Martial Arts News

A pivotal flyweight showdown between Joseph Benavidez and Askar Askarov is in the works for an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on March 6.

MMA journalist Igor Lazorin first brought word of the matchup. The event has not been formally announced by the promotion, but multiple outlets are reporting that it will be UFC 259. The card is also expected to include a light heavweight tilt pitting Thiago Santos against Aleksandar Rakic.

A four-time flyweight title challenger, Benavidez is coming off the first two-bout skid of his professional career after being finished in back-to-back championship fights by Deiveson Figueiredo in 2020. The 36-year-old WEC veteran is nonetheless one of the sport’s top talents at 125 pounds, with a 28-7 career mark and wins over the likes of Henry Cejudo, Jussier Formiga, Dustin Ortiz, Alex Perez, John Moraga and Ian McCall, to name a few.

Askarov, meanwhile, is unbeaten in 13 professional outings, with his lone blemish coming via spl…

The highly-anticipated welterweight scrap between Leon Edwards and Khamzat Chimaev won’t be happening on Dec. 19 as originally expected.

According to ESPN, the UFC Fight Night 183 headliner has been canceled after Edwards tested positive for COVID-19. The promotion is hoping to rebook the contest in 2021, but a new date has not been finalized at this point in time.

UFC Fight Night 183 takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The promotion is considering elevating Geoff Neal vs. Stephen Thompson to the main event slot, per ESPN. The card streams in its entirety on ESPN+.

Edwards’ encounter with the virus was a difficult one, as the British fighter reportedly lost 12 pounds in four days and is recovering at home. The 29-year-old Team Renegade product has not competed since July 2019 when he outpointed Rafael dos Anjos in the UFC on ESPN 4 headliner. “Rocky” was slated to meet Tyron Woodley on March 21 in London before that event was canceled due to the pandemic…

A welterweight clash pitting Warlley Alves against Christian Aguilera has been added to the lineup for the UFC’s first event of 2020.

MMAFighting.com was first to report the booking. UFC Fight Night takes place on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 16 and is headlined by a featherweight duel between Max Holloway and Calvin Kattar.

Alves, who won Season 3 of “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil,” has lost two of his last three Octagon appearances. Most recently, the 29-year-old X-Gym member fell to Randy Brown via second-round submission at UFC Fight Night 164 in November 2019.

Aguilera had a memorable promotional debut at UFC on ESPN 10, where he knocked out Anthony Ivy in just 59 seconds on June 13. Most recenty, “The Beast” saw a three-bout winning streak come to an end in a submission loss to Sean Brady at UFC Fight Night 175 on Aug. 29.

Kayla Harrison is issuing an open challenge for an opponent at Titan Fighting Championship’s Dec. 18 event.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo recently took to Twitter in search of a matchup for a 150-pound catchweight bout. According to a report from ESPN, Harrison’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, is willing to pay her opponent to make the fight a reality.

If anyone wants to fight me on December 18th @TitanFighting at a catch weight of 150lbs please please contact @AliAbdelaziz00 !

— Kayla Harrison (@KaylaH) November 30, 2020

Harrison, who is under contract with Professional Fighters League, has received permission to fight for the Florida-based promotion. Harrison made her featherweight debut at Invicta FC 43, where she defeat Courtney King via second-round TKO on Nov. 20.

The American Top Team product made her MMA debut with PFL in 2018 and competed in the organization’s season format in 2019, when she captured the championship a…

Co-main event competitor Takashi Sato is one of seven fighters from UFC on ESPN 18 who is facing a potential 180-day layoff following Saturday’s event.

Sato, who suffered a second-round submission loss to Miguel Baeza in a welterweight clash, must have a left orbital fracture cleared by a doctor or he will be sidelined until May 28. At a minimum, Sato is suspended until Jan. 13 with no contact until Dec. 29. Baeza did not receive a medical suspension.

Mixedmartialarts.com released a full list of medical suspensions from the card on Tuesday.

UFC on ESPN 18 took place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday and saw Anthony Smith score a first-round submission victory against Devin Clark in the evening’s light heavyweight headliner. Both Smith and Clark emerged with a clean bill of health following their bout.

Six other fighters from UFC on ESPN 18 are also looking at 180-day sits: Parker Porter (left hand), Bill Algeo (left hand), Norma Dumont (right hand…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rAhS0A2GVs&w=560&h=315]

UFC Fight Pass will present an even larger offering of combat sports in 2021 with the addition of six new promotions to its streaming lineup.

The promotion’s digital platform announced Tuesday that Battlefield Fight League, Unified MMA, The Golden Cage, Tuff-N-Uff, Fight Club Rush, and Lion Fight will stream exclusively on UFC Fight Pass next year. Additionally, UFC Pass extended distribution deals with 14 existing live partners, which brings its total to more than 30 overall.

According to a release, UFC Fight Pass expects to stream more than 200 events in 2021 from a vareity of combat disciplines, including mixed martial arts, boxing, kickboxing, muay Thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and more. That number could increase as additional events or partners are added. Fight events will be streamed from six continents and countries such as the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Japan, to name a few.

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Professionelle Kämpfer, die Liga gemacht hat, eine wichtige Ergänzung zu seiner Dienstplan.

Der promotion unterschrieben hat Box-Weltmeister und zwei mal Olympia-gold Medaillengewinner Claressa Shields zu konkurrieren in der lightweight division. MMAjunkie.com war die erste, die Nachrichten berichten.

