Klitschko wants to break George Foreman’s record at the oldest heavyweight champion.
Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wladimir Klitschko planned to challenge Tyson Fury in a bid to become the oldest heavyweight champion at age 46.
Speaking with Piers Morgan on TalkTV, Klitschko admitted that he considered calling Fury out on social media for one “last dance.”
“I was thinking I should tweet Tyson Fury – ‘Last dance?’ Since he wants to retire and we were supposed to have this rematch. I didn’t do it because my mind was in a totally different world.”
Following Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, which began on February 24, Klitschko signed up for the Kyiv Territorial Defense Brigade, a reserve component, alongside fellow boxers Oleksandr Usyk and Vasyl Lomachenko. The former champion, whose brother Vitali serves as the mayor of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, has since focused on defending his homeland.
“I should just take Tyson Fury and tweet ‘last dance?”
Allow us to do the honours for you, Wladimir.
Up for one last fight, Tyson?@Klitschko | @Tyson_Fury | @piersmorgan | #piersmorganuncensored pic.twitter.com/lypBKa0vLp
— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) May 17, 2022
Under different circumstances, Klitschko would have aimed to avenge his defeat to Fury, which cost him the unified titles in 2015. It was the penultimate fight of the Ukrainian legend’s career, which ended two years later when Klitschko suffered a TKO loss to Anthony Joshua.
Fury has since announced plans to retire after defeating Dillian Whyte last month. And while Klitschko wished the “Gypsy King” well in his retirement, he admitted that the rematch is something that still matters to him.
Tony Ferguson and Charles Oliveira face-off for their UFC 256 fight in 2020. | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Tony Ferguson responds to Charles Oliveira’s invite to train together after UFC 274.
UFC 274 was a stacked event that involved Tony Ferguson and Charles Oliveira. And as we all came to find out, the result came out differently for both men, with “El Cucuy” taking a devastating KO loss to Michael Chandler and “Do Bronx” submitting Justin Gaethje to solidify his spot at the top of the division.
After the fight – Oliveira, like the classy individual that he is – offered Ferguson to train with him at the Chute Boxe Dhiego Lima Academy in São Paulo. In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, Ferguson responded.
“I have to really reflect on what he said because Chute Boxe is a very good school. But he is in my weight class. I’m one of the only fighters that he hasn’t finished, and I went into that fight practicing zero jiu-jitsu,” he explained.
“I didn’t do too bad. I didn’t do as bad as Dustin Poirier just sitting there laying there. I stayed active and I went for submissions everywhere. It’s not like I practiced really hard.”
The 38-year-old Ferguson says the joint training sessions will likely have to wait for now because he’s leaving the door open for a potential rematch.
“I’ve got to really think about that one because I see myself competing against him again,” he said. “No animosity, but I went back there and talked to him before the weigh-in faceoffs. I told him, he was signing posters, and I walked up to him, put my hand on his shoulder and I said, ‘Hey, kid. You stay focused, all right?’
“He turned around and he looked at me and he knew already. Like I told him inside that octagon (when we fought). I put my arm around his shoulder and said, ‘Walk with me.’ I’m a good scout when it comes to certain things. … I know exactly what I have to do and I can’t really say no to it or yes to it.
“But I know right now that it’s not the time for me to go to Chute Boxe and to train with them. There’s some local gyms out there that I’m going to be part of a team and help that team grow as well as myself.”
Oliveira and Ferguson first fought each other at UFC 256 in December 2020, with the former winning via unanimous decision and landing a contender spot for the vacant lightweight title.
Amanda Nunes spoke about leaving American Top Team | Photo by Louis Grasse/PxImages/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The growth of American Top Team contributed to Amanda Nunes leaving for her own gym.
Large MMA gyms like American Top Team can have their benefits. They can also have their drawbacks. Amanda Nunes has firsthand knowledge of those highs and lows.
Nunes left MMA Masters after her UFC 178 loss to Cat Zingano to join American Top Team. While working with ATT, Nunes went on a 12-1 run. During that time she won UFC titles and bantamweight and featherweight and successfully defended those titles.
Nunes’ partnership with the gym ended after her loss to Julianna Pena at UFC 269. Pena took the 135-pound title from Nunes in that contest, winning the belt via submission in the third round. After the setback, Nunes took the featherweight title with her and opened her own gym.
At the time she left ATT, Nunes said (via MMA Fighting), “It was always in my head that one day I might want to have a space. I want to see all my teachings on the wall, put up my logo, all those things that a lot of fighters want to do that at some point in their career. I feel like this is the moment for me. I want to go on my own for a little bit.”
