Martial Arts News

Bellator MMA will make a splash when it returns to Hawaii with a pair of events on April 22 and 23.

Bellator 279 on April 23 will feature a pair of title fights, as Cristiane Justino defends her featherweight crown against Arlene Blencowe in a rematch, while reigning 135-pound king Sergio Pettis will face Raufeon Stots with a belt on line in the opening round of the promotion’s bantamweight grand prix.

Also at Bellator 279, Kyoji Horiguchi will lock horns with Patrick Mix in another first-round pairing in the bantamweight grand prix, while former flyweight queen Ilima-Lei Macfarlane will face Justin Kish. KHON2 was first to report the bouts.

Bellator 278 does not currently have any fights announced. Both events will take place at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center in Honolulu and mark the promotion’s first events in Hawaii since 2019. The main cards will air on Showtime.

Justino defeated Blencowe via second-round rear-naked choke in their first meeting at Bella…

The stage has been set for Karina Rodriguez and Daiana Torquato to run it back.

Rodriguez and Torquato made weight on Tuesday ahead of their flyweight championship rematch in the Invicta FC 46 headliner. Rodriguez tipped the scales at 123.8 pounds, while Torquato checked in at 124.6 pounds.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing at the weigh-ins, however, as Liz Tracy (117.8) missed weight by 1.8 pounds for her strawweight matchup with Danielle Taylor (115.6). As a result, Tracy has been fined 25 percent of her purse. Addtionally, the promotion announced that a proposed strawweight bout between Fatima Kline and Nadia Vera has been removed from the card.

Invicta FC 46 takes place on Wednesday at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan., and streams on the promotion’s YouTube page beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

Rodriguez claimed the vacant flyweight crown with a unanimous decision triumph over Daiana Torquato at Invicta on AXS TV last May. The 36-year-old Lobo Gym MMA represe…

A bout pitting Goiti Yamauchi against Derek Anderson is off the Bellator 276 card.

Promotion officials confirmed the cancellation following an initial report from mixedmartialarts.com. A reason for the bout’s removal is currently unknown. Bellator 276 will move forward with 12 bouts and takes place at the Family Arena in St. Louis, Mo., on Saturday. The card is headlined by a featherweight contender’s clash between Mads Burnell and Adam Borics.

Yamauchi has won five of his last six outings within the California-based promotion. The 29-year-old Japan native is coming off a first-round TKO triumph over Christopher Gonzalez at Bellator 263 this past July that ran his professional mark to 26-5.

Anderson, meanwhile, had a three-bout winning streak snapped in his last appearance, when he suffered a doctor stoppage loss to current welterweight No. 1 contender Michael Page at Bellator 258.

Kayla Harrison might be staying put with the Professional Fighters League, but that doesn’t mean she won’t still pursue the toughest competition available.

During an appearance on ESPN’s SportsCenter, Harrison praised the promotion for meeting her financial terms and then indicated that cross-promotional opportunities could be in store in the future. Bellator was in the market for the two-time Olympic gold medalist, but PFL reportedly matched the Scott Coker-led promotion’s offer.

“I think there were a lot of contract negotiations. There were a lot of offers, many of them pretty lucrative. Ultimately, the PFL had the right to match any contract I received. They stepped up in a big way,” Harrison said.

"The PFL has ensured me and promised me that they don’t care if they have to cross-promote, co-promote. They don’t care if it’s on Planet Earth or Planet Pluto.”

That statement would seem to align with the one in the PFL announcement of the Harrison re-signin…

Jorge Masvidal must receive an MRI following his loss to Colby Covington in the UFC 272 main event.

The Miami native will have the results of the MRI compared to a previous report from October 2019. At a minimum, Masvidal is suspended until April 20 with no contact until April 5. The exact nature of Masvidal’s injury is unclear.

A full list of medical suspensions from UFC 272 was obtain by mixedmartialarts.com. UFC 272 took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas this past Saturday and saw Covington defeat Masvidal via clear-cut unanimous decision in their welterweight bout. Covington is suspended until April 20 with no contact until April 5.

Three other fighters from UFC 272 are facing six-month suspensions pending doctor clearance: Jalin Turner (left foot, left knee), Jamie Mullarkey (right ribs) and Kennedy Nzechukwu (right hand, left foot).

UFC 272 Medical Suspensions:

Colby Covington: Suspended until April 20, no contact until April 5

Jorge Ma…

Surprise Surprise… The Queen is Back

@KaylaH pic.twitter.com/sfNz87TYX3

— PFL (@PFLMMA) March 8, 2022 After testing the waters as a free agent, Kayla Harrison has elected to return to Professional Fighters League.

The PFL announced Tuesday that the two-time Olympic gold medalist has signed a multi-year contract extension to return to the organization where she began her mixed martial arts career. Ariel Helwani recently reported that the promotion matched an offer from Bellator MMA to retain Harrison, while PFL founder Donn Davis called the deal a “historic new contract.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“It is a privilege to announce the PFL has signed the most dominant MMA fighter in the world, Kayla Harrison, to a new multi-year agreement,” said PFL CEO Peter Murray in a release. “I am also excited to announce the PFL is launching a new Pay-Per-View Super Fight Division where star MMA fighters will compete on a global stage ag…

Islam Makhachev is denying Dana White’s claim that he turned down a short-notice matchup with Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 272 this past weekend.

