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Steven Ray had no time for those hoping for an Anthony Pettis renaissance.

Tactical takedowns, positional advances and suffocating control carried Ray to a unanimous decision over the former Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Extreme Cagefighting titleholder, as their Professional Fighters League lightweight semifinal headlined PFL 7 on Friday at Madison Square Garden in New York. Scores were 29-28, 29-28 and 29-28.

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Pettis (25-14, 1-4 PFL)—who had submitted to a modified twister from the Scotsman in June—once again struggled and ultimately failed to maintain a manageable distance. Ray set the tone with a strong first round, where he executed a takedown, passed to side control and threatened with a north-south choke. Pettis survived but conceded another takedown in the middle stanza, at which point his counterpart transitioned to the back and cemented his position with a body triangle. Ray slowed down across the final five minutes and allowed…

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Who will win at UFC 281?

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The 2022 Professional Fighters League Playoffs commence Friday at 6 p.m. ET.

Check out the MMA Forums to discuss the card or enter your comments and predictions below.

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Round 1 The PFL playoffs are here, and the company built a card around them that contains both prelims – a pair of qualifiers for next year’s season – and the dreaded postlims. Before we get to the latter, six solid fights take the stage. The night begins with a qualifying contest at 205 pounds for a pair of fighters that failed to make the semifinals, in Syndicate MMA’s Hendricks (9-4, 3-1 PFL) and powerful Norwegian Hamlet (9-4, 3-3 PFL). The first assignment of the evening – a rematch, as these two battled last year and Hendricks notched a submission – goes to referee Kevin MacDonald, and the fighters touch gloves to seal the cage around them and begin the evening’s hostilities. Hendricks pushes off with a front kick as Hamlet advances immediately, and Hamlet swarms him with a loop…

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EVENTS / FIGHTS

POLL

Who will win at UFC 281?

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First to the scales, @TMarretaMMA is in at 206 pounds 🔨

[ #UFCVegas59 | TOMORROW | Prelims 7pm ET | Main Card 10pm ET | Live on @ESPN ] pic.twitter.com/3UJtZVkEsS

— UFC (@ufc) August 5, 2022 Editor's Note: The article has been updated at 2:45 p.m. ET to reflect additional information.

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Ahead of the final fight on his Ultimate Fighting Championship contract, Sam Alvey needed the extra time but managed to make weight.

The UFC is all set to return to ESPN airwaves with UFC on ESPN 40, a card that features a light heavyweight headliner between former title challenger Thiago Santos and rising contender Jamahal Hill. While both main eventers and all four finalists of "The Ultimate Fighter" Season 30 had no trouble making weight, there was one notable miss. Ariane Lipski failed to hit the flyweight limit, weighing 128.5 pounds for her bout against Priscila Cachoeira (125.5). Additionally, Alvey (186) initially came in one p…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Friday announced that middleweight kingpin Israel Adesanya will seek to defend his crown against a familiar foe in kickboxer Alex Pereira on Nov. 12 at the world-famous Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Set to headline UFC 281, the pair has already met twice under kickboxing rules, with the Brazilian taking both contests. “Poatan” won via decision in 2016 and left the Nigerian-born New Zealander unconscious in 2017.

Adesanya is an impressive 12-1 in the UFC and 23-1 overall. He is undefeated at middleweight, with his lone blemish coming against former light heavyweight ace Jan Blachowicz in a 205-title match in March of last year. The 33 year-old last saw action in a unanimous decision victory over Jared Cannonier on July 2.

Pereira, 35, owns a relatively light resume for a title contender at 6-1 (3-0 UFC), but the match has intriguing potential due to the fighters’ previous meetings under different combat spor…

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship champion Cain Velasquez has entered a plea of not guilty for attempted murder and additional weapons-related charges.

On Friday, Velasquez attended his plea hearing at the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., entering his plea of not guilty on all charges. Judge Jessica Delgado presided over the hearing, and as a result, his next pre-trial hearing will take place on Sept. 26. Velasquez has been held without bail, after being denied release multiple times over the last few months. The ex-champ is facing charges of attempted murder and 10 additional charges related to firearms and assault with a deadly weapon. If convicted of the former, he could receive a sentence of 20 years to life, and the other charges carry additional time depending on their severities.

On Feb. 28, Velasquez allegedly fired a handgun at a truck that contained Harry Goularte, Goularte's stepfather Paul Bender and his mother Patricia Goularte…

Add one more chip to the overstacked pile that is the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s return trip to “Fight Island” in October.

