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Jiří Procházka (24-3-1) is RIZIN's first light heavyweight champ, as he overwhelms a gassed King Mo in round three. "Denisa" avenges his last loss and boosts his win streak to eight. The Czech owns 23 finishes, 21 by knockout. #RIZIN15 #RIZINFF #RIZIN2019 pic.twitter.com/7xkhZGx2db

— Kyle Johnson (@VonPreux) April 21, 2019

For Jiri Prochazka, revenge was as good as gold at Rizin 15.

Prochazka became Rizin’s inaugural light heavyweight champion as he defeated Muhammed Lawal via third-round technical knockout in Sunday’s headliner at Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan. Prochazka overwhelmed a fading “King Mo” with a flurry of punches at the 3:02 mark of the final frame. Prochazka (24-3-1) avenged a first-round knockout loss to Lawal (21-9) in the finals of Rizin’s heavyweight grand prix in December 2015.

Lawal traded punches with Prochazka for much of the first two rounds, and his steady diet of right hands opened a cut over his opponent’s left…

Terence Crawford on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York left little doubt that he remains one of the best pound-for-pound fighters on the planet.

Crawford improved to 35-0 and scored his 26th knockout, as he tormented former world champion Amir Khan for five-plus rounds before prompting a stoppage in the sixth. “Bud” nearly had the Brit out in the first round, where he dropped him with a sizzling right-left combo to the head. However, he settled for a systematic beating before securing the win.

Crawford picked apart “King Khan” from inside and at a distance, busting up the Olympic gold medalist with nasty hooks to the body and thudding punches to the head. Khan never gave up trying to turn the fight in his favor, but the defending WBO welterweight champion wobbled him repeatedly, mostly with his vaunted right hook.

With the fight getting out hand in the sixth, the Omaha, Nebraska, native slammed a left uppercut into Khan’s nether region, which inevitably…

For a brief period of time in his UFC Fight Night 149 headlining bout against Alexey Oleynik, Alister Overeem was in danger. A single knee to the face changed everything.

Overeem (45-17) was pressured by “The Boa Constrictor” from the opening bell, when the Moscow native charged at him with a volley of punches to the head and body. Oleynik (57-12-1) appeared to rock the Dutchman with an overhand right to the head, and he never stopped heaving punches from everywhere. But even with Oleynik’s relentless charges, Overeem never worried.

“He was pressuring me,” Overeem said at the post-fight press conference. “He was putting a lot of energy in there. I don’t really stress easy, so, to me, a little pressure is okay. I was not stressing in there. I’ve had a lot of fights. Sometimes a fight can go wrong but [his punches] weren’t dangerous to me. My coaches didn’t like it, but I’m okay.”

Oleynik’s pressure and aggression eventually subsided, but that was only when one of …

Roxanne Modafferi was a moderate betting underdog heading into her featured flyweight title with previously-unbeaten Antonina Shevchenko on Saturday, but she came out of the skirmish triumphant.

Modafferi, one of the pioneers of women’s MMA, withstood quite a few clean punches to the face and several kicks to the legs and body from “Pantera” and stuck to her game plan. “The Happy Warrior” appeared to be rocked by a few punches from Shevchenko, a multiple-time world champion in muay Thai, but once the American was able to get inside, Shevchenko became the victim.

“The fight went how my coach said it would, so I listened to his game plan,” Modafferi said after her win. “I’m very proud of myself and this camp was special because I got to train for a southpaw.”

When Modafferi took the fight to the ground – which she did in every round – she controlled the pace and dominated Shevchenko. A practitioner of both judo and jiu-jitsu, Modafferi was unable to secure any subm…

You can sign up for a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream UFC on ESPN+ live on your computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app. In a pivotal matchup between heavyweight contenders, it was Alistair Overeem who reigned supreme in the main event of UFC Fight Night 149 on Saturday night in St. Petersburg, Russia. Overeem (45-17, 1 NC) appeared to play possum on multiple occasions in the contest as Alexey Oleynik hammered him with punches to the head and body routinely. A loopy overhand right to the head wobbled “The Demolition Man” early in the first round and Oleynik pounced.

