Martial Arts News

Credit: Getty/UFC Credit: Getty/UFC

It appears that Chris Daukaus will be taking a step up in competition for his next Octagon appearance.

UFC president Dana White told broadcast partner ESPN on Monday that Daukaus will square off against two-time heavyweight title challenger Derrick Lewis at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on Dec. 18. The bout has not been finalized, but it will likely serve as the headliner for the Fight Night card once. The UFC Apex in Las Vegas is the probable venue.

Daukaus is currently on a five-fight professional winning streak, with four of those victories coming in UFC competition. Most recently, the Philadelphia native defeated Shamil Abdurakhimov via second-round TKO at UFC 266. All four of Daukaus’ promotional triumphs have ended inside of two rounds.

Lewis, meanwhile, is coming off a third-round TKO loss to Ciryl Gane in an interim heavyweight title tilt at UFC 265 on Aug. 7. That ended a four-bout winning streak for “The B…

A potential middleweight title eliminator is slated for UFC 270, as Derek Brunson will square off against Jared Cannonier on Jan. 22.

MMAjunkie.com was first to report the booking. UFC 270 doesn’t currently have a location or headlliner, though the promotion is reportedly targeting a middleweight championship rematch between Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker for the main event.

The 37-year-old Brunson is currently in the midst of the second five-bout winning streak of his UFC tenure. That stretch includes triumphs over the likes of Darren Till, Kevin Holland and Edmen Shahbazyan in headlining appearances in his last three outings. The North Carolina native previously authored a five-bout winning streak from August 2014 to September 2016 before losing four of his next six inside the Octagon.

Cannonier, meanwhile, was on the verge of securing a 185-pound title shot after successive triumphs against David Branch, Anderson Silva and Jack Hermansson, but a decisi…

The seminfinal matchups are in place for the One Championship atomweight grand prix.

Seo Hee Ham will square off against Nong Stamp, while Ritu Phogat will meet Itsuki Hirata in the other half of the bracket, the Singapore-based promotion recently announced. Fan voting voting determined the semifinal pairings.

The former Rizin atomweight queen, Ham earned a controversial split-decision triumph over Denice Zamboanga in the quarterfinals on Sept. 3. The One Championship competition committee reviewed the fight but ultimately elected not to oveturn the result. Ham has won her last seven outings dating back to June 2017.

The 23-year-old Stamp avenged a previous submission loss to Alyona Rassohyna in her quarterfinal bout, as she captured a split-decision triumph in the rematch. The Fairtex Gym product is 6-1 as a pro, with all of her bouts coming under the One banner.

Inda’s Phogat outpointed Meng Bo in the round of eight at One “Empower” to advance to the se…

A intriguing bantamweight clash pitting Jose Aldo against Rob Font is in the works for an Ultimate Fighting Championship even on Dec. 4.

Aldo’s trainer, Andre Pederneiras, mentioned the potential booking to Sherdog.com last week, and it has since been reported by "The MMA Hour" and Combate.

The event is likely to take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, with Aldo vs. Font expected to serve as the main event. Other reported bouts for the event include Jimmy Crute vs. Jamahal Hill, Rafael Fiziev vs. Brad Riddell and Brendan Allen vs. Brad Tavares.

Regarded by some as the best featherweight of all-time, Aldo is coming off arguably his most complete performance to date since dropping to 135 pounds, a unanimous decision triumph against Pedro Munhoz at UFC 265 on Aug. 7. The Nova Uniao standout is 2-2 at bantamweight, with a decision victory over Marlon Vera also to his credit as well well as setbacks against Petr Yan and Marlon Moraes.

Font, meanwhile, enters…

Aljamain Sterling has been doing his best to prepare for a bantamweight title rematch against Petr Yan at UFC 267, but training hasn’t been going according to plan after the champ underwent neck surgery earlier this year.

“The Funk Master” took to Instagram to share the lingering issues he has dealt with in camp as a result of that procedure. It was reported over the weekend that Sterling had withdrawn from the Oct. 30 rematch with Yan.

“As always, I like to share the truth and be transparent with my fan base that actually give a shit about fighters’ health,” Sterling wrote. “Training has been going well but I’ve been struggling to get my body to push pass [two rounds] in sparring sessions. The fatigue that sets in and the cramping still lingers, which my surgeon said is due to the nerves still recovering from the long-term trauma, and surgery I just had. Nothing I can do about that, other than show up in another shell of myself and risk wasting the surgery and mayb…

The fight card for the Professional Fighters League Championships on Oct. 27 is official.

The promotion announced the full lineup — with the exception of one as yet to be announced preliminary bout — on Monday. The main card airs on ESPN2 and is headlined by a women’s lightweight title clash betweeen Kayla Harrison and Taylor Guardado. Three other $1 million championship bouts are set for the main card: Ray Cooper III vs. Magomed Magomedkerimov at welterweight; Bruno Cappelozza vs. Ante Delija at heavyweight and Movlid Khaybulaev vs. Chris Wade at featherweight.

Rounding out the main draw is boxing champion Claressa Shields second pro MMA bout, as she meets Abigail Montes.