Nunes recently filled in some of the blanks about her split with the team. It turns out the growth of the gym and ATT bringing in fighters who might one day be her opponents helped hasten her exit from the fight camp.
“There were no girls when I got to American Top Team. I was the first woman to bring two belts and put the women’s team in history. When Kayla (Harrison) got there and then (Yana) Kunitskaya, it began creating a weird situation for me because that was my territory.” Nunes said on MMA Fighting podcast Trocação Franca.
“Other bantamweights were coming. Kunitskaya, who was already at the top and could’ve been a future opponent with a win over Ketlen (Vieira). She got there right when she was close to becoming the next opponent. She showed up in the gym and I had a scare when I walked in. I was like, ‘No, it’s not possible.’ It was creating this situation already.
“And then Kayla started talking. I was kind of, ‘Man, I’m not safe even in my territory.’ I was kind of cornered, even because we share the same coaches. She trains with Mike Brown and I train with Mike Brown. I was already training with them when she got there.”
“If there’s someone that carries the name of the team, that’s me, who brought two belts (to ATT),” Nunes continued. “If I wasn’t who I really am, a champion in two divisions, cool, no problem. But I was the champion already.”
When she first split with the gym, Nunes praised the team and the coaches at ATT for what they accomplished together and it does not seem as if there is any bad blood involved in the dissolution of her partnership with American Top Team.
Israel Adesanya after defeating Robert Whittaker at UFC 271. | Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Check out the current lineup of fights at UFC 276 on July 2nd.
The UFC’s big International Fight Week pay-per-view is set for July 2nd, and a host of fights have been officially announced or linked to this event over the past couple of weeks. Headlining UFC 276 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas is a middleweight title fight between reigning champion Israel Adesanya and Jared Cannonier, who’s done a remarkable job going from a former heavyweight all the way to his first title shot at middleweight.
In the co-main event, Alexander Volkanovski once again takes on Max Holloway for the featherweight belt. Volkanovski took the strap from Holloway in 2019, won a close rematch in 2020, and now we get the trilogy in the summer of 2022.
This is a deep card as you might expect, with notable non-title action including middleweight contender Sean Strickland against kickboxing star Alex Pereira, bantamweight sensation Sean O’Malley versus veteran Pedro Munhoz, former welterweight champion Robbie Lawler against Bryan Barberena, ex-UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate’s drop to flyweight against recent title challenger Lauren Murphy, and lightweight prospect Jalin Turner versus City Kickboxing’s Brad Riddell.
Here is what’s currently on tap for UFC 276. Please note that this is not an official bout order outside of the title fights:
Former interim UFC lightweight champion Dustin Poirier attends UFC 271 in Houston, Texas. | Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
“Just book me something. Somebody’s gonna get sparked out, let’s go.”
Dustin Poirier might not be sold on Michael Chandler, but ‘The Diamond’ wouldn’t say no to a fight with him.
Poirier pointed out that, since Chandler made his UFC debut last year, ‘Iron Mike’ has yet to beat a fighter coming off a win which is why Poirier admits he originally snubbed the former three-time Bellator lightweight champion and wasn’t interested in fighting him.
But Poirier desperately wants to get back in the Octagon, and if Chandler is available, ‘let’s go’.
“He’s (Michael Chandler) never beaten anybody coming off a win in the UFC,” Poirier said of Chandler during an appearance on The MMA Hour (h/t Low Kick MMA). “He’s been dropped in his last three fights. He’s never beat somebody coming off a win. What are Dan Hooker’s last five fights, and what are Tony Ferguson’s last five fights? The two guys he beat in the UFC. What are their records in their last fights?”
“I’m not talking trash, I’m stating facts,” he added. “It’s whatever, bro. I’ll fight him, too. I don’t care anymore. Just book me something. Somebody’s gonna get sparked out, let’s go.”
Poirier, who is looking to bounce back from his 2021 title defeat to Charles Oliveira, has also called out Colby Covington. And, judging by Chandler’s recent comments, the American Top Team product may want to focus his attention on that fight instead.
.@ColbyCovMMA July 30th i accept
— The Diamond (@DustinPoirier) May 14, 2022
Poirier is currently #2 in the UFC lightweight rankings and #7 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings. He is widely considered one of the greatest fighters to never have won a UFC championship.
John McCarthy says he was wrong in scoring the Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan 2 contest at UFC 273 | Photo by Louis Grasse/PxImages/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
John McCarthy says ‘jaw-jackin’ during a fight is not the way to score things
The “controversy” surrounding the Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan 2 fight that took place at UFC 273 has mostly fizzled out, but a spark provided by referee turned Bellator commentator John McCarthy could reignite things more than a month after the fight took place.
