Martial Arts News

🥺 🇧🇷 Diego Lopes tears up when his family in Brazil whom he haven't seen for 11 years wished him good luck in his title fight this weekend:

"I left them 11 years ago, when I left home. I remember I was very clear with my mother and my father, and with my brothers that I will… pic.twitter.com/AgCu5HPayC

— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) April 11, 2025

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Diego Lopes was recently overwhelmed with emotions while speaking of his family.

Lopes challenges Alexander Volkanovski for the vacant featherweight title in the main event at UFC 314 on Saturday at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida. The Brazilian recently received a compilation video of his family members wishing him luck going into his first UFC title fight. Lopes was clearly overwhelmed by the video and shed some tears while discussing his family. The UFC star left home more than a decade ago, promising to return only when he could afford a better life for his family. A…

Just two events into the season, and most of the brackets have gone up in smoke.

The opening round of Professional Fighters League’s global tournament is already halfway over. Upsets were plentiful and results were largely entertaining as the slim and sleek eight-fight 2025 PFL World Tournament 2 show wrapped in a bit under four hours. The action-packed evening culminated in an unexpected showdown at 135 pounds between Bellator MMA vet Leandro Higo (23-7, 0-1 PFL) and extremely late replacement Marcirley Alves (13-4, 1-0 PFL). Coming into this main attraction on a day’s notice after Higo’s original opponent of Josh Rettinghouse could not get cleared, Alves showed he was fully prepared to rise to the occasion.

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Partway through the first round, the wide-swinging Alves knocked Higo clean off his feet with a huge left hand, and he climbed into top position and controlled the remainder of the opening frame. Alves was keen on reintroducing his countryman to…

Sherdog's live PFL 2025 World Tournament: First Round 2 coverage will begin Friday at 9 p.m. ET.

Fighters only get one shot! Watch the PFL World Tournament LIVE Friday, April 11 at 11 p.m. ET on ESPN2..

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Round 1 Sherdog Scores Brian Knapp scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:Mike Pendleton scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Brian Knapp scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:Mike Pendleton scores the round: Round 3 Sherdog Scores Brian Knapp scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:Mike Pendleton scores the round:The Official Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Brian Knapp scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:Mike Pendleton scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Brian Knapp scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:Mike Pendleton scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Brian Knapp scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:Mike Pendleton scores the round:The Official Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Brian Knapp scores t…

Looking to get his belt back 😤@AlexVolkanovski weighs-in at 145lbs!

[ #UFC314 | TOMORROW on @ESPNPlus PPV | 10pmET ] pic.twitter.com/nXJbwwjhpm

— UFC (@ufc) April 11, 2025 The Ultimate Fighting Championship makes its return to Miami for an exciting UFC 314 pay-per-view card featuring 13 fights.

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The main event between Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes for the vacant featherweight championship is now official after the weigh-ins took place. Both men made weight for the five-round fight. As for the rest of the card, only Nora Cornolle failed to hit her contracted weight, as she was 1.5 pounds over the bantamweight limit. Her fight against Hailey Cowan will continue, although Cornolle will be fined a percentage of her purse.

Volkanovski (26-4) enters the title fight on a shocking two-fight losing streak as he lost to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev in his second bid at the 155-pound title and was then knocked o…

AZERBAIJAN, ARE YOU READY??@JamahalH vs Khalil Rountree Jr. headline the first-ever UFC Baku on June 21 👏

Tickets on sale April 25 | Learn more: https://t.co/caJbrV3t2d---------AZƏRBAYCAN, HAZIRSAN ?@JamahalH və Khalil Rountree Jr. 21 iyun tarixində baş tutacaq ilk UFC… pic.twitter.com/qwhW8YtXmF

— UFC (@ufc) April 11, 2025 The framework is quickly underway for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to make a splash in the half-Asian, half-European nation of Azerbaijan.

According to the promotion on UFC on Friday, the main and co-main events are on the books for UFC Baku, which is set to go down on June 21 in Baku, Azerbaijan. In this nation bordered on the east by the Caspian Sea, fight fans will be treated to a rescheduled main attraction of Jamahal Hill (12-3, 1 NC) vs. Khalil Rountree (13-6, 1 NC). The co-headlining spot will go to the returning Kyoji Horiguchi (34-5, 1 NC) against Tagir Ulanbekov (16-2) in a pivotal flyweight affair. C…

[embedded content] One of these days, the Brazilian contingent of analysts might pick against their home country fighter. Now is not that day.

A number of current and former Ultimate Fighting Championship and Bellator MMA fighters wanted to make their voices heard on the main attraction of UFC 314. On Saturday, Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes will tangle for the vacant throne, one abandoned by Ilia Topuria after Topuria clobbered both Volkanovski and Max Holloway. The challenger Lopes surged his way to a title shot thanks to stellar performances against names like Sodiq Yusuff, Dan Ige and Brian Ortega along with a close loss to unbeaten Movsar Evloev. The five Brazilians spoke to Sherdog about how they thought the fight would play out, and confidence was fairly high on the Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, native.