Dos Anjos needed an opponent on less than one week’s notice after Rafael Fiziev tested positive for COVID-19. For a short period, it looked as though dos Anjos and Makhachev would square off in the UFC 272 co-main event at 170 pounds. Ultimately, it was Renato Carneiro who agreed to step in, and the UFC president said Makhachev was unwilling to take the fight.

“Pretty close – I thought we had it done,” White said last week. “When I went to bed one of the nights, I thought it was done. Woke up the next morning and found out they turned it down. Islam [turned it down]. No clue [why].”

According to Makhachev, that’s not at all what happened.

"I was in California on vacation, and I called my manager and said, 'Please call the UFC, I am ready to take this fight,'" Makhachev told ESPN. "I asked about some conditions, very…

After vanquishing Renato Carneiro in the UFC 272 co-main event, Rafael dos Anjos believes it’s time to potentially revisit a showdown with Conor McGregor.

It’s the type of matchup that would appropriately motivate the 37-year-old Brazilian at this stage of his career.

“I think the moment that we live in right now, that fight would make a lot of sense,” dos Anjos said at the UFC 272 post-fight press conference. “I was on a 16-month layoff. Conor broke his leg and is coming back in the summer, I think. That would make sense. The division is kind of crazy right now and I think that fight would make a lot of sense. …

“That would be a big money fight, of course. We have a history, too. Like I said, I’m looking for names that make me want to go to the gym and train. It’s been so many years in this game. I don’t want to fight names that don’t interest me, that don’t push me to go to the gym. I’m 37 years old. [I’ve] fought pretty much everybody in two divisions.”

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Brock Lesnar isn’t interested in making another comeback to mixed martial arts.

Just in case you thought Lesnar might be interested in dipping his toes in Ultimate Fighting Championship waters one more time, the former heavyweight champion shut that notion down in a recent interview with the New York Post.

“That door is closed,” Lesnar said. “You know what, Dana White, the Fertitta brothers [Lorenzo and Frank] were exceptional to me.”

Lesnar appeared at Madison Square Garden for a live WWE event this past Saturday. Next month, he is slated to defend his WWE belt in a title unification bout against Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania 38 on April 3 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. As far as Lesnar is concerned, sports entertainment is where he’ll remain.

“I’m too old,” Lesnar said. “That’s a young man’s sport, and that door is closed. I’m Brock Lesnar, the WWE Superstar.”

Though rumors of a Lesnar return to the UFC have persisted over the years — in…

Takashi Sato has agreed to step in and replace the injured Claudio Silva and face Gunnar Nelson at UFC London.

ESPN was first to report the new welterweight booking. UFC Fight Night 204 takes place at the O2 Arena in London is currently scheduled to be headlined by a heavyweight clash between Tom Aspinall and Alexander Volkov.

A veteran of the Pancrase and Deep organizations, Sato is 2-2 in UFC competition. The 31-year-old Tokyo native will compete for the first time since November 2020, when he suffered a second-round submission defeat to Miguel Baeza at UFC on ESPN 18.

Nelson will be making his first appearance since September 2019, when he fell to Gilbert Burns via unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 160. The 33-year-old Iceland native has lost three of four promotion appearances after beginning his UFC tenure with a 7-2 mark.

The MW division just got put on NOTICE

[ #UFC268 | Prelims are LIVE on ESPNews & ESPN+ ] pic.twitter.com/wZbuaYuLal

— UFC (@ufc) November 7, 2021 Glover Teixeira will take a break from preparation for his title defense against Jiri Prochazka at UFC 275 to travel to Las Vegas to attend UFC Fight Night 203.

Not because the winner of the main event between Magomed Ankalaev and Thiago Santos might be his next opponent, but because his No. 1 training partner, Alex Pereira, will be facing Bruno Silva on the evening’s main card.

"I dont like to see Brazilians getting in the way of each other's dreams. But at least they are in the most important MMA promotion in the world,” Teixeira told Sherdog.com. “No doubt ‘Blindado’ will be the toughest challenge of [Pereira’s] career. Besides being an M-1 champion, the guy is coming off three impressive knockout victories. But ‘Poatan’ is a different animal, and I see Silva’s aggressiveness p…

Cain Velasquez was denied bail at a hearing on Monday as he awaits trial on attempted murder charges stemming from a shooting incident on Feb. 28.

Judge Shelya Brown issued the ruling during an arraignment at the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., after listening to arguments from Velasquez attorney Mark Geragos and deputy district attorney Aaron French. Brown said the “risk is too great” to release Vealsquez on bail. The former UFC heavyweight champion is due back in court on April 12.

“It is clear to this court that there is clear and convincing evidence that there is a substantial likelihood that release would result in great bodily injury, not just to the named complaining witnesses in this case but to Santa Clara residents at large,” Judge Brown said (transcription via MMAFighting.com). “This case involves allegations of extreme recklessness to human life.

“Ramming a vehicle in the middle of the day where are citizens are out driving, …