Sterling won the fight via split decision. Judges Sal D’Amato and Eliseo Rodriguez had Sterling winning 48-47, while Christopher Lee had Yan taking things by the same score. The round that Lee disagreed with the other two judges was the first stanza. Lee gave Yan the nod in the round, while D’Amato and Rodriguez had it for Sterling. The win returned the UFC bantamweight title to Sterling.
In the contest’s aftermath, McCarthy sided with Lee.
“I was very impressed with Aljamain and the way he fought, but there’s no way he won that first round,” McCarthy said on the “Weighing In” podcast. “The heavier shots were landed easily by Yan, and I thought it was a smart tactic by Aljamain to stay on the outside, to move continuously, but he didn’t land much. He landed a couple of kicks, not real hard, and he got hit with some heavy shots for a little bit and right near the end, Yan really started landing some good shots.”
In a recent conversation with MMA Junkie Radio, McCarthy said he made a mistake in judging the fight.
“Here’s the first thing, and Aljamain Sterling can hate me, again, I honestly don’t care, but I will tell you, I don’t hate him,” McCarthy said. “I think he’s a phenomenal fighter. I think he’s just a dynamite fighter and he deserves to be where he’s at. But when you take a look at judging of a fight, I did exactly what you should never do, and that’s have friends over, be jaw-jackin’ with them while the fight’s going on, and then think that you saw that fight as you should have. I didn’t.”
“I went back and watched it and said I can definitely see why someone would say Aljamain won that,” McCarthy continued. “If you’re going for volume, you’re gonna go more for Aljamain. If you’re going more for power, you’re gonna go more for Yan, but it’s razor-close. And you know, I was wrong.”
McCarthy’s words need to be heeded by anyone — outside the judges at cageside — who broadcasts what they believe to be the score of a particular round. If one is not paying complete and utter attention to every second of the round, it might be better to not offer an opinion on that round because the odds are, as McCarthy said, you didn’t see that fight as you should have.
UFC lightweight contender Jalin Turner. | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
A surefire thriller has been added to the UFC’s summer showcase pay-per-view in Las Vegas.
One of the UFC’s top prospects at 155 lbs is getting a ranked opponent for his next matchup.
Iridium Sports revealed on Monday that their client, Jalin Turner, will take on City Kickboxing standout Brad Riddell at UFC 276 on July 2nd. Riddell is currently No. 14 in the UFC rankings, giving Turner a huge opportunity to establish himself as a contender.
Standing a towering 6’3”, Turner (12-5) is on a four-fight winning streak after starting his UFC career 1-2. He’s coming off his most impressive performance to date at UFC 272 in March, when the 26-year-old took apart Jamie Mullarkey by second-round TKO. All of Turner’s victories have come inside the distance, including submissions of Uros Medic and Brok Weaver, and TKOs over Callan Potter and Joshua Culibao inside the Octagon.
Riddell (10-2) will look to get back on the winning track after he suffered a brutal wheel kick KO loss to Rafael Fiziev last December. The New Zealand native had won his first four UFC fights, including a Fight of the Night decision over Drew Dober at UFC 263 last June. While Turner has only ever won by stoppage in his entire career, all of Riddell’s UFC wins have gone to the scorecards.
UFC 276 takes place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas to cap off International Fight Week. The main event is a middleweight championship bout between titleholder Israel Adesanya and Jared Cannonier. In the co-main event, Alexander Volkanovski puts his featherweight title on the line in his trilogy meeting with former champ Max Holloway.
Check out the rankings changes coming out of UFC Vegas 54.
UFC Vegas 54 featured some good action, but as usual with these Apex events, there wasn’t a lot of rankings drama. The main event ended abruptly with Aleksandar Rakic’s injury, allowing Jan Blachowicz to stay as the number one contender at 205. Ryan Spann impressed with a quick win over Ian Cutelaba, and in the featured prelim, Viviane Araujo picked up an important victory to keep her ascent at women’s flyweight alive.
The one perplexing thing this week is Jon Jones’ status on the pound-for-pound list. Despite not fighting in over two years he’s still sticking around on it – but he’s fallen down again, to number ten this time. The lowest spot I can ever remember being in when he wasn’t suspended.
Anyway, here’s a look at all the changes this week
Men’s P4P – Jones falls from a tie for nine with Aljamain Sterling to take over ten on his own.
Heavyweight – No changes.
Light Heavyweight – Spann is up to 12, dropping Johnny Walker to 13.
Middleweight – No changes.
Welterweight – No changes.
