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SERGHEI SPIVAC SUBMITS LEWIS IN ROUND 1 🗜 #UFCVegas68 pic.twitter.com/qSlnn4mnBv

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) February 5, 2023

Sergey Spivak was completely dominant in his first UFC main event.

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The Moldovan ragdolled former heavyweight title challenger Derrick Lewis all over the Octagon at UFC Fight Night 218 before locking in an arm-triangle choke for a submission victory at the 3:05 mark of the opening stanza. Spivak (16-3, 7-3 UFC) has won three straight fights and six of his last seven UFC appearances overall. Lewis (26-11, 1 NC, 17-9 UFC) never had a chance to get going. Spivak executed a hip toss within the bout’s first 30 seconds, and the rout was on from there. “The Polar Bear” slammed a helpless Lewis to the mat repeatedly while punishing his foe with ground-and-pound from mount. Finally, after slamming Lewis to the canvas one last time, Spivak deftly transitioned to the fight-ending maneuver to mercifully bring an e…

Sherdog's live UFC Fight Night 218 coverage will begin Saturday at 10 p.m. ET. BETTING PREVIEW | SCOUTING REPORT | ODDS: Taira (-1200), Aguilar (+800)Round 1 Sherdog Scores Ben Duffy scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tudor Leonte scores the round:

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Round 2 Sherdog Scores Ben Duffy scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tudor Leonte scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Ben Duffy scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tudor Leonte scores the round: The Official Result BETTING PREVIEW | SCOUTING REPORT | ODDS: Park (-270), Tiuliulin (+210)Round 1 Sherdog Scores Ben Duffy scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tudor Leonte scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Ben Duffy scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tudor Leonte scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Ben Duffy scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tudor Leonte scores the round:The Official Result …

For the first time in two decades, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is heading to Miami.

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Dana White announced on Saturday that UFC 287 on April 8 will be held at Miami-Dade arena in the Sunshine State. The Las Vegas-based promotion hasn’t been to Miami since Matt Hughes defended his welterweight crown with a five-round decision against Sean Sherk in the UFC 42 headliner on April 25, 2003.

“I’m always talking about big destination fights, and we are going back to Miami,” White said.

UFC 287 is headlined by a middleweight championship rematch between reigning champion Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya. Perhaps even more notable in this case is the co-main event, which sees Miami native Jorge Masvidal return for the first time in more than a year against Gilbert Burns.

Other bouts slated for UFC 287 include Kevin Holland vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio at welterweight; Rob Fant vs. Adrian Yanez at bantamweight; Michael Chiesa vs. Jingliang Li at…

“The Ultimate Fighter 31” figures to be one of the more intriguing seasons in recent memory.

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UFC president Dana White on Saturday announced that Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler will serve as coaches on “TUF 31” before squaring off in the Octagon later this year. The series will premiere on May 30 via ESPN/ESPN+ and runs through Aug. 15. A date and venue for McGregor vs. Chandler was not confirmed.

McGregor will be making his second appearance on the long-running reality show after serving as a coach opposite Urijah Faber on “TUF 22” in 2015. The Dublin native hasn’t competed since July 10, 2021, when he broke his leg in a loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264. McGregor has lost three of his last four promotional appearances dating back to October 2018.

Chandler, who has openly campaigned for a fight against McGregor, is coming off a 1-1 campaign in 2022. After scoring a highlight-reel front kick knockout of Tony Ferguson at UFC 274, the ex-Be…

With just a few hours left before the event, UFC Fight Night 218 is down to 11 bouts.

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The Las Vegas-based promotion announced on Saturday that Mandy Bohm has been forced to withdraw from a proposed flyweight clash against Ji Yeon Kim due to illness. As a result, the contest has been removed from the card.

UFC Fight Night 218 takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and is headlined by a heavyweight tilt pitting Derrick Lewis against Sergey Spivak. Bohm vs. Kim was slated for the preliminary portion of the card.

Germany’s Bohm is 0-2 in the Octagon, with decision losses to Ariane Lipski and Victoria Leonardo in her first two promotional appearances. The 33-year-old known as “Monster” was unbeaten in eight professional outings before signing with the UFC.

Kim, meanwhile, was looking to halt a four-bout skid in UFC competition. Most recently, the South Korean dropped a split verdict to Joselyne Edwards at UFC 277 this past July.

Philadelphia-based Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Amanda Leve nailed down a Professional Fighters League contract on Week 2 of the PFL Challenger Series, as she outstruck onetime Olympian Naranjargal Tsendayush to a unanimous decision on Friday at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. All three members of the cageside judiciary scored it the same: 29-28 for Leve (2-0, 2-0 PFL).

