Martial Arts News

Antonio Carlos Jr. is a late addition to the Professional Fighters League roster for the organization’s 2021 campaign.

ESPN was the first to report that Carlos Jr. had signed with PFL, where he will compete in the light heavyweight division. The 30-year-old Brazilian went 7-5 with one no contest while primarily competing at 185 pounds in the UFC.

Carlos Jr. won Season 3 of “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil” at heavyweight, defeating Vitor Miranda at the show’s finale. After dropping a unanimous decision to Patrick Cummins in a light heavyweight bout at UFC Fight Night 58, Carlos Jr. dropped to middleweight for the rest of his promotional tenure. “Cara de Sapato” went on to earn notable victories against the likes of Tim Boetsch, Jack Marshman and Marvin Vettori.

Carlos Jr. was released in February shortly after a decision loss to Brad Tavares — his third consecutive defeat — at UFC 257.

Holly Holm has been forced to pull out of a UFC Fight Night clash with Julianna Pena on May 8.

Pena herself initially brought word of Holm’s exit from the card via Twitter on Saturday night. According to a report from the Albuquerque Journal Holm canceled a boxing commentary gig on Friday involving a Claressa Shields fight due to a “nagging physical issue.” The nature of the ailment was not disclosed, but apparently it was enough to also prevent her from facing Pena in approximately two months.

Love watching these title fights. One in particular...as I’ve just been informed that #HollyHolm is injured and has pulled from our scheduled bout May 8. I wish her a full recovery #ufc259

— Julianna Peña (@VenezuelanVixen) March 7, 2021

It’s unclear if Pena will remain on the card, but “The Venezuelan Vixen” didn’t hesitate to call for a matchup with two-division champion Amanda Nunes, who shellacked Megan Anderson to defend her featherweight b…

Israel Adesanya found out just how difficult it is to become a two-division champion in the UFC.

His bid to become the fifth simultaneous champ-champ in promotion history came up short in the UFC 259 headliner, as he dropped a unanimous decision to reigning 205-pound king Jan Blachowicz at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday night. Not only was Adesanya denied another piece of championship hardware, but the possibility of a lucrative grudge match with Jon Jones has diminished considerably – at least for now.

“Listen, he’s the middleweight champion. He doesn’t get the light heavyweight title, he doesn’t get Jon Jones,” UFC president Dana White said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “But you know what, you never hurt somebody for trying to be big and trying to become great. He gave it a shot tonight, and it didn’t happen. And Jan is the man. He is the 205-pound champ, and now he starts taking on all comers in the division.

“Size is always a factor when …

Video of Petr Yan’s corner during the sequence that resulted in his disqualification at #UFC259 pic.twitter.com/2BtRqtGmBP

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 7, 2021

Petr Yan might have received some mixed messages from his corner before landing the illegal knee that cost him his bantamweight belt at UFC 259.

According to a video shared by ESPN, one member of Yan’s team can be overheard yelling, “Just punch” while Sterling is in a grounded position. However, UFC commentator Daniel Cormier claims that someone else in the corner gave the go-ahead when asked if Yan could throw a kick.

“You can hear, one guy is saying ‘Just punch,’ but then somebody goes ‘Yes’ when he says kick,” Cormier said during the UFC 259 broadcast. “It’s in Russian. Khabib [Nurmagomedov] heard it sitting over here because we couldn’t understand the language. But someone in that corner yelled, ‘Yes, kick’ and Petr Yan lands an illegal knee that ultimately cost him the UFC cha…

Amanda Nunes wasn’t expected to have much difficulty against Megan Anderson in the UFC 259 co-main event, and she lived up to those expectations.

About the only suspense in Nunes’ featherweight title defense was how she was going to finish her Australian challenger. The Brazilian two-division champion rocked Anderson with a pair of overhand rights early, and it appeared that a knockdout was inevitable. However, after stuffing a takedown, Nunes ultimately relented on her assault of punches and hammerfists on the canvas to transition to a nifty triangle armbar to elicit the tapout 2:03 into Round 1.

According to Nunes, that was all part of the plan.

“For every opponent, I have a strategy,” Nunes said. “I cannot go in the cage without strategies A, B and C, because you don’t know if something is going to go wrong. You have to be ready, so for Megan I wanted to finish her, I didn’t want to knock her out. I paced myself. I saw she was done already but I wanted to fin…

When he began his Ultimate Fighting Championship tenure with a 2-4 record, Jan Blachowicz was on the verge of losing his spot in the world’s largest mixed martial arts organization.

Even after he righted the ship in the years that followed, it’s been an uphill climb for the Polish standout to receive the proper recognition he deserves. After besting middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in the UFC 259 headliner to retain the 205-pound crown at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday night, perhaps that can finally change.

