Martial Arts News

Benoit St. Denis submitted Luan Santiago via submission (arm-triangle choke) in the second round. #BRAVECF49 #Superfights pic.twitter.com/8H1LARqXg4

— BRAVE Combat Federation (@bravemmaf) March 25, 2021 Brave Combat Federation's Benoit St. Denis may be someone to watch out for going forward.

The Brave CF 49 main event saw former 155-pound titleholder Luan Santiago (15-5) taking on St. Denis (7-0, 1 NC) at the company’s super lightweight category of 165 pounds. Santiago adopted a cautious game plan as he preferred to force his opponent to catch him as he moved close to the fence. St. Denis dragged the action down to the ground with an effective single leg takedown, and he easily controlled his opponent while on top. After a few scrambles, the Frenchman took his opponent’s back and sought after a rear-naked choke, only to run out of time.

In the second frame, St. Denis took his opponent down again as soon as the round began. While Santiago…

Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream the UFC live on your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app. For the first time since 2019, promising Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight prospect Damir Ismagulov will step into the cage. On Thursday, AG Fight reported that Ismagulov (19-1) will be returning to the Octagon on May 15. The Russian lightweight will be competing at UFC 262 at the Toyota Center in Houston, where he will take on debutant Rafael Alves (19-9). This 155-pound pairing has since been confirmed by Ismagulov on his Instagram.

Ismagulov has not suffered a defeat since 2015, where he dropped a decision to Ramazan Esenbaev. Since then, he has rattled off 14 victories, including three inside the UFC cage. He has yet to finish an opponent in his UFC run, with a trio of unanimous verdicts against Alex Gorgees, Joel Alvarez and Thiago Moises in the span of about nine months. Before his signing in 2018, Ismagulov l…

One of the high-profile free agent acquisitions for Bellator MMA has his debut fight set.

MMA DNA first announced on Wednesday that Brett Johns (17-2) will be setting foot in the Bellator cage for the first time against fellow bantamweight Matheus Mattos (12-2-1). The two will toe the line at an upcoming Bellator event on May 21, which will likely be titled Bellator 259. The card will be held at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., like its other events inside the “Fightsphere” bubble. A promotion official was unable to confirm the pairing to Sherdog on Thursday, but Johns did on his Twitter page.

Johns left the Ultimate Fighting Championship on a two-fight win streak with victories over Tony Gravely and Montel Jackson in 2020. “The Pikey” competed seven times inside the Octagon, only dropping decisions to top-10 talents Aljamain Sterling and Pedro Munhoz in 2018 along the way. The Welshmen completed his UFC contract and decided to sign with Bellator a few mont…

BREAKING: Pro Football Hall of Famer @raylewis Joins PFL's Newly Formed Athlete Advisory Board!

— PFL MMA (@ProFightLeague) March 25, 2021 In an effort to grow the influence of both the sport and the Professional Fighters League individually, the promotion is building an all-star athlete advisory board.

On Thursday, the tournament-based organization announced in a press release that it was creating an Athlete Advisory Board. The goal of this, per the PFL, is to “identify and recruit new talent as well as further evolve the PFL’s fighter-first culture and mission.” It is unclear how this board will achieve this, as the specific duties other than media obligations such as “behind-the-scenes access” have not yet been defined. Two key members of this board have been announced: Pro Football Hall of Famer Ray Lewis, and Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Famer Randy Couture.

All-time great linebacker Lewis is not completely unfamiliar with …

The UFC 261 card appears to be nearly complete, as the Las Vegas-based promotion confirmed multiple matchups for the April 24 card on Wednesday.

The lineup will include a rescheduled welterweight showdown between Alex Oliveira and Randy Brown, which was originally slated for UFC Fight Night 186 on Feb. 27 before Brown exited the card.

The following bouts, which may have been reported elsewhere, were also officially announced for UFC 261: Karl Roberson vs. Brendan Allen at middleweight; Danaa Batgerel vs. Kevin Natividad at bantamweight; Qileng Aori vs. Jeff Molina at bantamweight; Johnny Munoz Jr. vs. Jamey Simmons at bantamweight; Rodrigo Vargas vs. Zhu Rong at lightweight; Dwight Grant vs. Stefan Sekulic at welterweight and Na Liang vs. Ariane Carnelossi at strawweight.

UFC 261 takes place at Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena and will allow fans to attend at full capacity at the Jacksonville, Fla., venue. In the main event, Kamaru Usman will defend his welterweig…

Ryan Hall will return to action against Ilia Topuria in a featherweight matchup on July 10.

Adjara Sport first brought word of the booking and Topuria later confirmed it on his Instagram account. The event, which is expected to be UFC 264, does not currently have a location or headliner.

Hall hasn’t competed since 2019 after being forced to pull out of proposed bouts against Ricardo Lamas and Dan Ige due to injury. The grappling ace last appeared at UFC Fight Night 155, when he outpointed Darren Elkins in July 2019. He also owns victories over B.J. Penn, Gray Maynard and Artem Lobov in UFC competition.

A native of Alicante, Spain, the 24-year-old Topuria is unbeaten in 10 professional outings thus far. “El Matador” kicked off his promotional tenure with a decision win over Youssef Zalal at UFC Fight Night 179 last October before knocking out Damon Jackson in the opening stanza at UFC on ESPN 19 in December.

