Martial Arts News

In a rematch nearly two years in the making, Makoto Takahashi avenged a past loss and defeated mentor-turned-rival Hiromasa Ougikubo Saturday at Rizin Fighting Federation: “Landmark Vol. 14.” Competing in front of his hometown fans in Sendai, Japan, Takahashi took a well-deserved unanimous decision victory over Ougikubo in the main event to become the new Rizin flyweight champion.

Takahashi (23-5-1, 1 NC; 9-4 Rizin) ducked under a wild left hand and took Ougikubo (30-9-2, 12-6 Rizin) down into back control during the opening minute of the fight. He kneeled against the cage and punched the side of Ougikubo’s head while also elbowing his ribs. Ougikubo scrambled up to his feet as the round entered its final minute and he knocked ‘Shinryu’ off-balance with a calf kick. Ougikubo got past Takahashi’s jab and landed a nice combination in the second frame, but he soon found himself on the ground again after a Takahashi trip takedown. Ougikubo stood up and he landed a series…

Derrick Lewis has been dealing with a health issue for a long time.

Lewis is coming off a second-round stoppage loss against Waldo Cortes-Acosta at UFC 324 this past January. “The Black Beast” was seemingly just out of the fight after a lousy slip while Cortes-Acosta rained down a barrage of shots, forcing the referee to step in. Lewis recently revealed that he was dealing with back issues during the fight. While Lewis weighed in at 263.5 pounds, he went up to 296 pounds on fight night, which triggered his persistent back issues. Lewis also revealed that his problem has forced him to pull out of fights at the last moment multiple times. Lewis told UFC on Paramount+:

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“One of my downfalls I’ve had my whole career is always my back. I’ve been having back issues; I believe that it really got down, down, down. My last fight I cut a lot of weight. I didn’t walk around to where I usually fight at. Right after I made weight, I went all the way back up to 296 …

Making it look easy 😮‍💨@bullyb170 weighs in at 170.5lbs ahead of #UFCVegas118

[ JUNE 6 | 8pmET | LIVE on @ParamountPlus ] pic.twitter.com/ME9K8LlrZy

— UFC (@ufc) June 5, 2026 Every fighter ahead of the first Ultimate Fighting Championship card in June eventually made weight.

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The UFC Vegas 118 main event sees former welterweight champion Belal Muhammad return to the Octagon against rising contender Gabriel Bonfim. Both men made weight without issue for the five-round headliner. Junior Tafa, briefly checked in half a pound over the light heavyweight limit for his fight against Iwo Baraniewski, but he came back within the extra one-hour window to hit 206 pounds.

After back-to-back defeats, "Remember the Name" will look to rebound and get his first victory in nearly two years. Muhammad (24-5, 1 NC) is still one of the world's best at 170, having only lost to Jack Della Maddalena and Ian Garry since 2019. The 37-year-ol…

The main Ultimate Fighting Championship promoter is doing a bit of promoting ahead of the upcoming tentpole event.

UFC President and CEO Dana White has often stated that he feels Jon Jones is the greatest mixed martial artist of all time. He has stuck to that notion so strongly that he has tried on multiple occasions to get Jones’ disqualification loss to Matt Hamill overturned to a no contest. His reasoning is that Jones should have finished the fight before the illegal strikes landed, and that referee Steve Mazzagatti failed to intervene when he should have stepped in. The argument was also made that since 12-to-6 elbows have been legalized, past fights ending via those strikes should be changed ex post facto.

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The top spot on White’s MMA all-timer pedestal may be changing depending on upcoming events, according to him in an interview with Forbes on Friday. The organizer went on to declare that should Alex Pereira beat Ciryl Gane to claim the inter…

One of the greatest grapplers of our generation and a one-time Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter is getting the recognition he deserves.

Thirty years after the iconic and bloody 30-minute final of the WVC 3 tournament in Sao Paulo, Brazil, combatants Fabio Gurgel and Mark Kerr met again. The two came together backstage at the 30th edition of the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship on Saturday in California. Gurgel spoke to Sherdog about their reunion.

“Mark Kerr is a very pleasant person; we talked for almost half an hour,” Gurgel explained. “We talked about his film and, since he is representing a brand of sleep measurement rings, he gave me one as a gift. Interestingly, I am launching a corporate bioperformance product in Brazil called Impulso +. Exactly with the objective of bringing the culture of jiu-jitsu, to take care of the health of employees, to large companies. We talked a lot about this synergy.”

Rock the docDuring their conversation, which included tal…

Ex-Ultimate Fighting Championship title challenger Gilbert Burns still has plenty to offer at his age.

Less than two months after announcing his retirement from the Octagon at age 39, on the heels of his fifth consecutive loss—a knockout to Mike Malott—“Durinho” Burns made a stylish comeback at UFC BJJ 9 on Thursday. The elder statesman grappler tapped out Brazilian Horlando Monteiro in just 1:22 seconds with a slick rear-naked choke.

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Burns started the fight being taken down by his opponent, but seemed to welcome that as he had a plan. “Durinho” quickly reversed the position and took Monteiro’s back, where he secured the choke that ended the fight. It marked his first victory on the grappling mats since he beat Rafael Lovato Jr. in a special match in 2021.There are a lot of good jiu-jitsu fighters who would love to competeElated in victory, Burns was able to take off some of the pressure on his shoulders coming from five straight defeats in a cage. H…

The Professional Fighters League middleweight strap will still be on the line, just in a different way.

