Martial Arts News

Chris Leben remains hospitalized after suffering from complications due to COVID-19, but he seems to be making some positive progress.

The UFC veteran and “Ultimate Fighter 1” cast member provided an update on his condition from his hospital bed via Instagram on Monday. Leben initially revealed that he had been hospitalized earlier in February due to difficulty breathing following a bout with COVID.

In his latest post, “The Crippler seemed optimistic that he could make a full recovery.

“I think that’s what took the most damage, for sure, is my lungs. They did say 100 percent of my lungs are damaged, but they also said 100 percent recovery is possible, and I think that’s what’s going to happen,” Leben said. “It’s going to take some time, start out slow, but I’m still alive, man. I’m still here. And for that, I’m so grateful.

“The fact that I get to fight my way back to 100 percent health, that I have that opportunity, is such a blessing. When you’re wher…

Credit: Getty/UFC Credit: Getty/UFC

Nick Maximov will lock horns with Andre Petroski in a middleweight tilt at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on May 14.

Petroski’s management, Iridium Sports Agency, initially brought word of the bout. The UFC Fight Night event includes a women’s flyweight clash pitting Miesha Tate against Lauren Murphy. A venue and headliner have not been announced for the card.

Maximov is coming off a split-decision triumph over Punahele Soriano in the co-main event of UFC Fight Night 200. The Nick Diaz Academy product is 8-0 as a professional, with two wins in the Octagon as well as triumphs on Dana White’s Contender Series and Legacy Fighting Alliance.

Petroski was a cast member on Season 29 of “The Ultimate Fighter” and has since scored finishes of Michael Gillmore and Yaozong Hu in his first two Octagon appearances. The 30-year-old New Jersey native is 7-1 as a professional, with all of his victories coming inside the distance.

It appears that Andrey Koreshkov will get his wish.

A welterweight clash pitting Koreshkov against Paul Daley is currently being targeted for Bellator London on May 13. Shortly after his spectacular spinning back kick knockout of Chance Rencountre at Bellator 274 this past Saturday, Koreshkov volunteered to face Daley in what is expected to be the British slugger’s farewell bout. Sherdog.com confirmed the booking with a promotion official following an initial report from Michael Morgan via Twitter.

Bellator London takes place at the OVO Arena Wembley and is headlined by a welterweight title clash between reigning champion Yaroslav Amosov and Michael Page. The evening’s main card will air on Showtime.

Koreshkov, a former Bellator welterweight king, has won three straight fights. In addition to wrecking Rencountre, “Spartan” has also earned triumphs over Sabah Homasi and Adriano Rodrigues de Oliveira during his current run. The Russian’s only career defeats have …

There has been a change near the top of Friday’s Bellator 275 card.

A lightweight scrap pitting recent title challenger Peter Queally against Kane Mousah has been canceled after Queally suffered an undisclosed injury. As a result, a women’s featherweight showdown pitting Leah McCourt against Sinead Kavanagh has been elevated to the co-main event.

Promotion officials announced the change on Monday. Bellator 275 takes place at the 3Arena in Dublin on Friday and is headlined by a middleweight title tilt between Gegard Mousasi and Austin Vanderford. The evening’s main card will air on Showtime at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT, while prelims stream on the Bellator MMA YouTube channel, the Showtime Sports YouTube channel and Pluto TV at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.

The rest of the five-bout main card is as follows: Ciaran Clarke vs. Abou Tounkara at featherweight; Khasan Magomedsharipov vs. Jose Sanchez at featherweight and Brian Moore vs. Jornel Lugo at bantamweight.

McCourt v…

Andrey Koreshkov did a number on Chance Rencountre in the Bellator 274 co-main event.

Koreshkov wrecked the UFC veteran with a spinning back kick to the ribs early in their welterweight encounter, and he finished off his opponent with follow-up punches 38 seconds into Round 1. As it turns out, there wouldn’t have been much Rencountre could have done to recover from Koreshkov’s attack.

“Chance Rencountre suffered five broken ribs, a punctured lung from the heel kick landed by Andrey Koreshkov last night,” Rencountre’s manager, Brian Butler, wrote on Instagram on Sunday. “Not the outcome we wanted but the kick was well placed and would have stopped anyone. Next time we will get a full camp and come back stronger.

“Chance is in good spirits and prepping for surgery. Thank you to the Bellator MMA team who has been tremendous with all their assistance. Congratulations to Andrey Koreshkov and his team on the victory.”

Rencountre, who had been victorious in four …

Credit: Getty/UFC Credit: Getty/UFC

Sometimes it’s better to tap out than to go out on your shield.

That was the case for Jamie Pickett on Saturday night, when he fell to Kyle Daukaus via submission at the 4:59 mark of Round 1 in their catchweight bout at UFC Fight Night 201. “The Nightwolf” might have been able to hold out until the horn were it not for one key fact: He felt like he was on the verge of losing his tongue – or at least a piece of it.

“Hey guys, no excuse from me. I did my best for the time I had and didn’t go my way,” Pickett wrote on Facebook. “Tongue got caught between my teeth. Felt like I was gonna cut it off so I tapped. I’ll be back but this time with a full training camp.”

