Martial Arts News

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. A Ultimate Fighting Championship clash many considered to be a dream matchup may be finally coming to fruition in 2021. The report first coming from MMA Fighting on Thursday, Carlos Condit (31-13) will be coming to blows with Matt Brown (22-17) at a UFC card in 2021. The Jan. 30 Fight Night event, which may take place on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, will be gaining a potential all-action scrap once scheduled all the way back in 2013. According to MMA Fighting, the two have both agreed to meet, but the paperwork is still outstanding.

The two welterweight thrillers were booked to fight at UFC on Fox 9 in 2013, but a back injury to Brown scrubbed the pairing. At that time, Condit had bounced back from consecutive losses to Georges St. Pierre and Johny Hendricks to finish Martin Kampmann. In the meantime, Brown was i…

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The Bellator MMA featherweight grand prix is officially back, for real this time.

Fighters involved in the upcoming Bellator 252 event tipped the scales on Wednesday, and headliners Patricio Freire and Pedro Carvalho had no problems making championship weight. "Pitbull" looked good on the scales and officially came in at 144.7 pounds, while Carvalho weighed 144.5 pounds. The pair should have faced each other at Bellator 241 in March, but the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The main card will feature a second featherweight grand prix quarterfinal bout between Daniel Weichel (143.8) and Emmanuel Sanchez (145).

The fight between Gabriel Varga and Brandon Phillips is off after Phillips missed weight by 5 pounds. On top of that, Keri Melendez had weight issues, coming in .2 heavy for her strawweight scrap against Emilee King. Lucas Brennan weighed in at 148 pounds, two pounds over the…

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It takes more than a few fights in the Octagon to impress Leon Edwards.

It's been a while since Ultimate Fighting Championship fans saw “Rocky” competing in the Octagon. A plethora of reasons has kept the 29-year-old fighter away from competition for what is almost an 18-month hiatus, including a global pandemic. However, he should dust off the gloves in a few weeks when he will meet rising star Khamzat Chimaev (9-0) on an upcoming UFC Fight Night event that will go down on Dec. 19. That night, the 29-year-old Englander will put his eight-bout winning streak on the line, including victories over names like Donald Cerrone, Vicente Luque and Gunnar Nelson.

In a recent interview with ESPN, the British fighter revealed that he believes he will get a shot at the 170-pound championship once he gets past Chimaev.

“That's been mentioned, yeah,” he said about receiving a title shot. “If when I get there a…

BRAVE CF 45 will now happen on November 19th, as the entire BRAVE Nation sends its condolences to the Royal Family on the passing and joins in mourning with the rest of the world. @khalidbinhamad @shahidthehawk pic.twitter.com/sN1OkVsakf

— BRAVE Combat Federation (@bravemmaf) November 11, 2020

On Wednesday, Brave Combat Federation announced that the upcoming Brave CF 45 event has been postponed. The card was slated to gone down on Nov. 12 in Bahrain, but it was delayed after prince Khalifa Bin Salman al-Khalifa died at the age of 84, according to the state-run Bahrain News Agency. As a member of the royal family, Prince Khalifa served as the prime minister of the country since 1970. He was also related to Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the founder of Brave.

The previous week, the Brave CF 45 card also underwent some significant changes. The main event should have been a featherweight clash between Dumar Roa and Gabriel Miranda, b…

It appears as though Phil Davis will get a chance to recapture a championship he once held.

“Mr. Wonderful” on Monday was named as the No. 1 contender for current Bellator MMA light heavyweight titleholder Vadim Nemkov. In an interview with MMAJunkie.com, Bellator President Scott Coker indicated that the current plan was for Davis to challenge Nemkov for the 205-pound title. The two men met previously at Bellator 209 in 2018, when Nemkov eked out a split decision over the Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran. It remains his only career victory by decision.

Davis has since bounced back with consecutive wins over Liam McGeary at Bellator 220, Karl Albrektsson at Bellator 231 and Lyoto Machida at Bellator 245.

“He had a great fight with Nemkov last time,” Coker said. “This will be a rematch. Phil has done a great job since then. That was a close fight. Phil just came off of a great win against Machida. I think Phil should be next in line.”

News of Davis’ ascent …

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. The Ultimate Fighting Championship grew its ranks by three during Week 9 of Dana White’s Contender Series, as the promotion signed Natan Levy, Nikolas Motta and Luana Pinheiro to contracts on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Filipe de Sousa Outduels Ksiazkiewicz Former Max Fight champion Mario Filipe de Sousa connected with more consequential strikes, countered takedowns and ground-and-pound from Mariusz Ksiazkiewicz with a hyperactive bottom game and walked away with a unanimous decision in a three-round middleweight encounter. Scores were 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28, all for Filipe de Sousa.