“The Boa Constrictor” unleashed a tempest of punches while Overeem covered up, only to unfurl his trademark knees. This pattern continued for most of the stanza, with Overeem firing knees to the body with his back to the cage while the Russian teed off on him.

Finally, with Oleynik (57-12-1) fading from his massive punch output, Overeem tied him up and t…

You can sign up for a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream UFC on ESPN+ live on your computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship heads to St. Petersburg, Russia, for UFC Fight Night 149. The preliminary card airs on ESPN2 starting at 10 a.m. ET. Then the main card can be seen on ESPN+ at 1 p.m. ET. For Canadian viewers, the card airs in its entirety on UFC Fight Pass.

Check out the MMA Forums to discuss the card or enter your comments and predictions below.

Round 1 Sherdog Scores Adam Martin scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:John Brannigan scores the round:Round 2 Sherdog Scores Adam Martin scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:John Brannigan scores the round:Round 3 Sherdog Scores Adam Martin scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the round:John Brannigan scores the round:The Official Result Round 1 Sherdog Scores Adam Martin scores the round:Jay Pettry scores the rou…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eYrE58Q68c&w=560&h=315]

Every fighter made weight for the Ultimate Fighting Championship's second trip to Russia, where it will bring a card headlined by a heavyweight clash between Alistair Overeem and Alexey Oleynik.

Overeem hit the scales at 245 pounds, as he prepares to face Oleynik (237) in the UFC Fight Night 149 main event this Saturday at the Yubileyny Sports Complex in St. Petersburg, Russia. Co-headlining the card will be a lightweight scrap between Islam Makhachev (155) and the debuting Arman Tsarukyan (155), and all four made weight easily at Friday's early weigh-ins.

UFC Fight Night 149 "Overeem vs. Oleynik," also known as UFC on ESPN+ 7, airs live on ESPN+ and ESPN2 on Saturday, April 20 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. The event also features a heavyweight battle between Sergei Pavlovich (254) and Marcelo Golm (250). A pair of light heavyweights will square off, as the unbeaten Ivan Shtyrkov (206) makes his Octagon…

Less than a day before the fight, the Ultimate Fighting Championship appears to have lost a main card bout on its St. Petersburg event.

On his Instagram late Friday, Devin Clark (9-3) posted a video claiming his opponent Ivan Shtyrkov (16-0-1) has been hospitalized and their bout has been scratched. They were scheduled to fight in less than a day, at UFC Fight Night 149 on April 20 at the Yubileyny Sports Complex in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is extremely unlikely Clark will stay on the card.

Clark stated:

"Hey everyone, I just wanted to thank you all for your love and support, but unfortunately my fight here in Russia has been cancelled. My opponent, he got sick -- he's in the hospital now -- so yeah, unfortunately no fight tomorrow. But, I just…thank you so much for your love and support. It means a lot, and hopefully I'll get rescheduled soon, and on to the next one. Thank you guys, have a good night."

Clark was originally scheduled to face Abdul-Ker…

UFC flyweight Ray Borg announced via Twitter this week that he will retire from MMA “forever” if he is forced to miss a fight again due to weight issues or something that is within his control.

The 25-year-old who has been in the news a lot this past year as a result of his son’s well-documented health issues finally made his return to the Octagon late last month to face Casey Kenney at UFC Philadelphia. Borg, who has a history of withdrawing from fights due to a variety of reasons including bad weight cuts, missed weight again and forfeited 20 percent of his fight purse to Kenney. Borg went on to lose the fight against Kenney via unanimous decision and “The Tazmexican Devil” has vowed to change his lifestyle in order to prevent this type of thing happening again.

Borg posted the full statement via Twitter on Wednesday, stating that he would “leave the sport of MMA” if something within his control forces him off a card again. In the tweet, he tagged UFC President Dana …

So pissed off someone came over this morning I thought it was @usantidoping @USADA_UFC they took my blood and everything and come to find out these people went to the wrong house address and did not work for usada WTF!!!!!

— Dan Ige (@Dynamitedan808) April 18, 2019

A strange situation in the world of MMA developed this morning, when Ultimate Fighting Championship featherweight Dan Ige gave blood to a tester unaffiliated with the promotion or U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Ige posted on Twitter Thursday morning that he awoke at 6:30 a.m. to what he believed to be USADA coming to collect a sample. After giving blood, he found out they inadvertently came to the wrong house and were not USADA testers. He also put up a video on his Instagram page discussing the incident.

