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Taylor Lapilus was not going to let anyone ruin his fairytale return to the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

A crisp jab, clean combinations and stout takedown defense carried the respected French bantamweight to a unanimous decision over the previously undefeated Caolan Loughran in the featured UFC Fight Night 226 prelim on Saturday at a raucous Accor Arena in Paris. In his first Octagon appearance since 2016, Lapilus (19-3, 4-1 UFC) carried all three cards with 29-28 scores.

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Loughran (8-1, 0-1 UFC) had considerable difficulty navigating a five-inch reach deficit. The former Cage Warriors Fighting Championship titleholder secured takedowns in the first and second rounds, only to see avenues to create offense dry up in a hurry. Lapilus stayed upright enough to handle business, firing away with jabs and surgical left hands to cruise to the checkered flag.

Meanwhile, Kill Cliff Fight Club rep Ange Loosa banked two rounds and held on for a unanimous …

[embedded content] No matter where he competes, Demetrious Johnson always seems to excel.

On Thursday in Las Vegas, the 2023 World Jiu-Jitsu IBJJF Championship kicked off, and Johnson was among its numerous competitors. The former Ultimate Fighting Championship great and current One Championship titleholder entered into the featherweight category of 154.6 pounds at the Master 2 division for brown belts. Four brackets needed to be established for the 38 men that took part in this specific tourney, and over the course of the day, Johnson won out to stand atop the pedestal.

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Johnson, who entered as a low 36 seed, started off his branch of the tournament by running the table in the second bracket. His first match came against Lukas Cherep, and the AMC Pankration fighter pulled off the win. A mere 15 minutes later, “Mighty Mouse” faced the overall no. 1 seed, Josue Lopez, and he was not denied the victory. A subsequent armbar over Walter Diaz propelled him…

Bon Gamin looking good on the scale 💪@Ciryl_Gane comes in at 250 pounds to make this #UFCParis main event official!

[ Saturday | 3pmET / 12pmPT Main Card | Live on ESPN+ ] pic.twitter.com/F5EX60L59F

— UFC (@ufc) September 1, 2023 The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to Paris with an intriguing heavyweight headliner.

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The UFC Fight Night 226 main event will see former interim heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane return to the Octagon against Segey Spivak. Spivak will be the heavier fighter by six pounds. No fighters missed weight for the 11-fight card.

Gane (11-2) is looking to rebound from a one-sided defeat against Jon Jones that saw "Bon Gamin" submitted in just 2:04. The dangerous striker weighed 250 pounds. Meanwhile, Spivak (16-3) is on a three-fight win streak that saw him most recently submit Derrick Lewis with an arm-triangle choke. The Moldovan fighter weighed 256 pounds.

UFC Fight Night 226 will air …

When it comes to main events involving Jon Jones, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is leaving nothing to chance.

Prior to UFC 285 this past March, the promotion made certain it had a top contender available to make weight and compete should Jones or Ciryl Gane fall out of their main attraction. That fighter was Sergei Pavlovich, and he hit his proper marks and ended up watching from the stands the next day. First reported by Igor Lazorin, the organization is doing this for Jones’ next title tilt atop UFC 295, and Pavlovich (18-1) is once again the man on standby. This news has since been confirmed by multiple outlets.

Russia’s Pavlovich last competed in April, where he decimated Curtis Blaydes in just over three minutes to put himself in the top echelon of the heavyweight division. Pavlovich’s lone career defeat came in his UFC debut to Alistair Overeem back in 2018. Since then, Pavlovich has crushed the competition, stringing together six consecutive first-round …

Dropping a quick excerpt from Monday’s @MMAOnSiriusXM podcast to give everyone an update on my 🦵.

If you want the full story (and all the 🫖), hit that link below and check out the full episode on @SiriusXM!🎧 https://t.co/OuEwonYM3z pic.twitter.com/TsBqm3tEfK

— Chris Weidman (@chrisweidman) August 30, 2023

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Chris Weidman didn’t emerge unscathed from his first mixed martial arts bout in more than two years — but it’s not as bad as initially expected.

