Martial Arts News

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. Colby Covington may be the most hated man in mixed martial arts, but more often than not, he backs up his bravado with his performance. High-volume striking, a stifling clinch, opportunistic takedowns and damaging ground-and-pound spurred the MMA Masters representative to a fifth-round injury stoppage of former Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight titleholder Tyron Woodley in the UFC Fight Night 178 headliner on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Having been thoroughly dominated for four-plus rounds, Woodley (19-6-1, 9-5-1 UFC) surrendered to an apparent rib injury 79 seconds into Round 5.

Covington (16-2, 11-2 UFC) turned on the afterburners in the fourth round, where he executed a high-crotch takedown and sliced open his former American Top Team stablemate with a slashing elbow. Blood gushed from the wound near Wo…

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 178 coverage will begin Saturday at 5 p.m. ET. Check out the MMA Forums to discuss the card or enter your comments and predictions below. Round 1 We begin the evening with a classic striker vs. grappler matchup in the bantamweight division, as the heavy-handed Hawaiian Nam (19-11, 1-2 UFC) welcomes recent Contender Series winner Rivera (10-2, 0-0 UFC) to the Octagon. Drawing the first assignment of the night is referee Chris Tognoni, and the two decide not to touch gloves to begin the 14-fight card. Rivera fakes a knee as he tries to jab his way in, but Nam does not fall for it and instead jabs back at him. Rivera scores a side kick to the torso as he switches stances a few times, while keeping Nam at bay with a front kick that just misses. Rivera gets a front kick in, and he misses another but slaps …

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Damon Jackson with sub No. in his UFC return.

[ Tune in - LIVE on #ESPNPlus ] pic.twitter.com/qD349adm0j — UFC (@ufc) September 19, 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.

Persistence was Damon Jackson’s strongest ally.

The Fortis MMA mainstay returned to the Ultimate Fighting Championship for the first time in nearly five years and did so with spectacular results, as he submitted Mirsad Bektic with a mounted guillotine choke in the third round of their UFC Fight Night 178 prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Bektic (13-4, 6-4 UFC) waved the white flag 1:21 into Round 3.

Jackson (18-3-1, 1-1-1 UFC) refused to be denied. Bektic largely dominated the first two rounds with takedowns, ground-and-pound and positional control. In response, Jackson employed an active submission game, thre…

“The Lion” once again reigns on the Absolute Championship Akhmat lightweight division.

The ACA 111 main event on Saturday in Russia pitted Abdul-Aziz Abdulvakhabov (18-2) against Alexander Sarnavskiy (37-8) for the 155-pound championship vacated by former titleholder Ali Bagov following his move to the welterweight division. Sarnavskiy started working Abdulvakhabov’s body early in the fight, and, for a while, it seemed the strategy was paying its dividends. Right before the end of the third round, Abdulvakhabov hit Sarnavskiy with a violent series of elbows that changed the fight’s direction.

Entering the championship rounds, Abdulvakhabov made the most out of his experience as former Absolute Championship Berkut champion, hunting his opponent across the cage with several vicious shots that transformed Sarnavskiy’s face into a bloody mask. During the last seconds of the fight, both fighters brawled and exchanged wild shots. Eventually, all five judges rewarded Abdulvakh…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has cut ties to “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 14 winner and two-time flyweight title challenger John Dodson. MMAFighting.com was first to report his release from the organization.

Dodson debuted in the UFC in 2011 and compiled a 10-6 record with the promotion during what was something of an uneven tenure marked be exhilarating highs and disappointing lows. The Jackson-Wink MMA mainstay twice fought for the flyweight crown, losing five-round decisions to an all-time great in Demetrious Johnson at UFC on Fox 6 and UFC 191. Dodson returned to the bantamweight division in April 2016 but lost five times in nine appearances at 135 pounds, never again regaining his championship-level footing. He last competed at UFC 252, where he wound up on the wrong side of a unanimous verdict against Merab Dvalishvili on Aug. 15.

Now 35, Dodson will carry a well-established reputation as one of MMA’s most durable fighters to his next destination. He has…

Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship has arguably made its highest profile acquisition.

On Friday, Fight Bananas first reported and a BKFC representative subsequently wrote that former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight king Frank Mir (19-13) has opted not to retire from combat sports. The 41-year-old recently became a free agent after his Bellator MMA contract ended, and he has reportedly elected to join the ranks of bare-knuckle boxing. He will become part of an organization with a roster that includes other ex-UFC names like Gabriel Gonzaga, Antonio Silva, Thiago Alves and Chris Leben, to name a few.