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Gilbert Burns, former UFC welterweight title challenger: “I believe Diego can decide that fight with his hands. I got really impressed by w…

بطاقة نزالات وزن اللايت ويت من الموسم الثاني لبطولة "PFL MENA" 🔒

من سيحصد اللقب؟

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بطولة "PFL MENA" | الجمعة، 9 مايو | جدة، المملكة العربية السعودية | مباشر على منصة "STARZPLAY"#نصنع_التاريخ #السعودية pic.twitter.com/ePKvh06IWL — PFL MENA (@PFLMENA) April 4, 2025 The Professional Fighters League is doubling down when it comes to developing lightweight talent.

The tournament-based organization released on Thursday the complete lineup for its May 9 event in Saudi Arabia. PFL MENA 1: 2025 First Round will take place at the Onyx Arena in the nation’s second-largest city of Jeddah, with 145ers and 155ers on tap. The champs of these two single-elimination brackets will receive a belt for winning the tournament as well as a potential opportunity to be called up for the $500,000 Global season.

Fighters only get one shot! Watch the PFL World Tournament LIVE Friday, April 11 at 11 p.m. ET on ESPN2..

In sister tournam…

Your new #PFLWorldTournament 2️⃣Main Event

•Josh Rettinghouse is not cleared to fight and is off the card•Marcirley Alves (alternate) replaces Rettinghouse in the main event

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𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁: Leandro Higo vs Marcirley Alves

𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲: Early Card… pic.twitter.com/cSzjQbWvJu

— PFL (@PFLMMA) April 10, 2025 The Professional Fighters League's 2025 World Tournament continues on Friday, albeit with a new main event, as the first round of the men's bantamweight and women's flyweight tournaments kick off. The new headliner will see bantamweight Leandro Higo take on Marcirley Alves, who is stepping up as an alternate and replacing Josh Rettinghouse after the American was not cleared to fight. A former Bellator standout, Higo (23-6) will take on the 25-year-old Alves (12-4) in his promotional debut. At 36 years of age, this could mark one of the final high-level runs for "Pitbull," who is coming off back-to-back wins ove…

It appears that the Global Fight League might be going under before it could even get off the ground.

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The fledgling mixed martial arts promotion has canceled its first two events that were scheduled for May 24 and May 25 at the Shrine Auditorium in Las Angeles. The GFL only officially announced the two fight cards — featuring many prominent veterans and a total of 31 bouts — last week. Yahoo! Sports was first to report the cancellation, which was confirmed by California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster.

GFL 1 was supposed to be headlined by a trilogy bout between Urijah Faber and Renan Barao, while GFL 2 was topped by a clash pitting Tony Ferguson against Dillon Danis. The promotion was planning a team-based format with squads based in Los Angeles, New York, London, Dubai, Sao Paulo and Miami. All told, the cards were expected to featured 42 UFC veterans and a number of former UFC and Bellator MMA champions.

GFL fou…

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In just a few days, former Bellator MMA two-division champion Patricio Freire will realize his dream of stepping into the UFC’s Octagon.

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“Pitbull” will face Yair Rodriguez in a featured bout at UFC 314 at the Kaseya Center in Miami on Saturday night. In an interview published on the UFC Fight Pass Brazil YouTube channel, Freire shared insight into his camp and the game plan for his Mexican foe.

“There is no fighter on the face of the Earth more motivated than I,” Freire said. “I’ve trained since 1998 always having a white belt mindset — I mean going to the academy every day to adjust something. And that mentality helped me to beat all the records in my former organization, and I won’t lose that golden opportunity to get the UFC belt and put my name among the GOATS of the sport.”

While Freire is confident in his abilities, he acknowledged that his UFC debut will be a difficult challenge.

“Yair is a complete fighter, an oppon…

Coker 🤝 @criscyborg -

The Greatest of All-Time competes in six rounds of professional 🥊 on May 17 at the @TechCUArena pic.twitter.com/2rHXyy5nRr

— Scott Coker (@ScottCoker) April 9, 2025

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Cris Cyborg is doing her best to stay busy.

The multi-promotion MMA champion will join the Fight Night 3: San Jose card for a boxing match against Precious Harris-McCray in the evening’s co-main event. Fight Night is a promotion launched by former Bellator and Strikeforce leader Scott Coker and ex-Strikeforce champ Gilbert Melendez a little more than a year ago. The event will take place at Tech CU Arena in San Jose, California, on May 17 and is headlined by a bantamweight MMA bout between Bobby Seronio III and Lake Gee.

“San Jose holds a special place in my heart as it was where I was able to be a part of history when I became the inaugural Strikeforce women’s featherweight champion in the first televised women’s MMA main event …

A welterweight semifinal clash pitting former Bellator MMA champion Jason Jackson against undefeated prospect Thad Jean will serve as the headliner for the Professional Fighters League’s tournament event in Nashville on June 12.

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The PFL announced the main card lineup for the event, which features semifinal bouts at welterweight and featherweight. In the evening’s co-main event, Jesus Pinedo and Gabriel Braga will square off for a third time in a 145-pound semifinal.

Two semifinal other fights will round out the PFL World Tournament 5 main draw: Logan Storley vs. Masayuki Kikuiri at welterweight and Movlid Khaybulaev vs. Taekyun Kim at featherweight.

Fighters only get one shot! Watch the PFL World Tournament LIVE Friday, April 11 at 11 p.m. ET on ESPN2..

The card takes place at Nashville Municipal Auditorium and will air on the ESPN family of networks. More bouts and specific broadcast deals will be announced at a later date.

Jac…