The former middleweight champion revealed on his Sirius XM show that he suffered a fracture in his left leg during a unanimous decision loss to Brad Tavares at UFC 292 on Aug. 19. That comes on the heels a gruesomely broken right leg in a loss to Uriah Hall at UFC 261 in April 2021.

“I got MRIs done on my tibia and fibula on both legs, got MRIs on both of my knees, X-rays, and I’ve been waiting for a result – and I got the results back. There was no ligament tears at all…

After facing adaptation problems in Abu Dhabi for his fight against Israel Adesanya in September 2020, Paulo Costa has a different schedule for his upcoming bout against Khamzat Chimaev in the same city at UFC 294 on Oct. 21.

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In an interview on the Thunder Voice podcast, the Brazilian fighter stated that he intends to arrive in the United Arab Emirates almost two months prior to the fight for acclimatization and adjustment.

"We want to go to Abu Dhabi at the end of August or the beginning of September, nearly 50 days before the event. We'll be there with everything we need," said Costa, who in 2020 famously resorted to wine to help him sleep before the fight against Adesanya at UFC 253.

Always active on social media, “Borrachinha” fired back at Gilbert "Durinho" Burns, who had expressed doubts in an interview about whether his fellow Brazilian had signed an unprecedented million-dollar contract with the UFC.

"Durinho is limited! He doe…

Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 226 lineup has undergone some shuffling.

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The Las Vegas-based promotion announced on Wednesday that Muin Gafurov has withdrawn from a proposed clash with Taylor Lapilus due to visa issues, while Lucas Almeida has pulled out of a bout against William Gomis due to a “medical issue.”

As a result, Lapilus will now face Caolan Loughran at bantamweight, and Gomis will lock horns with Yanis Ghemmouri at featherweight. Loughran and Ghemmouri will originally slated to meet at 135 pounds at UFC Paris.

Lapilus, who previously won three of four Octagon appearances from 2015 to 2016, returns to the UFC riding the momentum of a five-bout winning streak. A four-time Cage Warriors veteran, Loughran enteres his first promotional foray with an 8-0 mark.

Gomis has won 10 straight outings, kicking off his UFC tenure with back-to-back triumphs against Jarno Errens and Francis Marshall. Ghemmouri, a veteran of the Brave Combat Fede…

A lightweight clash pitting Mansour Barnaoui against Jay-Jay Wilson is among six new additions to the Bellator 299 lineup.

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The California-based promotion announced the finalized card — up to a whopping 21 fights — on Wednesday. Bellator 299 takes place on Sept. 23 at the 3Arena in Dublin and is headlined by a middleweight championship tilt between Johnny Eblen and Fabian Edwards. The main card airs in the United States on Showtime at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT, while prelims stream on the Bellator YouTube channel and Pluto TV at 11 a.m. ET/8 p.m. PT.

The other five newly-announced bouts are as follows: Luca Poclit vs. Roman Faraldo at welterweight; Asael Adjoudj vs. Ibrahim Al-Faqih Hassan at featherweight; Khasan Magomedsharipov vs. Martin McDonough; Davy Gallon vs. Attila Korkmaz at lightweight and Sergei Bilostennyi vs. Kasim Aras at heavyweight.

A former lightweight champion in BAMMA, M-1 Global and Road FC, Barnaoui is 1-1 under the Bellator b…

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗧𝗢𝗚𝗘𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 ⬆️🌎

𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 about the game changing deal between the PFL and @srjsports 👇 pic.twitter.com/P2osh5SFl7

— PFL (@PFLMMA) August 30, 2023

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Professional Fighters League has partnered with SRJ Sports Investments for an investment agreement that will assist with the organization’s goals of global expansion.

According to a release, SRJ has acquired a minority stake in PFL and will become an investor in a new regional league set to launch in 2024 — called PFL MENA (Middle East and North Africa). SRJ will also support the PFL’s expansion in the Middle East and collaborate with the league to host PFL pay-per-view events in Saudi Arabia.