He posted a series of messages, saying:

"So pissed off someone came over this morning I thought it was @usantidoping @USADA_UFC they took my blood and everything and come to fi…

Markus Maluko enfrenta invicto Deron Winn no UFC Greenville, dia 22 de junho | combate | Sportv https://t.co/9TbYuOqSC4

— Raphael Marinho (@raphamarinho) April 18, 2019

Deron Winn is slated to make his much-anticipated Ultimate Fighting Championship debut this June, when he faces Markus Perez in the promotion's first jaunt to South Carolina.

According to Combate on Thursday, Winn (5-0) will be meeting Perez (11-2) at UFC Fight Night 153 on June 22 in Greenville, S.C. A longtime training partner of current heavyweight kingpin Daniel Cormier, the 29-year-old wrestler signed with the promotion last December.

Unbeaten as a professional, Winn most recently topped Tom Lawlor on the scorecards at Golden Boy MMA last November. That bout was the first in his career to go beyond the first round, with all four of his prior wins coming by first-round knockout. His 15 minutes in the cage with Lawlor accounted for well over double his combined MMA exper…

Yo, McTapper. You’re offered to fight @Justin_Gaethje, you going to man up and fight, or your soul still hurting from that ass whipping? Justin will take you to a different level of deep waters. @TheNotoriousMMA

— Ali Abdelaziz (@AliAbdelaziz00) April 17, 2019

Controversial manager Ali Abdelaziz is back in the spotlight, this time offering former lightweight champion Conor McGregor a fight against Justin Gaethje in a post on Twitter.

Abdelaziz and McGregor clearly don’t see eye-to-eye, with the feud going back several years and reaching a boiling point when the Irishman took on another of Abdelaziz’s fighters in Khabib Nurmagomedov who dominated McGregor in their lightweight title fight back at UFC 229 in October last year.

The bout was remembered more for the ugly post-fight brawl that took place inside and outside the Octagon immediately following the finish. While both McGregor and Nurmagomedov received lengthy suspensions for their par…

Angela Magana remains in a coma following surgery, but the former UFC competitor is showing some positive signs.

The fighter’s coach, Gabriel Lamastus, posted a video update via Magana’s Twitter account on Wednesday. Magana is in a coma at University Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico after ">complications from an emergency procedure on Tuesday morning.

“She’s been in observation all day long. She’s in a slow recovery. She’s been moving her hands and opening and closing her eyes. So we’re positive that she’s gonna get healthy soon,” Lamastus said.

“She had a nerve block and she went from that to surgery. The surgery went perfectly fine. But the anesthesia gave her a bad reaction. So she didn’t wake up from the anesthesia, which is something very rare. That’s where we’re at right now. She hasn’t wake up. the doctors are trying to reverse the medication and see if she’s responsive to it. “She’s been moving her hands, opening her eyes, wiggling her toes. So everyb…

A featherweight clash pitting Tywan Claxton against >James Bennett has been added to the Bellator 221 main card.

Sherdog.com recently confirmed the pairing with a promotion official. Additionally, former NCAA Division II national champion wrestler will square off against Matthew Paul in a middleweight bout on the preliminary draw. Bellator 221 takes place at Allstate Arena in Chicago on May 11 and is headlined by a lightweight title tilt between Michael Chandler and Patricio Freire. The main card airs on Paramount Network and DAZN.

Claxton has kicked off his professional career with four consecutive victories under the Bellator banner, including three by knockout or technical knockout. Most recently, “Speedy” stopped Kaeo Meyer via technical knockout 2:56 into the opening stanza at Bellator 212.

Bennett is 3-0 as a pro. He last appeared at Bellator 198, where he scored a TKO stoppage of Dustin Stusse in April 2018.

Cotton is 3-0 with the California-based…

Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Thiago Silva will lock horns with Martin Zawada at KSW 49.

The Polish promotion announced the light heavyweight pairing. KSW 49 takes place on May 18 at Ergo Arena in Gdansk, Poland and will see Michal Martela face Scott Askham for the vacant middleweight title, while Roberto Soldic defends the welterweight crown against Krystian Kaszubowski.

