The UFC’s year of shuffling around main events continued Friday as the promotion learned former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar tore his left biceps, forcing him to withdraw from the company’s 25th anniversary show in Denver, CO, on November 10th.
Stepping in for Edgar to face the “Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung on the FS1 show is Yair Rodriguez.
ESPN’s Brett Okamoto first reported the news. His colleague Ariel Helwani reported that Edgar will not require surgery and wants to return early next year.
The 26-year old Rodriguez (10-2) was briefly cut by the organization this year due to issues with management, but resolved his problems with the promotion a few weeks later. He has been inactive since May 2017 when he lost a one-sided fight to Edgar and was supposed to fight Zabit Magomedsharipov in September but had to withdraw due to injury.
Jung (14-4) has been out since February 2017 after a near four-year layoff. Once a big fan favorite for his fighting style, he suffered a major knee injury as well as military service that kept him relatively inactive over the past five years.
The rest of the card features Donald Cerrone vs. Mike Perry, Raquel Pennington vs. Germaine de Randamie, Joe Benavidez vs. Ray Borg, and more.
The fallout of the UFC 229 post-main event melee continued to play out at today’s Nevada State Athletic Commission hearing.
After Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor were given 10-day suspensions as a formality leading into today’s hearing, the commission voted to extend their temporary suspensions. The suspensions were extended through the resolution of the NSAC’s investigation.
The NSAC also voted to release half of Nurmagomedov’s $2 million disclosed purse to Nurmagomedov. The entire disclosed purse, which is only a portion of what Nurmagomedov will be paid for his fight against McGregor at UFC 229, had been withheld by the commission.
Nurmagomedov and McGregor will need to attend a disciplinary hearing that’s scheduled for December, where the situation may be resolved.
McGregor’s manager Audie Attar released a statement today: “I understand that the Nevada State Athletic Commission is doing a thorough investigation, which I am confident will benefit my client, Conor McGregor.”
While free agency has grown in importance in mixed martial arts, the concept of a trade between organizations has never fully made sense because of competition and logistics.
But in the current ‘anything is possible’ era of sports entertainment, a report Wednesday has the UFC and Asia’s ONE Fighting Championship discussing a historic trade that would send former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson to ONE for former Bellator champion and currently retired Ben Askren.
Citing multiple sources, ESPN’s Ariel Helwani reported the news that was first discussed on MMA Junkie Radio. He said that a deal is on the table, but that nothing has been finalized. It’s unknown as of this time who proposed what and when.
Johnson (pictured) recently saw his historic run as champion ended at the hands of Henry Cejudo, and has been at odds with UFC president Dana White over the last two years on how he’s promoted and his relationship with the organization. He’s been in the UFC since 2011 following the WEC merger.
His head coach Matt Hume is VP of Operations for ONE, so, if a deal was done, that conflict of interest would need to be resolved.
Askren has also been at odds with White over the years, but has never competed in the UFC. After the undefeated welterweight split with Bellator near the end of the Bjorn Rebney era, he went to ONE in May 2014 and went unbeaten in six fights, retiring in November 2017. On social media, the possibility of Askren in UFC increased this year but he still is under contract with ONE.
ONE recently made waves with the signing of former UFC and Bellator champion Eddie Alvarez and while the promotion doesn’t have a firm presence in the U.S., moves like these would perhaps indicate something bigger on the horizon.
Longtime pro wrestling fan Daniel Cormier might fight a former WWE champion in the future and also might call one of his matches one day as well.
During a 35-minute media session to promote his upcoming UFC 230 heavyweight title defense, the 39-year-old admitted that the short notice fight pushed back a planned WWE commentary tryout at the company’s Performance Center in Orlando, FL.
Besides being a two division champion in UFC, Cormier also co-hosts UFC Tonight on FS1 and is a frequent member of the broadcast booth for various UFC events. He is also an unabashed pro wrestling fan and even got into it with the Young Bucks on Twitter this year over spots in a match.