The organization released on Friday news of the light heavyweight booking between Volkan Oezdemir (18-6) and Nikita Krylov (28-9), which will be set for UFC 280 on Oct. 22. This event will be held at the Etihad Arena on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. They were initially supposed to throw down in this locale two years ago, but Oezdemir suffered a knee injury. This will be a relatively quick turnaround for both men, as they each pulled off wins at UFC Fight Night 208 in London at the end of July.

Oezdemir put an end to a two-fight skid by handling Paul Craig across their three-round engagement. “No Time” had Craig hurt in multiple exchanges, and never fully engaged in the ground game that Craig excels greatly. Prior to that, the Swiss 205er had suffered a knockout to future champ Jiri Prochazka and then dropped a decision to Ma…

#Bellator284 Card Update:

Canada's @aajmma (12-3) has stepped in on short notice to face #2-ranked 185lb contender @austinv170mma (11-1) on the 8/12 @SHOSports main card.

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Jeffery will look keep up the mullet magic after a debut KO at #Bellator282. pic.twitter.com/xkiWV4qWLW — Bellator Public Relations (@BellatorPR) August 4, 2022 Bellator MMA will be rocking the mullet on Aug. 12.

At Bellator 284, Austin Vanderford (11-1) plans on coming back from his first career defeat, and he was expecting to face Anthony Adams. For currently unclosed reasons, Adams is out of their middleweight contest, and Bellator has already acquired and announced the replacement on Thursday: Aaron Jeffery (12-3). The two will square off inside the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D. on Aug. 12, and they will be competing on the main card.

In his last time out, Vanderford put his undefeated record on the line as he vied for the middle…

The coach of former Ultimate Fighting Championship champion Charles Oliveira has made public his secret weapon to prepare Oliveira for his next fight.

In October, ex-lightweight king Oliveira will vie for the vacant belt against Islam Makhachev at UFC 280. The Brazilian only lost his title after missing weight by a fraction of a pound, and he went on to tap Justin Gaethje in the first round to record the victory. The surging 32-year-old has beaten Kevin Lee, Tony Ferguson, Michael Chandler, Dustin Poirier and Gaethje in the span of a little over two years, firmly cementing himself as the best fighter in the division. Oliveira is coached by Diego Lima, the head of Chute Boxe, who earned a nomination in the 2022 World MMA Awards for “Coach of the Year” due to his fine work in building Oliveira into the force that he has become. Lima spoke to Sherdog on Wednesday about his fighter’s achievement, as well as his own.

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“I was really happy to have my job reco…

All #PFLPlayoffs NYC fighters have hit the official scale!

Ceremonial Weigh-ins go down at 6pm ET for the final face-offs ahead of fight night pic.twitter.com/waiqi1BvwC

— PFL (@PFLMMA) August 4, 2022 The Professional Fighters League's 2022 playoffs commence with PFL 7 on Friday, and all fighters made weight.

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The card features lightweight and light heavyweight semifinal bouts, and is headlined by a rematch between Anthony Pettis and Steven Ray. It was Ray (24-10) that shocked "Showtime" with a twister submission in June, forcing the former UFC champion to tap at 3:57 of Round 2. Pettis (25-13) will look to get revenge and make his first PFL finals against the winner of Alex Martinez (156) vs. Olivier Aubin-Mercier (155).

Light heavyweight semifinal matches see Omari Akhmedov (204.6) take on former LFA champion Joshua Silveira (206) and Rob Wilkinson (205.8), who is 2-0 in his first PFL season, test his skills agains…

Two rising Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweights with an eye on the top five will throw down in December.

The news broke on Thursday from MMA Junkie that Matt Schnell (16-6, 1 NC) will come to blows with Matheus Nicolau (18-2-1) at the UFC Fight Night event on Dec. 3. This fight card does not currently have a destination on the books, nor a designation. Schnell confirmed the existence of his upcoming bout on his Instagram on Thursday morning. Other than Schnell-Nicolau, the only match booked on the lineup is a flyweight contest between Amanda Ribas and Tracy Cortez.

Schnell put an end to a two-fight winless stretch with an all-action thriller against Su Mudaerji in July. In a comeback for the ages, Schnell survived a knockdown and several bad spots to hurt Mudaerji and ultimately submit him with a triangle choke. The two claimed “Fight of the Night” for their scrap, and this put Schnell back on track and in the hunt for contention. “Danger” has only gone the dista…