Silva, 36, is coming off a first-round submission loss to recent UFC signee Ivan Shtyrkov at Russian Cagefighting Championships 5 this past December. After a 12-fight stint in the Octagon, the Brazilian veteran has posted a 5-5 mark while competing for a number of different organizations.

Zawada last appeared at KSW 44 last June, when he suffered a second-round TKO loss to Materla. The 35-year-old German owns a 28-15-1 career mark since beginning his professional tenure in 2003.

Burt Watson, the man once dubbed as the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s “Babysitter to the Stars” by commentator Joe Rogan, is starting his own mixed martial arts promotion.

Watson announced on Tuesday that he will be holding events under the Burt Watson Promotions banner at South Florida’s “hottest venues” starting this spring. According to a release, “each fight card will showcase a wide array of professional talent from around the regional circuit, creating a platform for these athletes to build a local following as they climb the ladder in the world’s fastest growing sport.”

“I want to give fans a world-class product, and preparing each fighter for the bright lights of the next level is what I do,” said Watson, who spent 14 years working with the MMA elite as the site coordinator for the UFC. “The combination of competitive fights and great fan support is the only way to get that done, and I’m excited to start this new chapter.”

The first event will take place on J…

Scrambles, reversals, punches n bunches - round 1 has everything! #UFC236 pic.twitter.com/pgkyK8nUPD

— UFC (@ufc) April 14, 2019

The UFC 236 prelims attracted 893,000 viewers to ESPN, according to ShowBuzz Daily.

The figure is the lowest for a pay-per-view prelims on ESPN thus far. UFC 234 prelims drew 1.339 million viewers, while UFC 235 prelims attracted an audience of 1.48 million. The UFC 236 prelims drew 498,000 viewers in the 18 to 49 demographic and a 0.60 share on Saturday.

The preliminary card served as a lead-in to the UFC 236 pay-per-view, which was featured by an interim lightweight title bout between Dustin Poirier and Max Holloway and an interim middleweight title clash pitting Israel Adesanya against Kelvin Gastelum. It was the first pay-per-view available exclusively on ESPN+.

This particular preliminary card was light on star power, as Matt Frevola earned a unanimous verdict over Jalin Turner in the featured bout. Perh…

The stakes have been raised for Invicta FC’s upcoming strawweight tournament.

The all-female promotion announced Tuesday that it’s “Phoenix Rising” bracket will crown a new 115-pound champion on May 3. The strawweight belt was vacated when previous champion Virna Jandiroba signed with the UFC.

Four quarterfinal matchups were confirmed for the previously announced field: Mizuki Inoue vs. Sharon Jacobson; Janaisa Morandin vs. Brianna Van Buren; Danielle Taylor vs. Juliana Lima and Kailin Curran vs. Sunna Rannveig Davidsdottir. The entire tournament will take place over the course of one night.

In the event of injury, two reserve bouts were also revealed, as Amber Brown will meet Manjit Kolekar, while Alyssa Krahn will face Itzel Esquivel.

All quarterfinal and reserve bouts will consist of one five-minute round, with the fastest finisher getting the opportunity to choose her opponent from the other advancing fighters. Semifinals will also be one round, while t…

Bellator MMA has re-upped with a couple of its top prospects along with a veteran talent.

The California-based organization recently re-signed Tyrell Fortune, Romero Cotton and Sam Sicila to exclusive, multi-fight extensions, Sherdog.com learned from a promotion official. Exact terms of the contracts were not disclosed.

Fortune, a former NCAA Division II national champion wrestler, is unbeaten in six professional bouts, all of which have been contested under the Bellator banner. The 28-year-old Arizona Combat Sports heavyweight is coming off a first-round TKO of Ryan Pokryfky in his most recent outing at Bellator 216.

Cotton, meanwhile, is a three-time NCAA Division II national champion at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. The American Kickboxing Academy representative is 3-0 with Bellator, including a first-round TKO of Willie Whitehead at Bellator 204 last August.

Sicilia is the most experienced of the three re-signings. “The Ultimate Fighter 15” cas…

Bellator MMA has re-upped with a couple of its top prospects along with a veteran talent.