Cormier said he has been talking to WWE because “they wanted me to go in and do an audition as a member of the commentary team. That was my private little thing. But because of the fight, I had to push it back. So there might be some DC in WWE sh*t coming.”
Cormier said that after his fight with Derrick Lewis in a few weeks at Madison Square Garden, he’ll do the tryout but is still planning to finish out his UFC in-ring career and will “never not leave the UFC” in his current on-screen roles. He said he wants to hear Vince McMahon yelling in his ear on the headset telling him what to say as he “freaks out” about the in-ring action.
He joked that if he was to face Brock Lesnar in the ring, he wouldn’t do the job. Cormier is expected to face either Lesnar or Jon Jones in his final career fight if he can win at UFC 230.
To watch the whole session, check out the video below, queued up to when he talks about WWE:
Curses might not be real, but the UFC’s attempt to put on a big event at Madison Square Garden in a few weeks feels like it has cosmic forces working against it.
In the latest bit of bad news for UFC 230 on Saturday, November 3rd, Luke Rockhold is out of his co-main event rematch with Chris Weidman with an injury according to ESPN’s Brett Okamoto. He said the promotion is shuffling things around, presumably to keep Weidman, a New York native, for the event. UFC has yet to formally announce any change.
ESPN’s Ariel Helwani confirmed the news, adding Rockhold is dealing with a right knee sprain, left shin infection, and a broken nose, but hopes to be ready to return in four weeks. He added the hope is to rebook Weidman against former title challenger Jacare Souza who is set to fight David Branch on the show.
The UFC’s third effort in “The World’s Most Famous Arena” has had a number of setbacks starting with their effort to book a main event. After months of speculation, they originally were going to go with Valentina Shevchenko vs. Sijara Eubanks for the vacant women’s flyweight title, a fight that was roundly panned when first broken.
They then turned to double champion Daniel Cormier, still recovering from a broken finger, against Derrick Lewis, he fresh off a come from behind win several weeks ago at UFC 229.
Fan sentiment was around the creation of a 165-pound title for a main event of previous co-main eventers Dustin Poirier and the returning Nate Diaz. But, Dana White wasn’t interested in that, nor making Diaz-Poirer the main event. Then, Poirier had to drop out of the fight altogether due to an injury.
The 34-year-old Rockhold is coming off a February knockout loss to Yoel Romero while Weidman is coming off a win over Kelvin Gastelum in July 2017.
In an interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier intimated that his planned fight with former UFC heavyweight champion and WWE star Brock Lesnar might not happen after all.
Cormier has been very vocal about his plans to retire in 2019 before he turns 40. Cormier mentioned that he still plans on fighting just two more times with his short notice heavyweight title defense against Derrick Lewis coming up in November counting one of them.
If he retains his title on November 3rd at Madison Square Garden, Cormier said he’ll have his choice of Lesnar or the winner of the Jon Jones-Alexander Gustafsson rematch that will close out UFC’s 2018. The Jones-Gustafsson fight will be for the soon-to-be stripped light heavyweight title that Cormier currently holds.
Cormier said that the Jones fight would matter to him more because Jones has beaten him twice and continues to be a rival for him. However, he feels the Lesnar fight would be better for him financially.
“I think I would always pick the one that means more, but my wife might have something to say about that,” he told Okamoto.
If Gustafsson wins, that opens up the possibility of a rematch of a fight that was one of the best of 2015. However, given what Cormier has said, that seems unlikely.
Cormier told Lange Pugmire of the LA Times that UFC more than doubled what he made for beating Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title in July, making the decision a lot easier for him to take the fight. He declined to fight Miocic on short notice and preferred Lewis because he feels there’s only one way for Lewis to win: via knockout.
The UFC lightweight champion isn’t happy with his employers and told the world about it Thursday.