Outgunned on the feet, Ksiazkiewicz (8-1) pursued takedowns with a gritty purpose but failed to consolidate many of them with meaningful offense. Filipe de Sousa (12-1) responded with punches, hammerfists, elbows and several submission at…

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. Sherdog's live DWCS 2020 Week 9 coverage kicks off Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. Check out the MMA Forums to discuss the card or enter your comments and predictions below. Round 1 Moore stalks Sabatello, who lands a kick to the body and then plants Moore on his back with a takedown less than 30 seconds into the fight. Sabatello works inside of his foe’s guard, landing short punches to the body and elbows to the head. Sabatello stands with Moore attached to him and slams him back down. Moore remains in closed guard, as Sabatello drops several more elbows from above. There’s two minutes to go and Sabatello has stayed busy enough with ground-and-pound to maintain his dominant position. Sabatello continues to do a nice job of vary his offense from above, mixing up punches to the head and body as the clock ticks down. The horn sounds with Moo…

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Magomed Magomedov will square off against Matheus Mattos in main card matchup at Bellator 254.

Sherdog.com confirmed the booking with a promotion official following an initial report from MMAjunkie.com. Additionally, a women’s featherweight fight pitting Marina Mokhnatkina against Jessica Borga is set for the prelims. Bellator 254 takes place on Dec. 12 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut and is headlined by a flyweight title tilt between Ilima-Lei Macfarlane and Juliana Velasquez.

A former ACB title holder, Magomedov enters his promotional debut with a 16-1 record. The 28-year-old Moscow native notably defeated current UFC 135-pound champ Petr Yan via split decision in a title bout at ACB 32 in March 2016 but lost to Yan in a rematch at ACB 57 approximately one year later.

Mattos, a former ACB title challenger, has lost just once in 14 professional outings. That defeat came at the han…

After some public posturing and haggling, it appears that Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier have finally agreed to square off in a lightweight bout at UFC 257.

MMAFighting.com reported that both sides came to terms late Monday night However, the report also states that McGregor is pushing to have the bout moved to UFC 256 on Dec. 12, since that card lost its original headliner of Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson at the beginning of the week, and the Irish star has recently expressed a desire to compete before 2021.

The promotion was reportedly having difficulty getting Poirier to agree to a deal, but ESPN on Tuesday also confirmed that Poirier signed a bout agreement. McGregor already previously verbally agreed to the fight but has not yet signed a bout agreement, according to ESPN. In September, McGregor and Poirier struck an informal agreement over Twitter to lock horns in an exhibition match in Ireland on Dec. 12 for charity before the UFC stepped in and offered…

It’s one thing to accept a fight on short notice. It’s entirely another to do so less than one week before facing a former champion in a headlining bout in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

For Paul Felder, stepping up to face Rafael dos Anjos in the UFC Fight Night 182 headliner was an opportunity to do something positive in a what has been a dark period for so many people.

“I thought about it and I decided with everything going on in the world and all the sad things going on in people’s lives and losing their jobs and suffering and we just lost Alex freaking Trebek to pancreatic cancer, I was like, ‘Man, you know you’re still 36. You’re young. You’re in shape. Save the date. Let’s go get paid. Let’s have fun. You’re fighting a legend,’” Felder told ESPN. “What do I have to lose?”

Perhaps even more impressive than Felder’s willingness to step up was the fact that he agreed to compete at 155 pounds. After all, Dos Anjos is just coming off a stint at welterweig…

Former UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson will move up to 170 pounds to face Jason Jackson in the Bellator 253 co-main event.

Sherdog.com confirmed the booking with a promotion official following an initial report MMAFighting.com. Bellator 253 takes place on Nov. 19 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, and is headlined by a featherweight grand prix semifinal between Darrion Caldwell and A.J. McKee.

Henderson made his Bellator debut at welterweight in April 2016, when he dropped a five-round verdict to then champion Andrey Koreshkov. “Smooth” returned to 155 pounds after that and has since gone 5-3 in the California-based promotion. The 36-year-old MMA Lab stalwart is coming off a first-round KO loss to Michael Chandler at Bellator 243, his first stoppage loss since 2014.

A former competitor on Dana White’s Contender Series, Jackson enters the matchup with Henderson having won five of his last six professional outings. The Sanford MMA represe…

Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping will play a lead role in the boxing-themed film “The Journeyman,” according to Deadline.

The film is an adaption of British author Mark Turley’s book entitled “The Journeymen: The Other Side of the Boxing Business, a New Perspective on the Noble Art.” Turley’s book spotlights “boxers who lose for a living” and features East London’s Johnny Greaves, who went 4-96 in his professional career. Greaves will serve as a technical advisor for the film.

Bisping will play Kenny “The Beast” Breen, “an alcoholic, drug-abusing, past-his-prime journeyman boxer with a record of 11-85-0 who, after being diagnosed with neurological damage, continues his career on the small-hall circuit at grave risk to himself.” The film will be directed by Dax Phelan and shot in the UK. A release date for the movie is currently unknown.

“For obvious reasons, Mike brings an authenticity and an X-factor to the role that no other actor ever could,…