“PFL’s mission is to become the global co-leader in MMA with our fighter-first mission and disruptive sport-season format,” said PFL Founder and Chairman Donn Davis. “This investment by SRJ continues the monumental growth that PFL has experienced t…

【DAZN × K-1】

K-1とQUINTETがスポーツ・チャンネル「DAZN」において、世界200以上の国と地域でライブ配信決定！配信第1弾は9.10『ReBOOT』

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世界を見据え動き出した、K-1の熱い戦いをぜひ『DAZN』でお楽しみください！

詳細▷https://t.co/m80GhCnJWNチケット▷https://t.co/oS4stLWkIp#k1wgp pic.twitter.com/6iaO17Ibs6

— K-1【Official Account】 (@k1wgp_pr) August 30, 2023 A joint event launched by fight promotion K-1 and grappling organization Quintet will stream via DAZN on Sept. 10.

According to a release: “M-1 Sports Media K.K. and Rabarland, Inc., the companies that respectively organize the striking martial arts event K-1 and the grappling tournament QUINTET, recently signed a capital and business alliance aimed at global expansion. As the first step in this ambitious initiative, the two companies have agreed to align with DAZN, the world's largest sports streaming service. With the strong backing of DAZN as a media partner, they ai…

Strawweight champion Weili Zhang was dominant at UFC 292, and she was also the event’s top earner.

Zhang took home a disclosed $520,000 for her unanimous decision over Amanda Lemos ($250,000) in the co-main event at the TD Garden in Boston on Aug. 19. Salary figures for the event were initially released through the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Licensure to MMAFighting.com.

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Sean O’Malley defeated Aljamain Sterling via first-round technical knockout to claim the bantamweight crown in the evening’s headliner. Both O'Malley and Sterling earned $500,000 apiece for the bout — second highest on the card behind Zhang.

Note: The disclosed purses reported by state athletic commissions do not include any performance-based or discretionary bonuses that may be awarded to a fighter by the promotion. Additionally, the reported figures do not reflect any deductions made by the commission for taxes, insurance, etc., and do not include any sponsorship mone…

Jon Jones believes the masses are underestimating Stipe Miocic heading into their heavyweight title bout at UFC 295.

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Miocic has not fought since March 2021, when he relinquished the heavyweight crown to Francis Ngannou in a second-round knockout loss at UFC 260. That layoff, along with Miocic’s age — he recently turned 41 — make him the underdog against Jones, who claimed the vacant strap with a quick submission of Ciryl Gane at UFC 285.

“Stipe has balls. He has courage,” Jones said on the OverDogs podcast podcast. “He’s not the youngest fighter, but that is a man. That is a man. I’m not the youngest either. In sports’ years, I’m over the hill, that’s for sure. Especially in combat sports. Stipe, he’s an honorable dude, and I know that he’s a man at the end of the day, and I know that he wants this fight. Everyone else thinks that his back’s against the wall and this is a David and Goliath situation for him. I disagree.

“I think Stipe is a ve…

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Francis Ngannou has been thinking about a potential fight against boxing champion Tyson Fury for quite some time now.

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“I’ve been studying him for the past three years,” Ngannou said in a recent interview with TMZ Sports. “I’ve been to some of his fights.”

The former UFC champion will get to test his skills against Fury when they square off in a boxing match on Oct. 28 in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia. Ngannou has notably been working with Mike Tyson in preparation for the bout.

“I think my feet [are] the most [improved],” Ngannou said. “All the footwork, that power transition. I think that’s been very amazing.”

Fury was dismissive of that relationship in a post on social media.

“It’s good to see you’re training hard [Francis Ngannou], and you’re going to need to,” Fury wrote. “It doesn’t matter if you’re being trained by the great Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali or Bruce Lee. You’re going to get KO’d in the Kingdom.”

Ngannou is…

Newly UFC bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley has been called out by another recently-crowned champion in the promotion.

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In a post on Instagram, UFC flyweight king Alexandre Pantoja asked his followers who should be his next opponent. One of the suggested names was O’Malley, who captured the 135-pound belt with a first-round knockout of Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292 on Aug. 19. Pantoja agreed that a champion vs. champion clash would be interesting while implying that he got the better of “Sugar” during a past training session.”

"There's something I really want: to fight this guy (O'Malley). I desire to move up one weight class to fight Sugar Sean O'Malley. He talks too much, talks a lot of trash,” Pantoja said. “I trained with him once, he recorded the sparring, but he never sent me the video. You know why.”