Fresh off his fourth round submission win over Conor McGregor and the subsequent post-fight melee at Saturday’s UFC 229, Khabib Nurmagomedov threatened to leave UFC if they cut his teammate.
The fighter in question is Zubaira Tukhugov, a UFC featherweight who is scheduled to face McGregor teammate Artem Lobov at the UFC Moncton, Canada, event in just a few weeks. He was part of the post-fight brawl in which Nurmagomedov left the cage in an attempt to fight McGregor teammate Dillon Danis, an altercation that spilled over into the cage as well.
After the show, Dana White said that any of Nurmagomedov’s teammates involved would be done with the UFC, but they have yet to announce any releases or other sanctions.
Jon Jones’ return to the Octagon appears to be officially set.
ESPN’s Ariel Helwani reported this afternoon that Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson is a “done deal” for UFC 232 in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 29. It will be for the UFC light heavyweight championship, with Daniel Cormier being stripped of the title as soon as the fight starts.
It was reported at the end of September that the UFC was trying to make Jones vs. Gustafsson for UFC 232, and Cormier had said he expected to be stripped of the light heavyweight title. Cormier will defend his heavyweight championship against Derrick Lewis in the main event of UFC 230 at Madison Square Garden on November 3.
This will be the second time Jones and Gustafsson have faced each other in their careers. In what’s considered to be one of the best fights in UFC history, Jones defeated Gustafsson by unanimous decision in September 2013.
Last month, USADA announced that Jones would be eligible to return on October 28 of this year. Jones received a 15-month suspension that’s retroactive to when he tested positive for Turinabol on July 28, 2017. That test was taken the day before his fight against Cormier at UFC 214.
Jones vs. Gustafsson joins a UFC 232 card that also features Cris Cyborg defending her women’s featherweight title against women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.
Diaz and Poirier were scheduled to face off at lightweight in the semi-main event of UFC 230, though both had lobbied for the UFC to create a 165-pound division and wanted to headline Madison Square Garden by fighting for the title of the new weight class.
As was announced earlier on Tuesday, Daniel Cormier will defend his heavyweight championship against Derrick Lewis in the main event of UFC 230. White said that Valentina Shevchenko would move back to UFC 231 and face Joanna Jedrzejczyk for the vacant women’s flyweight title.
After trying and failing with several different combinations of fighters and titles/interim titles and getting panned for a potential women’s flyweight title fight as the main event, the UFC is going with a short-notice heavyweight title fight to headline its return to Madison Square Garden.
The Saturday, November 3rd UFC 230 pay-per-view will feature heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier vs. Derrick Lewis in the main event, first reported by ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, confirmed to him via text from Dana White and Cormier himself.
Cormier had been recovering from a broken finger suffered in his title-winning performance over Stipe Miocic this July. It was expected that his next fight would be against Brock Lesnar in early-2019, but the UFC’s desperation in making a big fight for MSG took precedence.
Lewis (seen above) is coming off a Hail Mary knockout of Alexander Volkov at this past Saturday’s UFC 229 event and a star-making performance on the microphone in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan. Lewis has won nine of his last 10 and has a penchant for taking short-notice fights. He joked after the fight that he wasn’t ready for a title shot because he needed to work on his cardio.
The MSG show also features Nate Diaz vs. Dustin Poirier and Chris Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold II, but will not feature the much-discussed Valentina Shevchenko vs. Sijara Eubanks fight for the vacant women’s flyweight title. White told Okamoto via text that the plan will now be to move back to a December fight between Shevchenko vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
Eubanks had said she signed the contract to fight while Shevchenko never responded publicly. Meanwhile, Jedrzejczyk publicly aired her issues with how things went down which may not make that as smooth a process as White might hope.
Valentina Shevchenko vs. Sijara Eubanks may not headline the UFC’s return to Madison Square Garden after all.
