Martial Arts News

A matchup between middleweight knockout artists Joaquin Buckley and Abdul Razak Alhassan has been rebooked for UFC Fight Night on Feb. 19.

The bout was initially announced by Buckley on his Instagram account. Buckley and Alhassan were scheduled to lock horns at UFC on ESPN 32 before Alhassan pulled out for undisclosed reasons. UFC Fight Night takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and and is headlined by a lightweight clash between Rafael dos Anjos and Rafael Fiziev.

Alhassan snapped a three-fight losing streak in his last outing, as he knocked out Alessio Di Chirico with a head kick 17 seconds into their encounter at UFC on ESPN 30 on Aug. 28. The Fortis MMA product has finished all 11 of his professional victories via knockout or technical knockout, including five triumphs in UFC competition.

Buckley, meanwhile, is best known for his viral knockout of Impa Kasanganay at UFC Fight Night 197 in 2020, which ranked No. 1 on many year-end lists. Most recently, B…

UFC 273 will feature a championship doubleheader at the top of the card.

Alexander Volkanovski will defend his featherweight crown against Chan Sung Jung, while Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan will meet in a bantamweight title rematch on April 9 at an as yet to be determined location. Ariel Helwani was first to report the UFC 273 title bouts.

Volkanovski was initially slated to face Max Holloway in a trilogy bout at UFC 272 on March 5, but the Hawaiian was forced to pull out of the fight with an undisclosed injury. Sterling vs. Yan was also scheduled for UFC 272, but their bout was postponed for one month, which “The Funkmaster” claimed was due to his opponent.

The 33-year-old Volkanovski claimed the featherweight crown with a unanimous decision triumph over Holloway at UFC 245 before winning a highly-contentious split verdict in their rematch at UFC 251. Most recently, he defended the strap with a decision win over Brian Ortega in a “Fight of the Year” candidat…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has been forced to call an audible for its March 5 pay-per-view event.

UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell confirmed to promotion broadcast partner ESPN that a five-round non-title bout between Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal will headline UFC 272 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The card was originally supposed to feature two title bouts — Alexander Volkanovski vs Max Holloway and Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan — but Holloway withdrew from the featherweight title trilogy and the Sterling-Yan bantamweight championship rematch was postponed.

Covington and Masvidal have history as former American Top Team training partners, but what was once a friendship has devolved into a bitter rivalry in recent years. Covington has since relocated to MMA Masters, while Masvidal remains at ATT.

Covington last appeared at UFC 268, where he dropped a competitive five-round verdict to Kamaru Usman in a welterweight title bout on Nov. 6…

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The stage has been set for the atomweight title ematch between Alesha Zappitella and Jessica Correa Delboni in the Invicta Fighting Championships 45 headliner.

Zappitella and Delboni both made weight without issue on Tuesday ahead of their second meeting within the all-female promotion. Zappitella tipped the scales at 104.8 pounds, while Delboni checked in at 103.8 pounds. Invicta FC 45 takes place on Wednesday night at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan., and airs on the Invicta YouTube channel beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

The sailing wasn’t as smooth for the rest of the card, however. Shamir Peshewa weighed 153.4 pounds for her 150-pound catchweight clash with Ramona Pascual (150) and was fined 25 percent of her purse. Meanwhile, Maria Jose Garcia Favela missed weight by by 2.4 pounds for a bantamweight scrap against Sarah Kleczka (135) and was also fined 25 percent of her purse.

Zappitella …

Andre Fialho will step in on short notice and face Michel Pereira at UFC on ESPN 32 this Saturday.

Fialho is a replacement for Muslim Salikhov, who withdrew from the welterweight contest due to illness. ESPN was first to report the new bout. UFC on ESPN 32 takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and is headlined by a featherweight tilt pitting Calvin Kattar against Giga Chikadze. The main card airs on ESPN and ESPN+ at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT following prelims on ESPN+ at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT.

Anchored at Sanford MMA, Fialho has compiled a 14-3 record while competing for organizations such as Bellator, Professional Fighters League, Legacy Fighting Alliance and UAE Warriors. He enters his Octagon debut on a four-bout winning streak in which he has finished all of his victories by KO or TKO — including UFC veteran James Vick at an XMMA event last January.

Pereira is currently on a three-fight winning streak within the Las Vegas-based promotion, a run that includes a …

Andre Fialho will step in on short notice and face Michel Pereira at UFC 270.

The bout was originally slated for UFC on ESPN 32, but MMAFighting.com has reported that one of Pereira’s trainers tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in the postponement of the fight for one week.

Fialho is a replacement for Muslim Salikhov, who withdrew from the welterweight contest due to illness. ESPN was first to report the new bout. UFC 270 takes place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., on Jan. 22 and is headlined by a heavyweight unification title clash between Francis Ngannou and Ciryl Gane.

Anchored at Sanford MMA, Fialho has compiled a 14-3 record while competing for organizations such as Bellator, Professional Fighters League, Legacy Fighting Alliance and UAE Warriors. He enters his Octagon debut on a four-bout winning streak in which he has finished all of his victories by KO or TKO — including UFC veteran James Vick at an XMMA event last January.