It didn’t take long for O’Malley to respond via social media.

"It's definitely not cool to call out people below you in weight,” O’…

A middleweight showdown pitting Brendan Allen against Paul Craig will serve as the main event for an Ultimate Fighting Championship card on Nov. 18.

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The promotion announced the pairing on Tuesday. UFC Fight Night takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and also includes a strawweight clash between Amanda Ribas and Luana Pinheiro.

Allen has gone 10-2 within the Las Vegas-based organization since appearing on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2019. He enters the matchup with Craig on a five-bout winning streak, with back-to-back submission wins over Andre Muniz and Bruno Silva thus far in 2023. The former Legacy Fighting Alliance champion is 22-5 as a professional and has finished 18 of his victories inside the distance.

Craig, meanwhile, made a successful 185-pound debut on July 22, when he defeated Muniz via second-round TKO at UFC Fight Night 224. Prior to that, the 35-year-old Scot went 8-6-1 at light heavyweight in the Octagon, earning not…

Carlos Prates could not have envisioned a cleaner performance.

The Phuket Top Team product was one of three hopefuls to nail down an Ultimate Fighting Championship contract during Week 4 of Dana White’s Contender Series, as he punched out Mitch Ramirez in the second round of their welterweight showcase on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Prates (17-6, 1-0 DWCS) slammed the door 74 seconds into Round 2.

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Ramirez (7-1, 0-1 DWCS) was simply out of his depth and enjoyed little success outside of a first-round takedown. Prates picked apart the Syndicate MMA export with surgical combinations, utilizing everything from leg kicks and body kicks to close-range knees and devastating straight-line punches. He continued to wear out Ramirez in the middle stanza and eventually stepped into a searing left hand that sat him down and led referee Jason Herzog to call for the stoppage.

Lightweight Bolaji Oki and heavyweight Thomas Petersen joined Prates to comp…

Sherdog’s coverage of DWCS 2023, Week 4 will begin Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. Round 1 Sherdog Scores Round 2 Sherdog Scores Round 3 Sherdog Scores The Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Round 2 Sherdog Scores Round 3 Sherdog Scores The Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Round 2 Sherdog Scores Round 3 Sherdog Scores The Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Round 2 Sherdog Scores Round 3 Sherdog Scores The Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Round 2 Sherdog Scores Round 3 Sherdog Scores The Result

Joseph Pyfer will lock horns with Abdul Razak Alhassan in a middleweight bout at an UFC Fighting Championship event on Oct. 7

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Pyfer initially announced the pairing on social media, and it was later confirmed by MMAjunkie.com. UFC Fight Night is expected to take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. A headliner has not been confirmed.

Pyfer has impressed since earning a contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2022, as he’s scored back-to-back first-round knockouts of Alen Amedovski and Gerald Meerschaert in his first two UFC appearances. Pyfer ahs won four straight fights overall, all via KO or TKO.

Alhassan, meanwhile, has been victorious in two of his last three UFC bouts. Most recently, “Judo Thunder” knocked out Claudio Ribeiro in the second round of their clash at UFC Fight Night 217 on Jan. 14. All 12 of Alhassan’s professional wins — including six in the UFC — have come via KO or TKO.

Amanda Ribas will square off against Luana Pinheiro in a strawweight clash at UFC Fight Night on Nov. 18 on Nov. 18.

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Combate was first to report the booking. UFC Fight Night takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and does not yet have a confirmed headliner.

Ribas is returning to 115 pounds following a 1-2 stint at flyweight, where she bested Viviane Araujo but lost bouts to Maycee Barber and Katlyn Chookagian. The 30-year-old Brazilian began her Octagon tenure with victories in five of her first six appearances.

A competitor on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2020, Pinheiro has kicked off her UFC career with three consecutive triumphs. Most recently, the Nova Uniao representative garnered a split decision win over former Invicta FC champ Michelle Waterson at UFC 287.

Welcome to Karate Combat @smilensam!!

With a background in karate, Sam has always been a fan favourite and is known to throw down. He will make his debut in the Pit on September 16th in the Dominican Republic. 🥋 pic.twitter.com/VQwHipLP2s

— Karate Combat (@KarateCombat) August 28, 2023

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Longtime Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Sam Alvey has a new combat sports home.