The promotion announced on Friday that its marquee matchup for PFL Austin has changed. Due to an injury suffered by middleweight kingpin Costello van Steenis, Johnny Eblen (17-1) will be drawing a new opponent at the Moody Center in Texas’ capital city. For the interim 185-pound belt, Eblen will be rematching Impa Kasanganay (20-6).

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Top notch featherweights headline PFL San Diego: Tune in Saturday, June 27 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.

The man who currently calls himself “Pressure” was looking to exact revenge for his lone career defeat. After bringing over the Bellator MMA belt with him, Eblen vied for the PFL title in 2025 against van Steenis. Up on two scorecards, Eblen succumbed to a last-second rear-naked choke that put him all the way to sleep. He has since bounced back into the win column by wrangling Bryan Battle with a face crank in a little ov…

Depending on how the match plays out, a spot in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s logjammed lightweight division’s rankings may be on the line.

Heavy first broke the news on Thursday that UFC 329 would be getting a striker’s delight at 155 pounds. Per the initial report, and subsequently confirmed by one of the fighters on his Instagram Stories page, King Green (35-17-1, 1 NC) will be throwing down with Terrance McKinney (18-8) on July 11. They will be colliding inside of the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, likely serving as a high-billed prelim.

Green currently rides a three-fight win streak, his longest since claiming a trio of decisions over Clay Guida, Lando Vannata and Alan Patrick in 2020. In this run, he beat Lance Gibson Jr., knocked out Daniel Zellhuber and tapped Jeremy Stephens within the last seven months. The grizzled veteran will be entering into his 31st with the promotion, having joined the roughly two dozen names who completed at least 30 UFC bouts…

Holly Holm is interested in big fights, whether that's in boxing or MMA. | Getty/UFC

The finish line appears to be in sight for Holly Holm.

Holm, who is coming off a controversial split-decision loss to Stephanie Han in a boxing match under the Most Valuable Promotions banner last weekend, gave a rough timeline for the end of her combat sports career during an appearance on "The Ariel Helwani Show.”

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I don't know, but if I'm being really honest, I want big fights. I'm not saying that all of them are big fights for a title. ..Within the year and I'm done,” Holm said. “That's where I'm at. I definitely want them to be fights that people want to see. I want it to be something big like that. And that's where I'm at, whether it be MMA or boxing.”

Holm confirmed that likely means only one or two more fights total before the Jackson-Wink MMA standout calls it a career.

Holm hasn’t competed in MMA since UFC 300, when she suffered a seco…

It's hard to imagine that 17 years ago, Alex Pereira was still working at a tire shop and had serious problems with alcoholism. That's when he decided to enroll in kickboxing — a decision that changed his life.

Since then, “Poatan” has achieved what seemed impossible for someone who first put on gloves at the age of 21. After winning two belts in Glory Kickboxing and the UFC, he will seek something that no fighter has achieved to date on June 14: a UFC title in a third weight class. To do this, Poatan will have to beat Ciryl Gane in the co-main event of of the UFC White House card.

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‘Something Very Special’ In an interview with UFC on Paramount+, “Poatan” highlighted the symbolic weight of the possible achievement, classifying the belt as something unique in his career. The Brazilian stressed that, unlike other titles in the organization, this one would have a special value because it represents his entire journey, marked by challenges and overcoming…

Gabriel Bonfim is coming off a finish of Randy Brown. | Getty/UFC

There’s a significant gap in experience in UFC Fight Night 278 headliner.

On one side is former welterweight champion Belal Muhammad, a veteran of 20 fights in the UFC who is coming off a two-fight losing streak. On the other side is Gabriel Bonfim, a Brazilian talent nine years younger who is climbing the rankings with a 6-1 UFC mark. This is the dynamic of Saturday’s featured bout at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

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Despite being the betting favorite (-200 to +150), Bonfim revealed to Sherdog.com that he prepared for the most difficult fight of his life.

“After he lost the belt wanting to prove himself standing up with [Jack Della Maddalena], I don’t believe he’ll come to strike with me,” Bonfim said. “After all, one of his strengths is the cage game. I think he’ll look for this game similar to what [Nicolas] Dalby did. But I trained a lot to avoid his [grappling]. I thin…

Real American Freestyle is going international.

The wrestling promotion announced on Wednesday that it will hold its first overseas event on July 11 in Tbilisi, Georgia. The card will be headlined between a matchup of former UFC champions, as Georgia native Merab Dvailishvili will take on Henry Cejudo. In the co-main event, Kyle Snyder will defend his light heavyweight crown against Abdulrashid Sadulaev. Additionally, RAF staple and UFC lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan will square off against Kuat Khamitov.

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Dvalishvili made his promotional debut at RAF 9 on May 30, where he defeated Frankie Edgar via technical fall. The former UFC bantamweight champion is known for his relelentless grappling and conditioning inside the Octagon, where he defended his belt three times in 2025 before falling to Petr Yan this past December. “The Machine” has stated that he expects to receive a championship rematch against Yan in his next UFC appearance.

Ceju…