Pereira i…

It appears that the bantamweight title rematch between Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan will take place approximately one month later than originally anticipated.

The fight was recently announced for UFC 272 on March 5, but Sterling revealed on his “Weekly Scraps” podcast that the title unification bout will likely move to UFC 273 on April 9.

“Quick update, I know you guys probably seen some of the news but yes, they are talking about pushing our fight back to April,” Sterling said. “Not because of me. This is what I was told, that Yan isn’t vaccinated. Yan isn’t vaccinated so he can’t fight in March. ‘I’m Yan and I’m not vaccinated so I can’t fight in March.’ I actually respect his gangster. If this is the real reason, I actually respect his stance. I respect it but it doesn’t make any sense and I’m making fun of it because it’s like was he going to be vaccinated in April? I don’t think so.

“So what are we doing? I just want to know when we’re fighting because d…

Kevin Holland will make his welterweight debut against Alex Oliveira at UFC 272.

Multiple outlets confirmed the booking after Holland initially announced the bout on his Only Fans page. UFC 272 takes place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on March 5 and features a bantamweight championship rematch between Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan.

After a breakout 2020 in which he went 5-0, including a knockout of former Strikeforce champion Ronaldo Souza, Holland hit a rough stretch this past year. The 29-year-old known as “Trailblazer” dropped back-to-back headlining bouts against Derek Brunson and Marvin Vettori before an accidental clash of heads resulted in his UFC Fight Night 193 matchup with Kyle Daukaus being ruled a no contest. Holland is 8-4 during his tenure with the Las Vegas-based promotion.

A veteran of 21 Octagon appearances, Oliveira enters the clash with Holland on a three-bout skid. Most recently, the Brazilian “Cowboy” dropped a three-round verdict to…

Eduardo Dantas hasn’t fought on U.S. soil since a knockout loss to Juan Archuleta in Madison Square Garden at Bellator 222 in July 2019. That will change in the coming weeks.

"Actually, my return to America was scheduled for Fury FC 53 on Nov. 14, but with all the pandemic problems, I couldn't get a visa in time,” Dantas told Sherdog.com. “So now I’m [competing at] Fighting Alliance Championship on Feb. 6 in Kansas.”

The two-time Bellator bantamweight champion will face Combate Global veteran and former Contender Series competitor Jose Alday at the event.

"Jose is a good striker and also good on the ground, but I'm a sniper and I'm bringing a new version of myself,” Dantas said. “I trained a lot in the last two years and evolved everywhere. I never [tried to win on points], but now, more than ever, my focus is to not leave results in the judges’ hands.”

Dantas is well aware that UFC president Dana White is expected to be in attendance at FAC MMA Fight Nig…

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Former Rizing Fighting Federation lightweight grand prix winner Tofiq Musayev has signed a multi-fight contract with Bellator MMA.

Sherdog.com confirmed the deal with a promotion official following an initial report from Ariel Helwani. Musayev will compete at 155 pounds in Bellator, but a date for his promotional debut is currently unknown.

After a year-and-a-half hiatus, Musayev returned to action at Rizin 28 this past June, where he fell to Roberto de Souza via first-round submission in a lightweight title bout. That halted a 14-bout winning streak for the 32-year-old Azerbaijan native, who is 18-4 over the course of a professional tenure that began in 2013.

Musayev notably won Rizin’s grand prix in 2019, earning victories over UFC veteran Johnny Case and current Bellator lightweight champion Patricky Freire in the same night. His resume also includes triumphs against UFC veterans Damien Brown an…

Credit: Getty/UFC Credit: Getty/UFC

Alexander Gustafsson believes that Allstars Training Center teammate Khamzat Chimaev has the potential to be a legend in the sport.

“[Khabib Nurmagomedov], [Georges St. Pierre], that’s the level of potential, 100 percent,” Gustafsson said in an interview with ESPN. “If he does all the things, if he does it right from the start, if he just keeps doing what he’s doing now, he will be one of those guys one day. I’m 100 percent sure of that....

“I met a lot of MMA athletes and fighters and all that, and he stands out for sure, because of his dedication, because of how he out-trains everybody. There’s nobody that trains like him, nobody. I haven’t seen it and I have been around the world, seen fighters train and having their camps and training for a fight. This guy just doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t feel any pain, he just goes through it.”

Chimaev rose to promimence thanks to a trio of dominant victories within the Las Vegas-based…

Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Marcin Tybura will lock horns in a heavyweight matchup at the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s Feb. 26 card.

The booking was first reported by MMA journalist Marcel Dorff. UFC Fight Night takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and is headlined by a lightweight showdown between Beneil Dariush and Islam Makhachev.

Rozenstruik is coming off a rocky 2021 in which he lost two of his three Octagon appearances, dropping unanimous verdicts to current interim king Ciryl Gane and top contender Curtis Blaydes. In between, he scored a first-round TKO of Augusto Sakai in the UFC Fight Night 189 headliner. “Bigi Boy” is 6-3 in UFC competition overall, with other notable knockouts of Junior dos Santos, Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski to his credit.

Tybura, meanwhile, saw a five-bout winning streak come to an end at UFC 267, where he dropped a three-round verdict to Alexander Volkov this past October. Tybura’s resurgence came on the heels of a s…