“I defended my belt,” Blachowicz said at the post-fight press conference. “Now I prove that I’m a true champion and I think now I’m going to have respect from everybody. In the next fight, I will not be the underdog anymore. But I don’t care anyway.”

Blachowicz has won nine of his last 10 UFC appearances, compiling a resume that includes victories over the likes of Adesanya, Dominick Reyes, Corey Anderson, Ronaldo Souza, Luke Rockhold, Jimi Manuw…

It appears that hopes of a future Jon Jones-Israel Adesanya superfight went up in smoke at UFC 259.

Adesanya’s bid to become a two-division champion failed on Saturday night, as he dropped a unanimous decision to reigning 205-pound king Jan Blachowicz in the evening’s headliner at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Blachowicz took control of the contest in the championship rounds through takedowns and top control to retain his title and prevail once again despite being the underdog.

Naturally, Jones was an interested observer of the proceedings, and he couldn’t resist taking a few shots at Adesanya on Twitter. The two stars have gone back and forth in the media in recent months regarding a potential fight, and Adesanya defeating Blachowicz would have been the most obvious path to such a matchup.

Now, it appears that the dream is dead.

“Yeah, never mind, that’s not even worth my time,” Jones wrote on Twitter. “If you ever wrote me talking s—t about Izzy, slap yours…

It was pretty clear how Aljamain Sterling felt about winning the bantamweight title via disqualification moments after his UFC 259 bout with Petr Yan reached its unexpected conclusion.

When the final ruling was announced, Sterling quickly removed the belt from his waist and threw it in the Octagon before falling to his knees in disappointment. Though “The Funkmaster” wanted to continue, a cageside doctor determined otherwise after Yan landed a devastating illegal knee 4:29 into Round 4.

“Everything I worked for to this point and to have the fight go like that… I thought the fight was very close, I thought I was down two rounds. That’s not the way I wanted to win,” Sterling said. “That’s not the way I envisioned this. I just took the belt off.

“I was trying to continue even being like that, I was in a bad shape and it would just have been ego taking over and just to get further punishment. The ref told me I was down. I don’t know. I understand that there is some …

IT'S OVER!! Nzechukwu ends it in the second!! #UFC259 pic.twitter.com/OpWyj0HpVQ

— UFC Canada (@UFC_CA) March 7, 2021

Kennedy Nzechukwu and Carlos Ulberg threw caution to the wind in their matchup at UFC 259, and the light heavyweights were rewarded handsomely for their efforts.

Nzechkwu and Ulberg received “Fight of the Night” honors and $50,000 apiece for their preliminary clash at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, which proved to be a slugfest from the opening bell. After an opening stanza in which Ulberg had his opponent reeling early, Nzechukwu took control in Round 2, ultimately dropping his adversary with a right hook and sealing his win with standing-to-ground punches at the 3:19 mark of the period.

Elsewhere, Kai Kara France survived some serious adversity to earn a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” check in a preliminary flyweight triumph against Rogerio Bontorin. Bontorin spent most of the opening stanza attached to his foe’s back, b…

Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream UFC 259 live on your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app. Maybe now Jan Blachowicz will get the respect he deserves. The Polish powerhouse tightened his grip on the Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight title, as he took a unanimous decision from reigning middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in the UFC 259 headliner on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. All three judges scored it for Blachowicz (28-8, 11-5 UFC): 49-46, 49-45 and 49-45. There will be no two-division reign for Adesanya, at least not yet.

After three closely contested rounds that saw the two champions trade leg kicks, jabs and occasional power punches, Blachowicz tapped into the City Kickboxing star’s most glaring weakness. He struck for takedowns in Rounds 4 and 5, controlled Adesanya (20-1, 9-1 UFC) from half guard and salted away arguably the most significant victory of his 36-fight career. Blachowicz …

Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream UFC 259 live on your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app. Sherdog's live UFC 259 coverage will begin Saturday at 5:15 p.m. ET. Check out the MMA Forums to discuss the card or enter your comments and predictions below. Round 1 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Brian Knapp scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Brian Knapp scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Brian Knapp scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:The Official Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Brian Knapp scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Brian Knapp scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Brian Knapp scores the ro…

They're opening up in the final minutes! #UFC259 pic.twitter.com/aFm08wLFvR

— UFC (@ufc) March 7, 2021

Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream UFC 259 live on your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app.

Dominick Cruz still has something left to offer.

The former Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight titleholder eked out a split decision over Casey Kenney in the featured UFC 259 prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Judges Derek Cleary and Sal D’Amato scored it 29-28 and 30-27 for Cruz, while Michael Bell saw it 29-28 for Kenney.

Neither man was willing to budge. Cruz (23-3, 6-2 UFC) darted in and out with his patented unorthodox movements, piled up points with lunging punches to the head and occasionally zeroed in on the body. Kenney counteracted those efforts with repeated kicks to the legs and timely power punches upstairs. Both men were stricken by fatigue in the…