Martial Arts News

Liam Nolan wants be a ONE Championship muay thai title holder by the end of 2024.

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One on Prime Video 18 saw the British fan favorite take on Russian striker Ali Aliev, who stepped up on short notice for French Glory Kickboxing veteran Theo Avon. Nolan earned a unanimous decision win over Aliev in his first bout since November 2022.

Nolan started his ONE Championship tenure on a two-fight skid, but he bounced back with consecutive wins over Brown Pinas and Kim Kyung Lock. Nolan then came up short against former lightweight title challenger Sinsamut Klinmee before besting Eddie Abasolo. Nolan was then out of competition throughout 2023 due to health issues, which forced him to miss out on a rematch against Klinmee.

He believes his latest win over Aliev now puts him only one fight away from a title shot against lightweight champ Regian Eersel.

“To fight next, I don’t know but I definitely want to be ending the year with a ONE belt on my shoulde…

Jim Miller is aging like a fine wine.

In his 43rd Octagon appearance, the New Jersey native pocketed a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” check for his submission of Gabriel Benitez in the UFC Fight Night 234 co-main event. Miller ended the lightweight contest with a face crank at the 3:25 mark of Round 3.

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That was one of four “Performance of the Night” bonuses handed out by the promotion.

Elsewhere, Magomed Ankalaev received a $50,000 check for a knockout of Johnny Walker in the evening’s headliner. After their first meeting ended in a no contest, the Dagestani left nothing to chance, as he dropped his foe with a right hook and sealed his victory with an uppercut against the fence 2:42 into the second period.

Meanwhile, Brunno Ferreira garnered $50,000 of his own with a first-round finish of Phil Hawes in a featured middleweight affair. The Brazilian battered his foe with a barrage of offense, dropped him with a straight left and put Hawes a…

Magomed Ankalaev shifted ever closer to another shot at the Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight title and perhaps boosted the rhinoplasty market in the process.

The stoic 31-year-old Russian turned away Johnny Walker with punches in the second round of their UFC Fight Night 234 headliner on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, likely closing the book on their brief but eventful head-to-head series. Referee Marc Goddard rescued Walker (21-8, 7-5 UFC) from further damage 2:42 into Round 2.

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A little less than three months after their initial encounter resulted in a controversial no contest, neither man made much headway in the first round of their rematch. Ankalaev (18-1-1, 10-1-1 UFC) was content to stay at a safe distance while his volatile counterpart unleashed flashy, inefficient attacks. Midway through Round 2, the Gorets Fight Team product dropped Walker to a seated position against the fence with a brutal right hook. The right upp…

Sherdog's live UFC Fight Night 234 “Ankalaev vs. Walker 2” coverage will begin Saturday at 4:15 p.m. ET. BETTING PREVIEW | SCOUTING REPORT | ODDS: Van (-218), Bunes (+180)Round 1 It’s showtime! The UFC is back, and the Apex is its home for its first card of the year. With no further introductions necessary, we get right into the action. Flyweights take center stage first as the surging Van (9-1, 2-0 UFC) welcomes the well-traveled Brazilian Bunes (13-6, 0-0 UFC) to the promotion. The former has won seven straight, while the latter claimed the LFA flyweight strap by punching out Yuma Horiuchi at the beginning of January. The referee for the first UFC bout of 2024 will be Mark Smith, and he clocks in the fight as the two men touch gloves. Van takes the middle of the cage first and ignores an inside leg kick as he tries to find his range. Bunes is a bit more jittery out of the gate, pawing out jabs and low kicks. Van advances and pushes out a front kick, only to be met by a sla…

Farid Basharat answered a lot of questions regarding his status as a future contender in the Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division.

Repeated takedowns, time-consuming clinches and superior activity in the standup exchanges carried the undefeated Xtreme Couture standout to a unanimous decision over former TKO Major League MMA champion Taylor Lapilus in a featured UFC Fight Night 234 prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. All three cageside judges scored it the same: 30-27 for Basharat (12-0, 3-0 UFC).

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Lapilus (19-4, 4-2 UFC), who suffered his first setback in almost 2,000 days, was a difficult nut to crack but had no real answer for his adversary’s relentless tenacity. Basharat pursued takedowns in all three rounds, even as many of them were negated, and kept his foot on the accelerator for 15 minutes. He ducked into a takedown behind an overhand right in the third round, set up in side control and eventually threatened the …

Germaine de Randamie Returns Against Norma Dumont at UFC Fight Night on April 6 Former women’s UFC featherweight champion Germaine de Randamie is set to return to the Octagon following a nearly four-year hiatus from the sport.

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The 39-year-old de Randamie will face Norma Dumont in a three-round affair on the April 6 UFC Fight Night card. The news was first reported by Laerte Viana, with Dumont subsequently confirming the match-up in a social media post.