Though the event is under a month away, ESPN’s Brett Okamoto reported on Monday that the UFC has opened discussions for a heavyweight title fight between Daniel Cormier and Derrick Lewis to main event UFC 230 at Madison Square Garden on November 3. Okamoto wrote that Cormier vs. Lewis isn’t a done deal and “certain hurdles still have to be cleared.”
Cormier, who defeated Stipe Miocic at UFC 226 in July to win the heavyweight title and become a two-division champion, has been dealing with a hand injury. His first heavyweight title defense has been expected to be against Brock Lesnar, who is eligible to return to the Octagon in January 2019.
Lewis was in action at UFC 229 on Saturday night, coming from behind in the final seconds of the fight to defeat Alexander Volkov by knockout. In his post-match interview, Lewis said that he wasn’t trying to challenge for the heavyweight title now due to his poor cardio.
Shevchenko and Eubanks’ fight for the vacant women’s flyweight championship has yet to be officially announced for the Madison Square Garden show. Nate Diaz vs. Dustin Poirier and Luke Rockhold vs. Chris Weidman are two of the top bouts set for the event.
Dana White appeared on TMZ Sports today and discussed the fallout from UFC 229 — including pay-per-view numbers.
Wite was smiling at the start, saying that we are just starting to get the PPV numbers rolling in. Later on, when asked if they broke three million buys, White smiled and said “We didn’t break three, but it’s so hard to do that.” White went on to say that they were “way over” two million buys.
The previous UFC PPV record was for the second Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz fight in March 2016, which was reported to have done 1.65 million buys. Previously, UFC 100 had done 1.6 million buys with Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, although that was at lower prices.
White was asked about a possible fine and/or suspension for Khabib Nurmagomedov’s role in the brawl that took place after he defeated McGregor. White said that he thought Nurmagomedov should be suspended for 4-6 months and fined a quarter of a million dollars. White also said that any other state would uphold the suspension and UFC would not try to get around that by booking Nurmagomedov to fight internationally during that time.
White mentioned Tony Ferguson as a potential future opponent for Nurmagomedov and definitively stated that Nurmagomedov would not be stripped of his title for his actions.
Following the Conor McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov post-UFC 229 brawl that resulted in multiple arrests and chaos in the T-Mobile Arena, there are some updates following a wild night in Las Vegas.
There are hundreds of videos like this showing the footage if you haven’t seen it:
– At the post-fight presser, UFC president Dana White said that the Nevada State Athletic Commission will launch an investigation into everything and is withholding Nurmagomedov’s $2 million purse as they do. McGregor’s $3 million purse was not withheld as the NAC didn’t see any evidence to do so.
– White was non-committal on stripping the lightweight title from Nurmagomedov until after the NAC decides what to do. “The governor (of Nevada) was here tonight and went running out of the building. That’s not good.”
– Three members of Nurmagomedov’s entourage/corner were arrested, but McGregor declined to press charges so they were released.
– White didn’t entertain a rematch because he’s unsure as to what the NAC will rule and whether Nurmagomedov will be able to get a visa to be able to do so.
– White said he didn’t regret any of the promotion leading up to the fight, nor taking further internal action against McGregor following the bus incident.
– The show brought in 20,034 and did over $17 million at the gate.
– White said the two members of Nurmagomedov’s team that jumped in the cage that are currently on the UFC roster will never fight in the promotion again.
– Nurmagomedov spoke briefly at the press conference and while he was apologetic, he didn’t understand why people were so focused on him jumping the cage after the bus dolly incident.
McGregor didn’t appear the press conference, but did make a brief statement:
Khabib Nurmagomedov defeated Conor McGregor by fourth round submission to retain the UFC lightweight title at UFC 229, but it was what happened after that finish that has the world talking.
Immediately following the victory, an emotional Nurmagomedov was talking to McGregor to the point referee Herb Dean had to pull him away. He then threw his mouthpiece at McGregor’s corner and started yelling at them, leading to him jumping the cage and getting into a scrap with McGregor teammate and current Bellator fighter Dillion Danis.