The California-based organization recently re-signed Tyrell Fortune, Romero Cotton and Sam Sicilia to exclusive, multi-fight extensions, Sherdog.com learned from a promotion official. Exact terms of the contracts were not disclosed.

Fortune, a former NCAA Division II national champion wrestler, is unbeaten in six professional bouts, all of which have been contested under the Bellator banner. The 28-year-old Arizona Combat Sports heavyweight is coming off a first-round TKO of Ryan Pokryfky in his most recent outing at Bellator 216.

Cotton, meanwhile, is a three-time NCAA Division II national champion at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. The American Kickboxing Academy representative is 3-0 with Bellator, including a first-round TKO of Willie Whitehead at Bellator 204 last August.

Sicilia is the most experienced of the three re-signings. “The Ultimate Fighter 15” ca…

Max Holloway and Kelvin Gastelum absorbed incredible amounts of punishment in their respective title bouts at UFC 236, and as a result, both are facing indefinite medical suspensions.

The Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission on Monday released a full list of medical suspensions from the event, which took place at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta this past Saturday night.

Holloway, who was battered and rocked repeatedly in a decision loss to Dustin Poirier in the evening’s headliner, is sidelined indefinitely pending CT scan results. At a minimum he will be out for 45 days. Poirier, the newly crowned interim lightweight champion, also received a 45-day sit.

Gastelum, meanwhile, also needs CT scan results to lift his indefinite suspension following a five-round loss to Israel Adesanya for the interim middleweight belt in the co-main event. Gastelum received a mandatory 60-day suspension, while Adesanya got a 45-day term.

Three fighters from the UFC 23…

UFC flyweight kingpin Henry Cejudo has claimed that he won’t be fighting T.J. Dillashaw again after the former bantamweight champion accepted a two-year ban for a positive drug test taken prior to their bout in January.

On March 20, Dillashaw announced that he would be relinquishing his bantamweight belt and just last week the New York State Athletic Commission suspended Dillashaw for one year as a result of the findings, before United States Anti-Doping Agency slapped him with a two-year ban for recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) use, retroactive from his fight against Cejudo on Jan. 19, 2019.

Cejudo was in attendance over the weekend for the UFC 236 card held in Atlanta, Georgia and said he wants nothing to do regarding a rematch again Dillashaw after news broke of the two-year suspension (via MMA Junkie):

“I’ll never fight him again, dude. And I’m not, it’s not like I’m scared or whatnot. I shook his hand, and, this is a sport. This isn’t baseball – you’re…

One good thing for Max Holloway is that even in defeat, he still has the UFC’s featherweight world championship.

Holloway (20-4) came up short for the interim lightweight belt on Saturday in the main event of UFC 236 in Atlanta, his 13-fight winning streak snapped. “Blessed” travelled through Hell against Dustin Poirier, losing a unanimous decision in what was a sensational, bloody war for the ages. Holloway was nearly knocked out in the first from multiple barrages of punches from Poirier, but the Hawaiian never gave up, never wilted under the pressure.

Holloway rallied in the fight and rocked “The Diamond” with his own punches, but the fan-favorite didn’t have quite enough firepower to keep the Louisiana native at bay and could never turn the tides in the duel. His face was busted up, lumped up and cut up, but he took his defeat in stride and gave praise to his conqueror.

“Life is chutes and ladders,” he tweeted on Sunday morning. “Sometimes we gotta take that …

Dustin Poirier was a slight betting underdog coming into his now-legendary battle with Max Holloway, and he cashed in on winning the main event of UFC 236 on Saturday with a performance of a lifetime.

Poirier nearly captured the UFC’s interim lightweight title a few moments into the fight when he clocked and rocked Holloway with a furious barrage of punches to the head. “The Diamond” had his foe on rubbery legs early and often in the first and it seemed like the Louisiana native was going to have an easy win. However, “Blessed” showed unbelievable grit and forced Poirier into a five-round war for the ages.

“It was a tough fight,” Poirier said after his triumph in Atlanta. “I might have won the first. Then he had me hurt, then I had him hurt. I was bleeding, he was bleeding. It was a high-level fight and that’s what fighting is. It hurts, it’s painful.”

Poirier had to survive later on in the duel, but he never wilted under the Hawaiian’s late pressure. “The Diamon…