Miesha Tate will come out of retirement and lock horns with Marion Reneau at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on July 17.

The former UFC bantamweight queen confirmed the news to ESPN on Wednesday. Reneau, meanwhile, confirmed that it will be the last fight of her MMA career. The promotion has not announced location or headliner for the card, but it is expected to be a UFC Fight Night event.

Tate announced her retirement following a unanimous decision loss to Raquel Pennington at UFC 205 in November 2016. She claimed 135-pound gold with a submission of Holly Holm at UFC 196 but relinquished the title one bout later, falling to Amanda Nunes by rear-naked choke at UFC 200. Her rivalry with Ronda Rousey, which began in Strikeforce and continued in the UFC, helped give women a bigger stage in MMA.

Since her retirement, Tate has served as an executive and ambassadar for Singapore-based MMA promotion One Championship. According to the report, the UFC has the ab…

Ronaldo Souza will lock horns with Andre Muniz at UFC 262.

Combate was first to report the middleweight bout. UFC 262 takes place at the Toyota Center in Houston and is headlined by a lightweight championship clash between Michael Chandler and Charles Oliveira. As of now, fans will be allowed to attend the event at full capacity.

Souza has fallen on hard times of late, losing four of his last five Octagon appearances. After five-round decision defeats in headlining bouts against Jan Blachowicz and Jack Hermansson, “Jacare” was knocked out by Kevin Holland in the opening stanza at UFC 256 in his most recent outing this past December. The 41-year-old Brazilian’s last victory came in November 2018, when he scored a knockout of Chris Weidman at UFC 230.

The 31-year-old Muniz earned a pair of victories on Dana White’s Contender Series before joining the Las Vegas-based promotion. “Sergipano” then outpointed Antonio Arroyo in his Octagon debut at UFC Fight Night 164 …

A flyweight matchup pitting Tim Elliott against Su Mudaerji is on tap for the UFC’s June 26 card.

MMAjunkie.com was first to report the booking. The event does not yet have an official location or headliner.

A former 125-pound title challenger, Elliott is coming off back-to-back unanimous decision triumphs over Ryan Benoit and Jordan Espinosa. The 34-year-old is 6-9 across two UFC stints and 17-11-1 as a professional overall.

China’s Mudaerji has won three straight bouts since being submitted by Louis Smolka in his promotional debut at UFC Fight Night 141. Most recently, “The Tibetan Eagle” outpointed Zarrukh Adashev at UFC on ESPN 20 on Jan. 20.

The UFC 260 card will not look anything like it was originally intended to look, but that’s normal in this day and age.

The promotion recently confirmed multiple updates to Saturday’s card, which will take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Two scheduled women’s strawweight bouts – Hannah Goldy vs. Jessica Penne and Randa Markos vs. Luana Pinheiro – have been moved to different events as a result of COVID-19 protocols. Goldy vs. Penne is now set for UFC on ESPN 22 on April 17, while Markos vs. Pinheiro will go down at UFC Fight Night “Reyes vs. Prochazka” on May 1.

Meanwhile, William Knight has been pulled from a proposed light heavyweight matchup against Alonzo Menifield and will instead face Da Un Jung at UFC on ABC 2 on April 10. Knight is a replacement for Shamil Gamzatov, who couldn’t fight Jung due to visa issues. Menifield will remain on the UFC 260 lineup and lock horns with Dana White’s Contender Series alum Fabio Cherant.

UFC 260 is headlined by a hea…

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While things are beginning to fall into place for most of the top-ranked competitors throughout the UFC’s lightweight division, Justin Gaethje remains in limbo.

With Khabib Nurmagomedov’s retirement finally official, the promotion announced that Charles Oliveira would face Michael Chandler for the vacant 155-pound belt at UFC 262 in May. Meanwhile, a trilogy between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor appears imminent, and Beneil Dariush will lock horns with Tony Ferguson on the UFC 262 undercard.

At the moment, Gaethje doesn’t seem to have a clear direction in the weight class.

“Who knows, man,” Gaethje told Full Reptile. “I can’t talk about it a lot right now—I’m sure me talking about it [in the past] is the reason I’m here. Who knows? Maybe I pissed someone off. I don’t know.

“All I know is since I was 12, 13 years old, I listened to Dana White do interviews and explain what he wanted in a f…

Impressive bantamweight contender Magomed Magomedov will square off against C.J. Hamilton on the Bellator 255 undercard.

Sherdog.com confirmed the booking with a promotion official following an initial report from Cageside Press. Hamilton replaces Jared Scoggins, who was forced to withdraw from the fight. Two other bouts were confirmed for the Bellator 255 prelims: Mukhamad Berkhamov vs. Herman Terrado at welterweight and Fabio Aguiar vs. Khalid Murtazaliev at middleweight.

Bellator 255 takes place at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., on April 2 and is headlined by a featherweight grand prix semifinal between reigning champion Patricio Freire and Emmanuel Sanchez. The card will air on Showtime.

A former Absolute Championship Berkut title holder, Magomedov made his promotional debut on Dec. 10, when he scored a dominant three-round verdict against Matheus Mattos at Bellator 254 to run his career mark to 17-1. Magomedov also notably owns a victory over former UF…