One of the most dangerous grapplers to ever set foot inside the Octagon, Mir left the promotion with eight submission wins on his ledger – good for the most in UFC heavyweight history. In Mir’s last eight victories, four came by knockout; this number accounts for 80 percent of his total victories due to strikes. On the other hand, Mir has been knocked out 10 time…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMzXRLXj2L8&w=560&h=315] Dazn is the exclusive streaming partner of Bellator MMA. You can sign up here and live stream 100+ fight nights a year. Legendary Dutch kickboxer Melvin Manhoef is not finished yet. On Friday morning, Bellator MMA revealed in a press release that Manhoef (32-14-1, 1 NC) will be taking on Simon Biyong (7-1) in a light heavyweight clash that will go down at the upcoming Bellator Paris card. In addition, the promotion announced a series of other matchups at the event, including multiple natives of France.

The last time he fought, former title challenger Manhoef smashed Yannick Bahati with a barrage of heavy ground-and-pound halfway through the first stanza. In his post-fight interview, the 44-year-old Dutch fighter was non-committal regarding his fighting future, but it seems that he has found the motivation to keep going.

Born in Cameroon but fighting out of Italy, Biyong makes his Bellator debut on a fou…

@ColbyCovMMA makes our main event official!

[ LIVE on #ESPNPlus ] pic.twitter.com/Sj5QelpVjk

— UFC (@ufc) September 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. It’s all systems go for the last Ultimate Fighting Championship card in Las Vegas for a while.

Heading to “Fight Island” next week, the UFC is going out with a bang with a jampacked card headlined by a pivotal welterweight bout between Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley. Both men former champs, the victor from the UFC Fight Night 178 main event will almost certainly cement themselves as a top contender once again. The 14-fight card is now official after the weigh-ins took place and everyone successfully made weight.

Covington (15-2) is coming off his first loss since 2015 as he came up short against current champion Kamaru Usman, who knocked “Chaos” out in Round …

Petchmorakot retains his ONE Featherweight Muay Thai World Championship belt with a third-round finish of Magnus Andersson! #WeAreONE #ONEChampionship pic.twitter.com/BEBmnOfBia

— ONE Championship (@ONEChampionship) September 18, 2020 If One: A New Breed 3 is any indication, it could be a great while until someone dethrones One Championship featherweight king Petchmorakot Petchyindee Academy.

The defending champion put his muay Thai title on the line for the third time since winning it in 2019 against Magnus Andersson, with the two vying for the strap in the tape-delayed main event that aired on Sept. 18. It did not take long for Petchmorakot to establish dominance over his Swedish opponent through his far superior striking skills. Petchmorakot dictated the pace of the match until he decided to put an end to it in the third stanza. The Thai fighter first landed a violent left hand that visibly shook Andersson. Even though the Swedish contend…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYVPUuVKLw8&w=560&h=315]

Alesha Zappitella channeled her inner Ovince St. Preux and gave a figurative nod to Jason Von Flue when Invicta Fighting Championships gold was on the line.

The 4-foot-11 Scorpion Fighting System standout dispatched Ashley Cummins with a shoulder choke in the fourth round of their Invicta 42 headliner, as she captured the promotion’s vacant atomweight title on Thursday at the Police Athletic League in Kansas City, Kansas. Submitted for the first time in her 13-fight career, Cummins (7-6, 4-6 Invicta) conceded defeat 1:20 into Round 4.

Zappitella (8-2, 5-1 Invicta) trudged through considerable difficulty across the first 10 minutes. Cummins flexed her superiority in the standup exchanges, staggered her counterpart more than once with thudding right hands and largely nullified her wrestling advances. However, the tide began to shift in Round 3, where Zappitella executed a takedown inside the first minut…

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 upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view card has undergone a sudden change on a preliminary match. On Thursday, Ludovit Klein (16-2) announced on his Instagram page that he will be making his promotional debut at UFC 253 on Sept. 26. MMA Junkie then reported that Klein will be stepping in for Nate Landwehr after Landwehr tested positive for COVID-19. Klein will be facing Shane Young (13-4) at featherweight on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

According to Klein, he would be the first fighter from Slovakia to ever compete inside the Octagon. Since a 2017 loss in Cage Warriors Fighting Championship, Klein has rattled off seven victories including six finishes. His last win came against former UFC vet Lukasz Sajewski, where Klein smashed Sajewski in under four minutes at an Oktagon MMA event in Feb…

What a story for Mohammad Fakhreddine! The new champion has knocked out Daniel Gaucho to capture the title!#BRAVECF41 pic.twitter.com/9VPdJ0YSGs

— BRAVE Combat Federation (@bravemmaf) September 17, 2020 The Brave Combat Federation middleweight division has a new kingpin after Brave CF 41.

The bill was headlined by a middleweight championship battle between the champion Daniel Souza Pereira (9-3) and mixed martial arts veteran Mohammad Fakhreddine (14-4, 1 NC). Both fighters put on a show for the fans watching the event as long as the bout – and the stream – lasted. "Gaucho" Pereira showed off his boxing skills matched by Fakhreddine’s kicks. In the first two rounds, it seemed that the challenger had the edge over the Brazilian champion as Pereira's leg started swelling up absorbing several heavy leg kicks. In the third stanza, "Gaucho" accidentally poked his opponent in the eye. The Lebanese fighter recovered from it soon enough, but it looked…