Tsendayush (2-1, 0-1 PFL), an accomplished judoka who represented Mongolia at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, delivered a head-and-arm throw in the first round but failed to consolidate those efforts with meaningful damage or control. Leve snuck around to the back, secured her position with a body triangle and went about altering the narrative. For the next 10 minutes, she let fly with punches, countered effectively and connected with the occasional head kick. Tsendayush backed up a hearty chin and unfettered aggression with clubbing hooks from both hands, only to fall short on the scor…

Sherdog's live PFL Challenger Series 2 coverage kicks off Friday at 9 p.m. ET. The action will be broadcast live and free on fuboTV. Round 1 Kicking off the card, Michelle Montague (2-0) faces Shaquita Woods, who is making her pro debut. Montague is by far the biggest favorite of the card at a whopping -500, which is a lot of faith for a fighter with only two bouts. Woods starts off with a few kicks, including a sidekick to the head, but Montague avoids them. Motangue scores with a leg kick of her own. They're cautious now, standing at range. Woods overextends on a front kick that Montague easily dodges. Neither fighter has really thrown a punch yet, just kicks. Woods touches Montague's leg with a kick and throws a punch that is about a foot short of the target. Woods misses another front kick to the body. Woods barely taps Montague with another leg kick and misses another punch that isn't remotely close. Montague finally opens up with a flurry of punches out of nowhere and …

THE BEAST IS OFFICIAL 😤

[ @TheBeast_UFC | Tomorrow | 10pmPT Main Card on @ESPNPlus ] pic.twitter.com/1Y8Z8a74TA

— UFC (@ufc) February 3, 2023 Originally set for Seoul, South Korea, UFC Fight Night 218 will now emanate from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and feature a heavyweight main event between Derrick Lewis and Sergey Spivak.

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All fighters successfully made weight for the Ultimate Fighting Championship's first card of February. However, there will be a bit of a weight difference in the main event, as Lewis (26-10, 1 NC) will be the heftier man inside the cage. "The Black Beast" weighed a full 265 pounds, coming in 9.5 pounds heavier than the 255.5-pounder Spivak (15-3).

Lewis enters his 10th UFC main event in dire need of a win. The 37-year-old has fallen short in his last two bouts, which includes getting flattened by Sergei Pavlovich in just 55 seconds. Meanwhile, "The Polar Bear" has prevailed in five of his last si…

main event were the first to weigh-in today at @bellatormma pic.twitter.com/4TAWPWFzrm

— esther lin (@allelbows) February 3, 2023 The storied career of Fedor Emelianenko will come to an end with one final shot at championship glory in the main event of Bellator 290.

The three-fight main card on the CBS airwaves will feature two title fights and a sure-fire welterweight banger. Both heavyweight headliners easily came in under the 265-pound limit, as champion Ryan Bader weighed 234.4 pounds, while Emelianenko (40-6, 1 NC) came in slightly heavier at 236.2 pounds. Middleweight titleholder Johnny Eblen also made weight at 184 pounds on the dot, ahead of his first defense against Anatoly Tokov (184.8). The only fighter to miss weight was prelim participant Diana Avsaragova, who checked in at 128.8 pounds for her flyweight match against Alejandra Lara (125.8). Avsaragova will be fined a percentage of her purse as a result, but the contest will other…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is not quite done building its stacked April pay-per-view.

Per Michael Chiesa (16-6) on ESPN’s “UFC Fight Night Pre-Show” on Friday, he will be competing on April 8. This will be his first in-cage outing since 2021, and he will be taking on Jingliang Li (19-8) with potential top-10 stakes in the welterweight division. The event, UFC 287, still does not currently have a location on the books, although locales of Brooklyn, New York, and Miami are reportedly the frontrunners.

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This will be Chiesa’s first fight in over 16 months, and he will be attempting to dispel a two-fight losing streak when he sets foot in the Octagon again. “Maverick” first succumbed to a brabo choke from Vicente Luque in August 2021, and came back three-plus months later to drop a decision to then-undefeated Sean Brady. Before then, Chiesa had rattled off four straight victories in his return to welterweight. All four wins came over noteworthy foe…

A former Ultimate Fighting Championship titleholder has found a suitable replacement for his March appearance.

News of Julio Arce’s withdrawal from UFC 285 broke on Monday, as a knee injury forced him out of his expected pairing with Cody Garbrandt (12-5). Stepping up on about a month’s notice, Trevin Jones (13-9, 1 NC) has been tapped as the new opponent opposite Garbrandt. The UFC’s broadcast partner of ESPN first brought this to light on Friday.

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The ex-bantamweight king, Garbrandt has fallen on hard times the last several years. Since claiming the throne from Dominick Cruz in 2016, Garbrandt has fought just six times, and prevailed only once against Raphael Assuncao in 2020. Averaging about a fight a year – although Garbrandt did not set foot in the cage in 2020 – “No Love” will come into this crucial contest on a two-fight skid. His 2021 campaign did not go his way, as a five-round headliner against Rob Font ended up with Font getting his hand rai…

Even though he has achieved much in the sport, ex-Ultimate Fighting Championship champ Fabricio Werdum still holds one former foe in much higher regard than himself.

Werdum stands as the only man on the planet to ever submit Fedor Emelianenko in MMA competition, doing so atop a Strikeforce card in 2010 to shock the world. Following the news that Brazilian channel Combate will carry events through Bellator MMA and Professional Fighters League even though its UFC arrangement has ended, Werdum has drawn the assignment as a color commentator for Bellator 290. Speaking to Sherdog on Wednesday about the event, Werdum spoke at length about his former foe, his plans for the future and much more.

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“Nobody ever did what [Emelianenko] did in heavyweight division,” Werdum explained. “Ten years undefeated, no doubt he must be considered the GOAT. The other four, I would put [Mirko Filipovic] ‘Cro Cop,’ [Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira] ‘Minotauro,’ Cain Velasquez and mys…