Martial Arts News

The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event of 2023 has undergone a late change to its headliner.

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According to promotion broadcast partner ESPN, Kelvin Gastelum has been forced to withdraw from his UFC fight Night 217 showdown against Nassourdine Imavov due to a mouth injury, and as a result, will be replaced by Sean Strickland on less than one week’s notice. Strickland will be headlining back-to-back UFC cards after dropping a unanimous decision to Jared Cannonier in the promotion’s last event of 2022 on Dec. 17. While both men typically compete at 185 pounds, Strickland vs. Imavov will be contested at 205 pounds but will remain a five-round bout.

UFC Fight Night 217 takes place on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. It’s the second significant blow for the card, as a proposed co-main event clash between Geoff Neal and Shavkat Rakhmonov was scrapped due to a Neal injury. That bout has since been rescheduled for UFC 285.

After authori…

A number of notable heavyweights will be calling Brazilian camp Libertas Esportes de Combate home in the coming months.

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According to head coach Andre Benkei, heavyweights Amir Aliakbari, Tony Johnson Jr., Anderson "Braddock" Silva and Guto Inocente will all be training together under the same roof in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil, in the coming months. Benkei is a former coach at American Top Team.

“I’ve always dreamed to join a great team of fighters with the best team of coaches who can produce the best quality fighters to [send to] all MMA shows all over the world,” Benkei told Sherdog.com. “Thanks to the support of the mayor of Mariana and local companies like [Brazilian mining organization Samarco] I was able to make it happen.

Benkei plans on bringing a number of high-level coaches and trainers to sharpen the heavyweights’ skills.

“To take care of their wrestling, we will have [Iran national team member] Poya Baghbani; for boxin…

Credit: Getty/UFC Credit: Getty/UFC

A featherweight clash pitting Lerone Murphy against Nathaniel Wood has been added to the UFC 286 lineup.

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The Las Vegas-based promotion announced the bout on Monday. UFC 286 takes place on March 18 at the O2 Arena in London and also includes a middleweight tilt between Marvin Vettori and Roman Dolidze. A headliner has not been confirmed for the event.

The 31-year-old Murphy will make his first Octagon appearance since October 2021, when he knocked out Makwan Amirkhani with a knee in the second-round of their UFC 267 clash to run his professional mark to 11-0-1. Since then, the Englishman known as “The Miracle” was hospitalized after a cycling accident that he described as a “near-death experience” in May 2022.

A former Cage Warriors bantamweight champion, Wood is 2-0 since moving up to 145 pounds after earning unanimous verdicts over Charles Rosa and Charles Jourdain last year. The 29-year-old Great Britai…

Arjan Singh Bhullar and Anatoliy Malykhin will square off in a heavyweight title unification bout at One on Prime Video 8.

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The Singapore-based promotion recently announced the booking. Bhullar and Malykhin were initially slated to meet at One Championship 161 last September, but Bhullar withdrew from the card due to injury. One on Prime Video 8 takes place on March 24 at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore and airs in primetime via Prime Video in the United States.

A four-time UFC veteran, Bhullar claimed the undisputed heavyweight crown with a second-round technical knockout victory against Brandon Vera at One Championship “Dangal” in April 2021. Bhullar has won four straight fights and 11 of 12 professional outings overall. Bhullar has not competed since that victory due to the aforementioned injury and a contract dispute with the promotion, according to a release.

Malykhin, meanwhile, is undefeated in 11 professional appearances…

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Melquizael Costa will replace Guram Kutateladze and face Thiago Moises at UFC 283 on Jan. 21.

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MMAFighting.com was first to report the new lightweight booking. UFC 283 takes place at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro and is headlined by a light heavyweight championship clash pitting Glover Teixeira against Jamahal Hill.

The 26-year-old Costa will enter his promotional debut with a 19-5 career record. The Chute Boxe Bauru representative has been victorious in seven of his last eight professional outings, including a third-round TKO of Jose Cleiton de Melo Jr. in his most recent appearance at LFA 147 on Nov. 18.

A former Resurrection Fighting Alliance champion, Moises snapped a two-fight losing streak at UFC on ESPN 38, when he submitted Christos Giagos in the opening stanza on June 25. Moises is 5-4 in UFC competition, with notable wins over the likes of Alexander Hernandez, Bobby Green and Michael Johnson.

It appears that Khabib Nurmagomedov is ready to step away from mixed martial arts entirely.

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The former UFC lightweight champion recently shared a post on his Instagram stories indicating that he is retiring from MMA coaching. The translated post, which was shared from the account za.khabiba, reads: “Khabib is leaving the MMA industry. It’s about coaching and everything else related to MMA. The reason is Khabib’s desire to devote more time to his family.”

American Kickboxing Academy coach Javier Mendez, who cornered Nurmagomedov before later working alongside him, confirmed that the former UFC champion is retiring in an interview with Yahoo Sports. Nurmagomedov has three children.

“He just doesn’t want to miss being a father,” Mendez said. “He talked to me about three weeks ago and told me of his plan and said he planned to talk to the team and inform them of his decision. He’s doing this for the right reasons. He’s a family man and he simply w…

Two-time UFC veteran Cain Carrizosa has been arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend twice since March of last year.