To say what happened at that point was chaos is an understatement.
Fights involving men from both camps spilled in and out of the cage with one of Nurmagomedov’s men jumping in the cage and hitting McGregor several times. After several minutes, security was able to separate everyone and eventually, McGregor was escorted to the back. What followed that was another shock as Dana White told Nurmagomedov he would have to head to the back before the official announcement for fear of fans throwing things in the cage.
Eventually, the announcement was made by Bruce Buffer but with no fighters or corners in the cage, completing a stunning sequence to what was an eventful night.
The fight itself was nearly as advertised as Nurmagomedov was dominant on the ground from the start, holding McGregor down and wearing him out. The former champion got his shots in on Nurmagomedov, but they weren’t enough to hurt him.
The second round was a dominant one for Nurmagomedov due to his ground work. Early in the round, Nurmagomedov nailed McGregor with a hard right that hurt the Irishman, leading to another takedown and more ground work. At one point, he was landing so many shots from the top that a stoppage was in sight. McGregor was able to eventually get back to his feet, but couldn’t do much else.
Surprisngly, the third round was nearly all on the feet with Nurmagomedov content to stand and trade with the tiring McGregor who got his shots in but without the pop of the first round. McGregor was able to fend off Nurmagomedov’s few takedown attempts, but both men got admonished for inactivity.
Early in the fourth, Nurmagomedov went back to his early game plan, riding McGregor down the canvas. With two minutes to go, Nurmagomedov locked on a face crank that got McGregor to tap. Then, the aforementioned hell broke loose.
Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez will have much more on this on the newest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio.
It’s here: the UFC return of Conor McGregor after a two-year absence against his toughest challenge to date in Khabib Nurmagomedov. Oh, and Khabib’s the champion but you’d barely know by all of the attention the challenger is getting.
Let’s take a look at the show and answer a few questions with Paul Fontaine and Ryan Frederick, the later of which who will actually be in the T-Mobile Arena tonight. If you want some free audio to listen to, check out my interviews with Sean Sheehan and Garrett Gonzales.
UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor
Tony Ferguson vs. Anthony Pettis
Ovince Saint Preux vs. Dominick Reyes
Derrick Lewis vs. Alexander Volkov
Michelle Waterson vs. Felice Herrig
Sergio Pettis vs. Jussier Formiga
Vicente Luque vs. Jalin Turner
Aspen Ladd vs. Tonya Evinger
Scott Holtzman vs. Alan Patrick
Gray Maynard vs. Nik Lentz
Lina Lansberg vs. Yana Kunitsaya
Ryan LaFlare vs. Tony Martin
What are you most looking forward to?
Ryan: That’s pretty easy: the main event. It’s the Khabib and Conor show and the biggest fight in a long time, perhaps ever. Having been on the scene in Las Vegas the last few days, it is a huge event. I’ve never experienced a fight week quite like this one in 14 years of going to UFC events. It’s also a great fight on paper, one of the absolute best matchups the UFC can put together. It’s a good clash of styles and a fight where literally anything could happen.
Paul: Obviously the main event but Tony Ferguson is my favorite fighter so I’m looking forward to that one as well. After years of delivering exciting fights and highlight reel knockouts, the former interim champion and TUF winner gets a chance on the biggest stage of his career and with a victory could set himself up for a huge payday down the line against the Conor/Khabib winner.
Josh: LaFlare vs. Martin, duh. The whole main card looks great on screen, but we’ve said that before. It’s the Conor-Khabib show, baby. That’s it.
Anything being slept on?
Josh: Because of the long shadow cast by the main event, Ferguson-Pettis is somewhat being overlooked but I feel like there’s still a ton of buzz about that one too. Maybe Formiga-Pettis because of the title shot implications for the winner, but unless there’s an impressive finish, I don’t sense a lot of newsworthiness to come out of it. Maybe Waterson-Herrig a little?