Schilde werden nicht an die PFL-2021 Saison-format; stattdessen Sie nehmen one-off-Kämpfe an verschiedenen Veranstaltungen während des ganzen Jahres. Die Anordnung ist ähnlich wie das Olympische judo-Goldmedaillengewinner Kayla Harrison begann Ihre PFL Amtszeit im Jahr 2018 vor dem Gewinn der Organisation 155-Pfund-Meisterschaft im Jahr 2019.

In der Vergangenheit Schilde hat öffentlich sinnierte , um einen übergang zum MMA, und Sie hat es genossen ein training Beziehung mit der aktuellen Bellator featherweight queen Cristiane Justino.

Schilde später besucht UFC 245 im Dezember 2019 zu beobachten Amanda Nunes verteidigen Ihr bantamweight-Titel mit einem e…

With losses in three of his last four fights, Ronaldo Souza will attempt to right the ship when he faces Kevin Holland at UFC 256 on Dec. 12.

Competing as a non-ranked middleweight for the first time — according to UFC.com rankings — Souza was supposed to return to 185 pounds against Uriah Hall at UFC 249 in May, but “Jacare” tested positive for COVID-19 and the bout was canceled.

Then, the 40-year-old Brazilian was scheduled to face Marvin Vettori at UFC 256, while Holland was slated to meet Jack Hermansson at UFC on ESPN 19 on Saturday. But once Holland tested positive for COVID-19, the UFC rebooked Holland against “Jacare” on Dec. 12 and brought in Vettori to face Hermansson.

“Actually I offered myself to take revenge against Hermansson, but unfortunately he didn’t accept,” said Souza, who lost a five-round verdict against “The Joker” at UFC Fight Night 150 on April 27.

As a result of the new opponent, the multiple-time world jiu-jitsu champion had to a…

“Pode haver alguém que goste de luta tanto quanto eu, mais é impossível”. ROBERTO LEITÃO (última entrevista concedida pelo mestre) https://t.co/QtV5fXvynH pic.twitter.com/VhWltP7WBE

— marcelo alonso (@alonsopvt) November 29, 2020

COVID-19 has taken a victim from the combat sports world.

After 45 days of struggle in the hospital, master Roberto Leitao died due to the virus on Saturday at 83 years old in Rio de Janeiro. Master Leitao was the man who famously introduced ground skills to Marco Ruas, Pedro Rizzo, Gustavo Ximu, and Renato Sobral. 

Considered a master of the leglock and heel hook, master Leitao was passionate about training. In addition to being a 10th degree Luta Livre black belt, Leitao was also a judo black belt.

"There must be someone who likes fighting as much as I do, [but] more is totally impossible. Fighting is my addiction,” Leitao once said. 

Leitão was also a professor of mechanical engi…

After back-to-back lopsided losses to Glover Teixeira and Aleksandar Rakic to begin his 2020 campaign, Anthony Smith had lost much of the luster that surrounded the beginning of what has largely been a successful run at light heavyweight.

At UFC on ESPN 18, Smith secured a much-needed victory, as he submitted Devin Clark with a triangle choke 2:34 into Round 1 of their headlining bout at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday night. A third straight loss would have made Smith all but irrelevant in the UFC’s 205-pound division. Instead, “Lionheart” sent a message to UFC brass — and the right people were paying attention.

“He looked awesome,” UFC president Dana White said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “[He] came in to make a statement and message received.”

Smith and Clark were initially expected to square off in the evening’s co-main event before a positive COVID-19 test for Curtis Blaydes nixed his headlining heavyweight bout against Derrick Lewis o…

HEADKICK KO!!! @randycosta135 with a HUGE first round finish! #UFCVegas11 pic.twitter.com/tOVssMPhRp

— UFC Canada (@UFC_CA) September 19, 2020

Randy Costa will meet Trevin Jones at the UFC’s March 6 card.

MMAjunkie.com was first to report the bantamweight bout. A location and venue has not been announced for the event, which is also expected to include a light heavyweight showdown pitting Thiago Santos against Aleksandar Rakic.

After suffering a submission loss to Brandon Davis in his Octagon debut at UFC 236, Costa has authored back-to-back first-round stoppages of Boson Salmon and Journey Newson in his last two promotional outings. The 26-year-old Lauzon MMA representative is 6-1 as a professional, with all of his triumphs coming via KO or TKO.

Jones, meanwhile, had a memorable Octagon debut when he rallied to stop Timur Valiev in the second round of their UFC on ESPN 15 encounter on Aug. 22. However, the victory was overturned t…

A lightweight rematch pitting Beneil Dariush against Diego Ferreira is slated for the UFC’s Fight Night card on Super Bowl weekend.

ESPN was first to report the booking. The card is headlined by a heavyweight showdown between Alistair Overeem and Alexander Volkov and is expected to go down on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 6.

Dariush and Ferreira initially locked horns at UFC 179, with Dariush winning a unanimous verdict in October 2014. The 31-year-old Kings MMA product has been on a tear of late, winning his last five appearances within the Las Vegas-based promotion — including four inside the distance. In his most recent outing, Dariush knocked out Scott Holtzman with a spinning backfist at UFC Fight Night 174 on Aug. 8.

Ferreira, meanwhile, has been victorious in his last six UFC bouts. Most recently, the 35-year-old Fortis MMA product tapped out Anthony Pettis with a rear-naked choke at UFC 246 on Jan. 18.