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According to the Gephardt (Utah) Daily, Carrizosa is being held without bail at the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Washington County for allegedly punching a women with whom he was in a relationship on Jan. 1. Carrizosa, who is identified in the police report as Cain Castillo, is facing second-degree felony charges of aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury and robbery in St. George, Utah.

St. George police arrived at the couple's residence after receiving a report of a fight and found the woman with bruises consistent with that of having been punched. When speaking to police, the woman’s mother revealed that the couple had been drinking and she “could specifically hear the sound of a fist hitting flesh at least once.” The mother also said that she separated Carrizosa and her daughter after the victim clai…

Victoria Lee, 18-year-old martial arts prodigy and undefeated MMA prospect in One Championship, died on Dec. 26, according to an Instagram post by her sister, ONE atomweight champ Angela Lee, on Jan. 7.

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The elder sister's statement read:

“On December 26, 2022 our family experienced something no family should ever have to go through... It is incredibly difficult to say this... Our Victoria passed away.

She has gone too soon and our family has been completely devastated since then. We miss her. More than anything in this world. Our family will never be the same. Life will never be the same.

Victoria was the most beautiful soul who ever lived. She was the best little sister in the world. The best daughter, the best granddaughter and the best godma / aunty to Ava and Alia.

We miss you so much sis. More than you could ever realize. We're all broken. Because a piece of you was in each of us and when you left, those pieces were ripped out of u…

Credit: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com Credit: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com Credit: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com Credit: Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com The long-awaited return for Ultimate Fighting Championship contender Tatiana Suarez is right around the corner.

On Monday, Sherdog learned from sources that Suarez (8-0) would be coming back from a nearly four-year layoff to take on Montana De La Rosa (12-7-1) in February. Suarez, a strawweight contender before injury kept her on the shelf from mid-2019 through 2022, will be moving to 125 pounds for this matchup. De La Rosa confirmed Friday on her OnlyFans page that this fight was official for the Feb. 25 card of UFC Fight Night 220. She subsequently announced this on her Instagram Stories not long after the news broke.

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Suarez won Season 23 of “The Ultimate Fighter” by submitting J.J. Aldrich, Kate Jackson and Amanda Bobby Brundage to run through the reality show. After getting her "six-figure contract," she strung together…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight king expects his countrymen and women to reign supreme in 2023.

Preparing for his record fourth straight match against one single opponent, Deiveson Figueiredo (21-2-1) is nearly ready to take on Brandon Moreno (20-6-2) once more. The two flyweight titleholders – Moreno claimed the interim strap against Kai Kara France last July – will unify their belts in the co-main event of UFC 283 on Jan. 21. Ahead of this historic battle, “Daico” revealed to Sherdog in an interview on Thursday that he has made some changes in his preparation. Most notably for the champion is that he went home.

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“I tried to adapt in Chute Boxe with my family, but it was too cold during the winter time in Sao Paulo and they didn’t get adapted, so I decided to return home [to Para],” Figueiredo admitted.

But even being far from Sao Paulo, Brazil, or his previous camp of Fight Ready in Phoenix, Figueiredo guaranteed that the excellent con…

#Bellator290 on @CBS adds four new fights for Feb. 4 including undefeated heavyweights @TallSteveMMA and Ali Isaev.

Plus Lorenz Larkin (@da_MONSOON) vs. Mukhamed Berkhamov and former champ Darrion Caldwell (@TheWolfMMA) vs. Nikita Mikhailov.

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More here:https://t.co/ArK3pUrGeK — Bellator Public Relations (@BellatorPR) January 6, 2023 The first Bellator MMA show of 2023 is shaping up to be one to remember.

Per a press release on Friday, the organization finalized its lineup for Bellator 290 on Feb. 4. While most of the bout listings – including the three main card tilts of Ryan Bader vs. Fedor Emelianenko, Johnny Eblen vs. Anatoly Tokov and Sabah Homasi vs. Brennan Ward – had already been made official, the preliminary slate is now fully on the books. Of note, Bellator added a heavyweight clash of the unbeatens between Steve Mowry (10-0, 1 NC) and Ali Isaev (9-0) to its billing.

Bellator 290 will be the promotion’…

If she can reach the limit, Ultimate Fighting Championship vet Cynthia Calvillo will try to jump-start her career back down at 115 pounds.

Per ESPN Deportes on Thursday night, the UFC’s no. 14-ranked flyweight Calvillo (9-5-1) will be returning to the strawweight division on April 8. At the event tentatively called UFC 287, she will be greeted by Lupita Godinez (8-3), who has also bounced back and forth in divisions as well. Godinez confirmed on her Instagram Stories shortly after its announcement that this fight is official. The destination of this match and event is not yet on the books, although it is rumored to be going down at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

This will be Calvillo’s first jaunt back to strawweight since late 2019, where she missed weight by nearly five pounds and fought to a draw against Marina Rodriguez. Her first UFC fight at 125 pounds went in her favor, as she topped the heavy Jessica Eye by decision to earn a place among the top fi…