Karate Combat, a full contact striking league with eight weight classes, announced on Monday that Alvey has signed with the organization for a Sept. 16 debut in the Dominican Republic. An opponent was not revealed.

“With a background in karate, Sam has always been a fan favorite and is known to throw down,” read a statement from Karate Combat on social media.

Alvey famously exited the UFC following an 0-8-1 streak that lasted from September 2018 until August 2022. Overall, “Smile’n Sam” went 10-13-1 in the Las Vegas-based promotion with not…

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After Stephen Thompson declined to face an overweight Michel Pereira at UFC 291, the promotion offered him another opponent a little more than a month later.

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On his YouTube channel, “Wonderboy” recently revealed that he was given the chance to face Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 293 in Sydney on Sept. 9. However, since he was just coming off a lengthy training camp in preparation for Pereira, the six-week turnaround was too much.

“This is literally the weekend of UFC 291, but UFC comes to me and was like, ‘Hey, how about you fight JDM in Australia?’ I was like, ‘No, too soon,’” Thompson said. “You know, I’ve been training since April. So my training camp has been wearing me down, want to heal up from that. So I told them no.

“And they were like, ‘OK, well, how about fighting the following weekend in Vegas?’ I was like, ‘Man, still too soon again.’ My body’s broken down. I want to be able to heal back up, but not only that, JDM is…

All 10 fighters slated to compete on Week 4 of Dana White’s Contender Series made weight on Monday.

The Contender Series takes place on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and features a welterweight clash pitting Mitch Ramirez (171) against Carlos Prates (170). The card airs on ESPN+ beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

Ramirez has kicked off his professional tenure with seven consecutive triumphs. Most recently, the Syndicate MMA product defeated Bellator MMA veteran via second-round technical knockout at XMMA 6 “Bash at the Beach” on May 3. All but one of his victories have come inside the distance.

The 30-year-old Prates enters the matchup with a 16-6 career mark. The Phuket Top Team-trained Brazilian has won his last six outings and is coming off back-to-back first-round KO triumphs under the Legacy Fighting Alliance banner.

Contender Series Weigh-in Results:Mitch Ramirez (171) vs. Carlos Prates (170)Yousri Belgaroui (186) vs. Marco Tulio Silva Costa (185.…

Gladiators Return to the Arena ⚔️ #FNC12 this Saturday | Pula Arena 🇭🇷 pic.twitter.com/t0nuX1WqPp

— FNC (@FNCmma) August 28, 2023

In the ongoing feud between billionaire tech moguls, Elon Musk has floated the idea about fighting Mark Zuckerberg at the Colosseum in Rome. Fight Nation Championship, the largest mixed martial arts promotion in Croatia and the Balkans, is taking that notion one step further – albeit at a different location.

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FNC 12 will take place on Saturday at Pula Arena, an ancient amphitheater built some 2,000 years ago by the Romans, who used it for ancient gladiatorial battles. The arena is located in the Croatian coastal town of Pula and is one of the few amphitheaters of its kind remaining in the world.

FNC is headlined by a heavyweight title clash between Ivan Vitasovic and Michal Andryszak, while Matej Batinic will square off against Gadzhimurad Khebdeev for the promotion’s inaugural light heavywei…

After more than a year-and-a-half on the sidelines, Giga Chikadze made a successful return to the Octagon at UFC Fight Night 225.

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The 35-year-old Kings MMA product engaged in a back-and-forth standup battle with Alex Caceres, eventually emerging with a unanimous decision triumph in their featured featherweight clash at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore, on Saturday. It was Chikadze’s first bout since dropping a five-round verdict to Calvin Kattar in the UFC on ESPN 32 headliner on Jan. 15, 2022.

“It feels so great. I can’t even explain,” Chikadze said in a post-fight interview with the UFC. “It’s been a pretty long time, and I felt like I was without a job. Finally I got my dream job back, and I haven’t been so happy for a long time. So finally, we’re back baby … It’s been 15 minutes, and I feel like every second I looked great, and I’m pretty happy after one-and-a-half year layoff with my performance.”

Caceres was competitive th…