Martial Arts News

The Ultimate Fighting Championship ended the year by handing out $50,000 “Performance of the Night” awards to Stephen Thompson, Rob Font, Marcin Tybura and Jimmy Flick for stellar efforts at UFC Fight Night 183.

Thompson led the way on Saturday night at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, as he used accurate straight punches, a variety of kicks and constant movement to earn a five-round verdict against Geoff Neal in the evening’s main event. It was the first appearance for “Wonderboy” since a triumph against Vicente Luque at UFC 244 in November 2019.

Elsewhere, Font also made an impressive return from a lengthy hiatus with a quick stoppage of former title challenger Marlon Moraes in a featured bantamweight encounter. A crisp jab from Font had Moraes stumbling backward, and he sent his foe to the canvas with an uppercut. From there, a barrage of powerful ground-and-pound brought an end to the bout 3:47 into Round 1.

Tybura survived a difficult opening stanza against Greg…

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. When Stephen Thompson fights at his pace and on his terms, he remains a sight to behold and one of the toughest outs in the sport. “Wonderboy” outstruck and outmaneuvered rising Fortis MMA star Geoff Neal across five rounds and kept his spot in line in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s welterweight division, as he was awarded a unanimous decision in the UFC Fight Night 183 headliner on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Thompson (16-4-1, 11-4-1 UFC) pitched a shutout, earning 50-45 scores from all three cageside judges.

Both men battled through serious cuts, the result of an inadvertent clash of heads in the first round. Neal (13-3, 5-1 UFC) had issues with the karateka’s movement and speed for much of the 25-minute confrontation, enjoying brief periods of success when he managed to close the distance. However, Thompson w…

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. Sherdog's live UFC Fight Night 183 coverage will begin Saturday at 4 p.m. ET. Check out the MMA Forums to discuss the card or enter your comments and predictions below. Round 1 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tyler Treese scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tyler Treese scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tyler Treese scores the round:The Official Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tyler Treese scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Tristen Critchfield scores the round:Tyler Treese scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Jay Pettry scores the round:Tristen Cri…

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.

Anthony Pettis will enter 2021 with some welcomed momentum in his back pocket.

The former World Extreme Cagefighting and Ultimate Fighting Championship titleholder overcame an inauspicious start, put some of his otherworldly skills to use and picked up a unanimous decision over Alex Morono in the featured UFC Fight Night 183 prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. All three judges sided with Pettis (24-10, 11-8 UFC), casting 29-28 scorecards in his favor.

Morono (18-7, 7-4 UFC) capitalized on an early slip in the first round, pounced on the Roufusport mainstay, progressed to the back and bloodied his nose in the process. Pettis withstood his efforts, called upon his deep reservoir of experience and took advantage of the one-minute respite between rounds. “Showtime” slowly seized control with superior strik…

GNP finish for Phil de Fries. And still KSW heavyweight champ #KSW57 pic.twitter.com/0MlJLc5ARn

— Will (@ChillemDafoe) December 19, 2020

Philip De Fries closed out Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki’s 2020 schedule with a dominant display against Michal Kita.

De Fries (19-6) retained his heavyweight crown with a technical knockout victory over Kita (20-12-1) in the KSW 57 headliner at Wytwornia Club in Lodz, Poland, on Saturday. Following an early sequence that saw “Masakra” catch De Fries with a couple of heavy combinations, “F-11” shifted gears and took his opponent down. De Fries punished the Polish fighter with many shots of ground-and-pound, and it didn’t take long before Kita’s face started bearing the marks of De Fries’ offense. At the end of the first stanza, the referee and the physician checked Kita’s condition very carefully, but the Polish fighter insisted on continuing.

In the second stanza, “F-11” immediately took his opponent to the …

Wonderboy, what is the secret of your powers?

@WonderboyMMA is 170lbs and our #UFCVegas17 main event is OFFICIAL. pic.twitter.com/nMumluhMyX

— UFC (@ufc) December 18, 2020 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 Ultimate Fighting Championship will put on its final event of 2020 on Saturday, and the weigh-ins went on without issue.

Hopefully, UFC Fight Night 183 will end the year on a high note. The card is main evented by a welterweight bout between former title challenger Stephen Thompson and a surging Geoff Neal. After the weigh-ins, the 12-fight card is now official as everyone made weight. Additionally, Dalcha Lungiambula weighed in at 185.5 pounds as a potential alternate.

“Wonderboy” rebounded from a surprising two-fight skid with a thrilling decision over Vicente Luque in his last appearance. It’s been a year sin…

So its official I am Covid-19 positive. And feel like hell

Posted by Paul Varelans on Saturday, December 12, 2020 Early Ultimate Fighting Championship vet Paul Varelans is currently engaged in the fight of his life.