Pickett was a short-notice replacement for Julian Marquez, who withdrew from the proposed middleweight bout. As a result, the fight was contested at a 195-pound catchweight. The setback snaps a two-fight winning streak for Pickett, who was coming off back-to-back decis…

Things did not go as planned for Johnny Walker in the UFC Fight Night 201 main event.

The 29-year-old Brazilian lost for the fourth time in five outings on Saturday night, when he suffered a first-round knockout defeat to Jamahal Hill in their light heavyweight clash at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. While Walker did not attend the post-fight press conference, he did release a series of statements via social media.

“What’s up, guys? I’m okay,” Walker said in a video on Instagram. “Just a little cut here. I sleep in the fight so something happened wrong.”

A competitor on the Brazilian version of Dana White’s Contender Series, Walker emerged as a prospect to watch at 205 pounds with three consecutive first-round finishes in his first three Octagon appearances. He has fallen on hard times since that hot start, with knockout losses to Corey Anderson and Hill as well as decision defeats to Nikita Krylov and Thiago Santos on his ledger. His lone victory during that time w…

The first five-round, non-title headliner in Bellator MMA history was billed as a classic wrestler vs. grappler matchup.

Logan Storley had other ideas. The four-time NCAA All-American wrestler from the University of Minnesota traded with Neiman Gracie for 25 minutes — including one potential “Round of the Year” candidate — en route to a unanimous decision triumph in the Bellator 274 headliner at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., on Saturday night.

“Just 25 minutes, I don’t think I shot one time,” Storley said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “Since I was 5 years old, turning 30 [now], that’s 25 years of just wrestling. The No. 4 ranked guy in the world, went toe-to-toe and got the better of him the whole time. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had. Landed big shots, took shots, kept moving. I think that was a huge step in my career over the last half hour.”

Storley appeared to be in control through three rounds when things got interesting. Gracie appe…

Jamahal Hill wasn’t originally supposed to be in a headlining bout at UFC Fight Night 201, but he didn’t let the transition to a potential five-round affair affect him.

As it turned out, “Sweet Dreams” didn’t need to go into deep waters. Hill authored an emphatic finish on Saturday night, knocking out Johnny Walker with an overhand right — and one follow-up blow — 2:55 into the first round of their light heavyweight feature at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

“I just treated it like the fight hadn’t changed,” Hill said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “I was already confident when I took the fight as a main event. I was already confident. I had already put the work in. I was feeling good about how the fight would go.

“[The UFC] adding rounds and adding the main event, I didn’t let that bother me. That’s what I told myself. It’s still the same fight. Don’t put anything extra anything on it. Take what it is, just another fight.”

At 6-fo…

A featherweight showdown between Satoshi Yamasu and Kyohei Hagiwara will serve as the featured bout at Rizin Fighting Federation 34 on March 20.

The Japanese promotion recently announced the pairing. Rizin 34 takes place at Maruzen Intec Arena in Osaka, Japan, on March 6. Three other MMA bouts were also confirmed for the event: Alan Hiro Yamaniha vs. Motonobu Tezuka at bantamweight; Kiichi Kunimoto vs. Daichi Abe at welterweight and Daichi Kitakata vs. Yutaro Muramoto at flyweight.

A former Deep featherweight king, Yamasu snapped a two-bout skid in his last outing at Rizin 28, when he garnered a split decision against Noah Bey this past June. Prior to that, the 32-year-old “Dominator” suffered a first-round KO loss to Mikuru Asakura at Rizin 26.

Hagiwara carries a 5-2 mark under the Rizin banner into his matchup with Yamasu. He won two of three appearances in 2021, falling to Asakura by decision before scoring a second-round TKO win against Shoji Maruyama at Riz…

Logan Storley had just enough water in the well.

The four-time NCAA All-American wrestler called upon volume punching and a sturdy chin, as he took an important step forward in the Bellator MMA welterweight division with a unanimous decision over Neiman Gracie in the five-round Bellator 274 headliner on Saturday at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. All three cageside judges scored it for Storley (13-1, 8-1 Bellator): 48-47, 50-45 and 49-46.

Gracie (11-3, 9-3 Bellator) struggled to get in gear. What had been a somewhat pedestrian bout for 15 minutes turned into an absolute war of wills in the fourth round. Both men were hurt in back-and-forth exchanges that featured plenty of give and take. Storley kept his foot on the accelerator in the fifth, where he pressed forward with punches and forced the Brazilian onto his back foot—a position in which he was clearly uncomfortable. Andrey Koreskhov waylaid Alliance MMA export Chance Rencountre with a spinning b…

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 bigger they are, the harder they fall — if Jamahal Hill has anything to say about it. In the main event of UFC Fight Night 201 on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, the 6-foot-4 Hill (10-1, 1 NC) found himself at a rare size disadvantage against titanic 6-foot-5 Johnny Walker (18-7), but was unfazed. The light heavyweight knockout artists spent the duration of the fight throwing their hardest shots at one another; both men had their moments, but the chaos ended in an instant when Hill landed an overhand right to the side of Walker’s head. The towering Brazilian stiffened and fell, hitting his head against the fence and floor on his way down, just in time for Hill to land a diving follow-up shot. Referee Jason Herzog called the action off at 2:55 of Round 1, giving Hill his second win in a row, and third in his last four. Mea…