Two championship fights will take place on the prelims: Antonio Carlos Jr. vs. Marthin Hamlet at light heavyweight and Loik Radzhabov vs. Raush Manfio at lightweight. The preliminary draw will also see Omari Akhemdov face Jordan Young at middleweight, while Don Madge meets Nathan Williams at …

It appears Tyron Woodley has finally made good on his promise to get ink honoring Jake Paul in the wake of his loss to the social media star in a boxing match on Aug. 29.

Woodley took to Instagram on Monday to showcase an “I love Jake Paul” tattoo on his middle finger. Tattoo artist Rubia Santana is credited for the work. Paul and Woodley made a bet prior to their bout that the loser would get the winner’s name tattooed on his body. Paul later said he would only grant Woodley a rematch if he got the aforementioned “I love Jake Paul” piece.

“I love you son. Now come and get this ass whippin cause I heard you been talking back to your elders,” Woodley wrote in the caption of the post.

Paul defeated Woodley via split decision (77-75, 75-77, 78-74) in an eight-round fight at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland last month. While Woodley made Paul stumble when he landed an overhand right in the fourth round, his inability to land with volume ultimately led to hi…

All but one athlete slated to compete on Week 5 of Dana White’s Contender Series made weight without issue on Monday morning.

The lone exception was Manuel Gaxhja, who tipped the scales at 160.5 pounds for a lightweight clash against Chris Duncan (156). Gaxhja will be fined 30 percent of his purse, and the bout will proceed as planned.

The Contender Series takes place on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and airs on ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. The evening’s featured bout is a light heavyweight tilt pitting Lukasz Sudolski (205) against Ihor Potieria (203.5).

A native of Szczecin, Poland, Sudolski is undefeated in eight professional appearances. The 28-year-old Berserkers Team representative has finished six of those victories by knockout, technical knockout or submission — including five inside of a round.

Potieria, meanwhile, has been victorious in 18 of 20 bouts over the course of a career that began in 2015. The 25-year-old Ukraine native enters the Cont…

For two rounds, Nick Diaz took everything Robbie Lawler had to offer while returning fire with his trademark volume boxing in their middleweight bout at UFC 266.

It was an especially impressive effort from the Stockton, Calif., native considering that he had been out of action since 2015. By the third round, however, Diaz’s gas tank had waned and he elected not to continue after getting hit by a right hook and left uppercut 44 seconds into the third frame. It was a bizarre ending to an entertaining rematch, but Lawler believes his shots gradually took their toll on the former Strikeforce champion.

“I felt like it was an accumulation,” Lawler said at the UFC 266 post-fight press conference. “But I felt like I caught him with a little check hook and then a little left after that, then when he went down, I hit him with a little uppercut. Then when he went down he wanted me to come down with him and I was like, ‘Let’s continue the fun stuff.’

“He’s a warrior. He wa…

After a stellar performance in a unanimous decision triumph over Brian Ortega in the UFC 266 headliner on Saturday night, Alexander Volkanovski was already looking ahead to what’s next.

While Volkanovski acknowledges that the Nov. 13 main event between Max Holloway and Yair Rodriguez could produce his next challenger, the City Kickboxing standout doesn’t want to wait that long for his next Octagon appearance. Prior to UFC 266, Volkanovski hadn’t fought since July 2020.

“You’ve got the Yair-Max fight, so I’m guessing that’s for No. 1 contender. Whoever wins that gets that shot, right? That’s not til November. I want to fight,” Volkanovski said at the UFC 266 post-fight press conference.

In the name of staying active, Volkanovski isn’t opposed to testing his mettle at 155 pounds.

“So, do I move up to lightweight? Do something,” said Volkanovski, who added he is considering a relocation of his camp to avoid COVID-19 restrictions. “Maybe move up to lightweigh…

Valentina Shevchenko made it look easy against Lauren Murphy in the UFC 266 co-main event. But that was always kind of the goal.

The reigning flyweight queen pitched a virtual shutout for three rounds against a gun shy Murphy before pouring it on in Round 4 to earn a stoppage with elbows and punches at the 4:00 mark of the period at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

“Lauren, she’s a tough opponent,” Shevchenko said at the UFC 266 post-fight press conference. “She’s physical and very strong, but I wanted to play my game. My ultimate goal as a martial artist is to reach the level when your opponents, when they’re fighting each other, [they appear to be] furious, powerful, very strong. But when they fight me, it’s like, they cannot touch you, but you can finish them. It’s kind of like what I want [to] be as a martial artist: untouchable. This is kind of next level of martial artist.”

Shevchenko has come close to achieving that goal during her 125-…

Rafael dos Anjos recently revealed to Sherdog.com that he underwent an arthroscopic procedure on his knee approximately two weeks ago that may put his UFC 267 bout against Islam Makhachev in jeopardy.

The Nova Uniao-trained fighter says that he is doing everything he can to keep the bout intact. UFC 267 takes place on Oct. 30 in Abu Dhabi.

“I'm already walking without crutches, in 10 days I need to be able to sparring,” dos Anjos said. “I’m a fighter; I always want to fight. We already told the UFC what happened. By the way, the UFC was great at paying for all my surgery expenses. But of course I can't decide alone. I have to hear from my trainer, my doctor and physiotherapist. We must take the final decision in one week.”

If the bout is canceled, it would be the third time that dos Anjos vs. Makhachev has fallen through. A matchup at UFC 254 was scrapped after dos Anjos contracted COVID-19, while a rebooking in at UFC Fight Night 182 November 2020 was nixed due…