFC light heavyweight champ Jamahal Hill (12-1, 1 NC) posted a video on YouTube channel announcing that he had ruptured his Achilles tendon. Due to the lengthy layoff for surgery and rehabilitation, he has elected to surrender his belt and not keep the division in limbo. In his emotional video statement, Hill explained that the UFC informed him that he would be able to fight for the strap after he completes his recovery, but the timetable for his return is currently unknown other than “as soon as possible…within reason.” MMA Fighting subsequently reported that Hill suffered the injury during the basketball game between MMA fighters prior to UFC 290.

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“I’m here with some news,” a crestfallen Hill said. “I’mma be real, right off the bat, it’s not the good news that we would hope like…everyone knows I’ve been waiting for months now to face …

The Ultimate Fighting Championship was quick to keep its upcoming pay-per-view lineup to a lucky 13 fights.

According to her Instagram on Thursday, Joanne Wood has been forced out of her flyweight fight at UFC 291 against Priscila Cachoeira (12-4). In her place, as first reported by MMA Fighting, is Miranda Maverick (11-5). Maverick confirmed this news of this July 29 pairing shortly after it broke on Thursday, and she will be taking this bout on a little over two weeks’ notice.

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“Gutted to find out that I won’t be fighting July 29th,” Wood wrote on her Instagram page. “It is what it is and I’m going to try not dwell on this as it was out of my control. I invested and done everything I could and was ready for what was maybe going to be my last fight. I loved the extra altitude training that I went all in on to make sure I was best prepared and was feeling great with no injuries. If only fight camps went on your record (and you got paid for them) …

.@BellatorMMA is proud to announce that No. 4-ranked men's pound-for-pound Bantamweight World Champion @sergiopettis and Interim Bantamweight Champion @TeamMixMMA have been re-signed to multi-fight contract extensions. https://t.co/VS8xshuZrd pic.twitter.com/T1UZqwbpWu

— Bellator Public Relations (@BellatorPR) July 13, 2023 Bellator MMA is making sure that the top of its bantamweight division is sticking around for the foreseeable future.

Per a press release on Thursday from the promotion, Bellator has signed bantamweight champion Sergio Pettis (23-5) and interim titleholder Patrick Mix (18-1) to extended multi-fight deals. The league has done so prior to their 135-pound unification match, which is set to go down at an undisclosed date. The terms of the contracts are not being made public, nor how many fights either man has agreed to with Bellator. The fighters will remain exclusive to the organization.

In June, Pettis staved off Bellator…

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship star Chael Sonnen has reached a plea deal after being accused of attacking multiple people at a Las Vegas hotel in December 2021.

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Sonnen pleaded no contest on Wednesday to a charge of misdemeanor breach of the peace in Las Vegas Justice Court and was fined $750, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a result of the plea deal, four previous misdemeanor battery charges were dismissed by judge Ann Zimmerman. Two misdemeanor charges were also dismissed last September. Sonnen did not appear in court, and the case is now closed without further conditions or jail time.

The former UFC title challenger initially faced multiple misdemeanor battery charges — including felony battery by strangulation — for an alleged incident that occurred on Dec. 18, 2021. The felony battery charge was dropped in March 2022, and five other misdemeanors were dismissed by the court without prejudice. Sonnen was accu…

OFFICIAL: 𝗪𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗿 𝗚𝗼 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲. 2023 #PFLPlayoffs New York cards are now set! ✅

August 18th: Heavyweights & Women's FeatherweightsAugust 23rd: Welterweights & Lightweights

For more information and tickets 👇https://t.co/eCMG4faqPw pic.twitter.com/CMwOs5CcmY — PFL (@PFLMMA) July 12, 2023

The lineups are set for the final two Professional Fighters League playoff events.

The first card takes place on Aug. 18 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City and features heavyweights and women’s featherweights. The heavyweight semifinals have undergone one significant change, as Maurice Greene will replace the inured Marcelo Nunes and lock horns with Renan Ferreira on side of the bracket. That matchup will serve as the featured bout of the evening, while the other semifinal will pit Denis Goltsov against Jordan Heiderman. The main card will also feature a pair of women’s 145-pound semifinals: Larissa Pacheco vs. Olena Kolesnyk a…

Walt Harris’ return to mixed martial arts will have to wait for another day.

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The heavyweight bout between Harris and Josh Parisian has been pulled from Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 49 event. MMAFighting.com was first to report the cancellation. UFC on ESPN 49 takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and is headlined by a women’s bantamweight clash between Holly Holm and Mayra Bueno Silva. The main card airs on ESPN and ESPN+ at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT, while prelims stream on ESPN and ESPN+ beginning at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. Harris vs. Parisian was slated for the six-bout main draw.

Harris was recently seen training with Jon Jones ahead of “Bones’” heavyweight championship victory over Ciryl Gane at UFC 285. “The Big Ticket” last appeared at UFC Fight Night 189 on June 5, 2021, when he suffered a third-round technical knockout defeat to Marcin Tybura — his third consecutive setback within the Las Vegas-based promotion. Harris enjoyed his greatest success i…

UFC 290 is in the running for the best event of 2023, but one of the most memorable moments didn’t happen inside the cage.

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Gilbert Burns’ celebration when countryman Alexandre Pantoja captured the flyweight championship caught the attention of the MMA community. The emotional reaction might have been unusual to an outsider, considering that Burns trains at Kill Cliff FC, a natural rival of Pantoja’s training home at American Top Team.

“One day a friend in common, Tiago, said ‘I must introduce you to Pantoja, you guys are soul brothers’ and that's exactly what happened,” Burns said. “After we got to know each other, we became really close, our wives started to be close friends, our two sons, about the same age, started to be best friends. My emotion came not only from being close, but from knowing exactly all the hard times he and Gabriela passed through. Actually, we both live our lives for the same dream and seeing a close friend achieving his g…