De Randamie will enter the Octagon against Dumont on the back of a technical submission victory against Juliana Pena back in October 2020. Since then, “The Iron Lady” has been sidelined by injuries and also gave birth to a son in March 2023.

Meanwhile, Dumont is currently on a three-fight win streak. She most recently defeated Chelsea Chandler via unanimous decision in July 2023.

The UFC Fight Night event will be headlined by a middleweight meeting between Marvin Vettori and surging con…

Mark Hunt recently revealed some alarming news.

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In an appearance on “The MMA Hour,” the former Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor told Ariel Helwani that he’d been offered a lucrative check by an Australian promotion to take a dive in a fight.

Shocked at the proposition, Hunt was quick to clarify that he never once considered the offer.

“I’ve always been one that says if things aren’t right, they aren’t right,” Hunt said. “I was offered three or four million dollars to take a dive in a fight here in Australia and I said, ‘Are you serious?’... I said no because that’s just not me. Although I could have done with the money, I was going through some hard times with the separation and s—t, but I could have done with three or four million dollars. It’s just not my character. It’s not me. I’d rather just go out on my shield and then lose or die."

Following his departure from the UFC in 2018, Hunt has competed in two boxing matches, mo…

Kegan Gennrich secured the Legacy Fighting Alliance lightweight championship in the final frame of his LFA 174 main event with Jacobi Jones on Friday at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Jones missed weight by 0.2 pounds and was ineligible to compete for the title.

The first round saw both fighters feel each other out and exchange strikes on the feet, with Jones arguably getting the better of Gennrich with his leg kicks. As the fight progressed, Gennrich (8-2), known for his grappling prowess, continued with his forward-pressure strikes and eventually racked up a considerable amount of control time with his superior grappling in the following rounds. In the fourth frame, Jones (6-3) managed to land a few shots on the feet and even came close to securing his opponent’s back, only to be reversed and threatened with submissions and vicious ground-and-pound for the remainder of the frame.

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Having come very close to the finish in the p…

ONE Championship’s Shamil Gasanov rebounded from his first career loss and put himself back on track to a 155-pound mixed martial arts title shot with a unanimous decision win over Ho Taek Oh in the ONE on Prime Video 18 main event Friday night at Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok.

Gasanov (10-1) was stunned to be kneebared by Garry Tonon last July, but that wouldn’t deter the former world grappling champion. Gasanov attacked Ho’s legs early. Ho, who is also a skilled grappler, struggled to keep the Dagenstani wrestler off his back but was disciplined enough to defend against the submissions. In the few moments the fight stood, Oh was too tired to keep Gasanov from him. Oh pushed through the final bell, but Gasanov was the clear winner. Postfight, Gasanov shared that he went into the bout feeling sick from food posioning. He didn’t call out ONE 155-pound MMA champion Tang Kai; he was simply concerned with getting some much-needed rest.

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Tigers are sa…

Sherdog's live ONE Fight Night 18 coverage kicks off Friday at 8 p.m. ET. Round 1

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Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 The Official Result

The Ultimate Fighting Championship now has a main event for every fight card to April besides its Saudi Arabia show.

Via the promotion on Friday, UFC Atlantic City, also likely called UFC on ESPN 53, now has its main attraction. Welterweights will take center stage at the Boardwalk Hall, as Sean Brady (15-1) takes on Vicente Luque (22-9-1). The two will collide on March 30 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Brady successfully rebounded from his first defeat—a knockout loss to Belal Muhammad where he appeared to completely run out of gas—by tapping Kelvin Gastelum in the third round of their December match. Brady began his professional career by racking up 15 straight wins, including five in the Octagon. The Philadelphia native claimed notable victories over Jake Matthews and Michael Chiesa to put himself in top-10 contention.

Always-entertaining Luque also broke out of a skid by topping Rafael dos Anjos on the scorecards last year. Before then, he fell short to Muhamm…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship loves heavyweight headliners, and fans will be getting one in mid-March.

Per the organization on Friday, Tai Tuivasa (14-6) will throw bombs for five rounds or less against Marcin Tybura (24-8) on March 16. The heavyweights will now headline the currently unnumbered Fight Night event on that date, likely to be coined UFC Fight Night 239 should the main card air on ESPN+. The two big men were booked against one another at UFC 298, but the promotion elected to slide them back a month to put on the marquee of this UFC Apex show.

Tuivasa will be looking to get out of a slump, as he has suffered three straight stoppage losses since September 2022. Those defeats came against the upper echelon of the division, as Ciryl Gane, Sergei Pavlovich and Alexander Volkov all dispatched him in a little over one year’s time. Before then, the boisterous Aussie slugged his way through the opposition, racking up five straight knockouts from 2020 to early…