Varelans first posted about his COVID-19 diagnosis on Facebook on Dec. 12, writing, “So its [sic] official I am COVID-19 positive. And feel like hell.”

The 6-foot-8 former UFC fighter struggled with the illness, writing on Dec. 13, “Best way I can compare the feel of COVID-19 in my experiance [sic] is it’s like fighting a guy who specializes in kidney punches they never stop coming.” The next day, he wrote, “Now for food pangs I’d kill for candied salmon WTF.” This was his last post, as he has since been hospitalized in Atlanta due to the illness.

Paul Varelans... (The Polar Bear)... has been diagnosed with Covid 19. He's on a ventilator and struggling. I urge everyone in the MMA world, to say a quick prayer for Paul. God speed...!!!<…

Love you guys

— Sergio DaSilva (@thesavage125) December 16, 2020 Sergio da Silva, a former Bellator MMA and Cage Fury Fighting Championships competitor, has died at age 34.

MyMMANews first reported the unfortunate news of da Silva’s passing on Friday. UFC lightweight and friend of da Silva Jared Gordon has since confirmed this Instagram. Da Silva's management team informed Sherdog on Friday that da Silva passed on Wednesday evening, and that the remainder of the details are being withheld out of respect to his family's privacy.

“(Insert generic caption of mental illness/addiction and other various reasons for why all your friends die and wish they had reached out first) f--- this world. Love you Sergio,” Gordon wrote on his Instagram page on Friday about da Silva.

Da Silva was convicted of third-degree robbery for holding up a bank in Queens, N.Y., in August 2017. Although initially found guilty by the jury, he was not sentenced to priso…

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. A huge bantamweight scrap is in the works for the 2021 Ultimate Fighting Championship card on Super Bowl weekend. According to ESPN on Friday, Cory Sandhagen (13-2) will be taking on Frankie Edgar (24-8-1) in the co-main event of the UFC Fight Night card on Feb. 6. That event is expected to take place at the Flash Forum on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Emirates. The two were originally paired against one another in January, but Edgar was pulled from that bout to remain at featherweight.

Sandhagen rebounded from a title eliminator defeat to Aljamain Sterling in June by knocking out Marlon Moraes with a rare spinning wheel kick in October. In doing so, he became the first fighter from below lightweight to notch this kind of knockout in company history. His defeat to Sterling before the Moraes knockout snapped an impressive seven…

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. UFC 256 took its toll on its competitors. According to promotional paperwork provided to mixedmartialarts.com on Friday, seven different Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters from the recent pay-per-view card face lengthy suspensions. Headlining the event was a flyweight championship affair, where Deiveson Figueiredo fought to a thrilling draw to retain his belt against Brandon Moreno. For their hard-fought battle that raged on for 25 minutes, both men are facing potential 180-day suspensions from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Figueiredo needs to get his broken toe and right bicep cleared, while Moreno sustained damage to his left shoulder and left forearm that also requires clearance.

Figueiredo and Moreno were not the only two fighters on the main card staring down the barrel of lengthy suspensions, as Tony Ferguson …

One Championship returned for its penultimate event in 2020 with the first part of One: Collision Course, which went down at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore, on Dec. 18.

What a way to finish! #ONECollisionCourse #WeAreONE #ONEChampionship pic.twitter.com/uyGveU7DzJ

— ONE Championship (@ONEChampionship) December 18, 2020 In the main event, Roman Kryklia notched his first title defense of his light heavyweight kickboxing belt at the end of a one-sided clash with Andrei Stoica. The Ukrainian champion took advantage of his longer reach to hit his Romanian opponent with stinging jabs and flying knees. Stoica attempted several times to answer with his highly regarded right hook, but Kryklia didn’t fall into the classical trap of “Mister KO.” In the fifth stanza, Kryklia accidentally headbutted his adversary, forcing the Romanian athlete to take a few minutes to recover. When the action resumed, the champion came close to finishing…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjK7tPTfev0&w=560&h=315] On Friday morning, Polish promotion KSW held the weigh-ins for its final event of 2020, and all three championship matches have been cleared.

The KSW 57 main event will feature Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Philip De Fries (18-6) putting his heavyweight championship on the line against Michal Kita (20-11-1). “F-11” is currently riding an impressive six-bout winning streak. In his last appearance, he edged fellow UFC alum Luis Henrique Barbosa de Oliveira by split decision at KSW 50. De Fries weighed in at 264 pounds when he stepped on the scales.

Kita earned his title shot by knocking out Michal Andryszak at KSW 54 in his return to the promotion in just under three minutes. The bout was a rematch from their 2017 meeting, where Andryszak tapped him out with an anaconda choke in 74 seconds. The heavyweight known as “Masakra” came in at a ready 235 pounds.

In the co-main event, KSW will crown a ne…