Ryan: I don’t know that it is being slept on, but we have a fantastic co-main event between Ferguson and Pettis. That could be all kinds of wild and it’ll be interesting how good Ferguson looks coming back so early from a devastating knee injury. A couple of other good fights on the card are Saint Preux and Reyes, and the other Pettis brother, Sergio, against Formiga.
Paul: The whole card is great. One of the Fight Pass prelims has two former title contenders squaring off with Yana Kunitskaya taking on Lina Lansberg. Both were overmatched against Cris Cyborg but who isn’t? At their more natural weight classes, both could make some noise in a bantamweight division that’s really not all that deep and in need of viable title contenders for champ Amanda Nunes.
Anything not doing it for you?
Paul: The heavyweight fight between Derrick Lewis and Alexander Volkov is important and has relatively big names. But while it has a chance to be good, I’m not so sure. Both have had real snoozers in the past and Lewis recently had one of the worst fights of the year, maybe of all time, against Francis N’Gannou on another high profile card. Hopefully, I’ll be proven wrong.
Ryan: There’s two fights that could end up being boring and it’s luckily the first two on the card: Maynard against Lentz and LaFlare against Martin. They feature fighters who play a lot of points fighting and don’t take a lot of chances, and they have all been in more boring than exciting fights. They could put the crowd to sleep early, but I doubt many will be in the arena for those bouts anyway.
Josh: The undercard is kinda meh as far as interesting names, but the fights could be good. Everything seems to be in line though.
What’s the intrigue with the show?
Ryan: It’s obviously what happens in the main event, and whether this sets not only the buyrate record, but by how much. Numbers like 3 million buys have been thrown out, and while I don’t think it’ll get there, it wouldn’t shock me if it actually did. This is a massive event and I’m sure everyone in the end really hopes that Conor wins.
Paul: Really, the intrigue in this show is the intrigue about this sport in general. It’s the classic matchup in the main event — grappler vs. striker — and in those two disciplines, there are none better in the sport than Khabib and Conor. Whoever is able to execute their game plan should win and do so handily. Whatever happens, it’s almost a consensus that the winner will dominate. If the fight’s on the feet, Conor should win and quickly. If Khabib is able to take him down, he will hold him there and grind him to the mat for 25 minutes. Anything can happen in MMA and maybe one of these scenarios doesn’t happen but that’s why we watch the fights.
Josh: If McGregor wins and reclaims the title, that puts the division in a tough spot because I don’t see him wanting to be another one of the guys and start defending the title twice a year. McGregor’s in interesting fight territory now, not ‘defend the belt against all comers’ territory. I don’t see Khabib becoming a big star (aka PPV draw), but there’s still some intrigue in that Ferguson fight if they can try to make it for the 100th time. What happens after the fight is almost as interesting as what happens in the fight…almost.
What will be people talking about most after the show is done?
Paul: A rematch, for sure. If this show sets records (and at this point, even just breaking the record with something like 1.75 million buys would be considered a disappointment), everyone will want to see them fight again. That sucks for the likes of Ferguson, Diaz, GSP, Woodley and anyone else that is highly ranked at anywhere from 145-170. But Conor is all about big fights and big money and a rematch of the biggest money fight of all time would be the biggest fight possible and would also make sense sporting-wise. This could be the first fight in a series between these two as they both should have years of competitive fights left in them.
Ryan: It will be all about what is next for Conor. I do think if he wins, his next fight comes against Tyron Woodley as he goes for another title. It wouldn’t surprise me if that is the way it goes even if he loses, but in that scenario, I see Nate Diaz next. If Khabib wins, I totally think we are getting him against GSP next year.
Josh: That this is the biggest UFC PPV of all time, that Ferguson is the rightful No. 1 contender, and that McGregor continues to do everything he says he can do and then some.