Lightweight – Gregor Gillespie has been taken out of the rankings due to inactivity, so this allowed the second half of the list to move up. Conor McGregor, Tony Ferguson, Rafael Fiziev, and Arman Tsarukyan are up one each to eight through eleven respectively. Mateusz Gamrot is up two to 12. Brad Riddell is up one to 14. Diego Ferreira re-enters the list at 15.
Featherweight – No changes.
Bantamweight – Jack Shore rise one to 14. Raphael Assuncao is back in at 15.
Flyweight – No changes.
Women’s P4P – No changes.
Women’s Bantamweight – No changes.
Women’s Flyweight – Viviane Araujo rises one to seven. This pushes Jessica Maia to eight. Jessica Eye and Cynthia Calvillo flip-flop the 12 and 13 spots.
Women’s Strawweight – Jessica Andrade drops from a tie for five down to six.
Ashlee Evans-Smith prepares for her 2020 bout against Norma Dumont. | Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC
The longtime UFC bantamweight & flyweight fighter declared the use of the steroid DHEA during a recent out-of-competition drug test, as prescribed by her doctor.
It’s already been nearly two years since UFC bantamweight Ashlee Evans-Smith last stepped into the cage. From the sound of things, it seems likely that fans won’t see her back in the Octagon any time in the immediate future, either. That’s following a press release from the UFC’s drug testing agency, USADA, that ‘Rebel Girl’ has accepted a 14-month suspension from competition.
Evans-Smith tested positive for the anabolic androgenic agent dehydroepiandrosterone, more commonly known as DHEA, in a pair of out of competition urine samples collected on January 3rd and January 27th of this year. Notably, however, USADA noted that the fighter had actually declared her use of DHEA on her doping control forms for both tests, noting that she had been prescribed the medication by her physician.
“During an investigation into the circumstances of the case,” the USADA press release reads, “Evans-Smith provided evidence, including medical records, indicating that a physician incorrectly prescribed DHEA to her. As such, USADA determined that Evans-Smith’s degree of fault was diminished and that she should receive a reduced period of ineligibility. She also received a reduction for her Full and Complete Cooperation.”
As such, Evans-Smith will be eligible to return to competition on March 3rd of 2020, 14 months after her first sample collection date. The 34-year-old was previously handed a 9-month suspension by the Nevada State Athletic commission, back in 2015, after an in competition drug test came back positive for a banned diuretic.
Andrea Lee and her coach, Tony Kelley. Kelley made a bigoted statement at UFC Vegas 54 | Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC
When the UFC doesn’t act against prejudice, it only hurts itself in the long run
On Saturday night at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas, NV, fans were given an opportunity to listen in on the corner audio for one of the night’s undercard bouts, between women flyweights Andrea Lee and Viviane Araujo. What they got wasn’t any quality technical insight into the process of fighting, but instead a bigoted rant from the mouth of Lee’s coach, Tony Kelley, directed at her Brazilian opponent.
“That’s what they’re gonna do, they’re dirty f-cking Brazilians,” Kelley told Lee in response to a complaint she made over an alleged foul. “They’re gonna f-cking cheat like that. Guess what? We came to f-ck somebody up.”
pic.twitter.com/Y2BoxuNz1l
— Sober Costa (@EraserBy) May 15, 2022
Neither the UFC nor ESPN are yet to comment on Kelley’s remarks, despite the fact that Kelley is also contracted with the promotion as a fighter in the bantamweight division. That’s not a particular surprise.
In the past, UFC president Dana White has shrugged off other offensive tirades—like when Contenders Series fighter Oron Kahlon called his opponent Javid Basharat a “terrorist” during weigh-ins for their fight—by reminding fans that MMA is not a “nice sport.”
“I say it all the time. This is not a nice sport,” White told media after that incident. “This is a very rough sport. We say a lot of mean things to each other, and justice gets severed at the end of the day. Listen, when you have a situation like that, the best way to solve the problem is you fight.”
That’s an obvious copout. There are plenty of other rough sports, such as hockey, where racist comments get dealt with by more than shoulder shrugs and a dismissive wave of the hand.
The UFC’s refusal to do more than pay lip service to comments like Kelley’s—or Cody Durden’s in-cage rant where he said he had to send his UFC Vegas 43 opponent “back to China where he came from”—suggest that the promotion is far too comfortable with casual bigotry. With a fighter like Colby Covington claiming that his post-fight rant about “filthy” Brazilians after his bout against Demian Maia saved his job with the company, it’s not hard to argue that the UFC possibly even condones and encourages this type of behavior.
But, in a world where perception is often treated the same as reality, their ‘nothing is too far’ mindset might also be the reason the UFC always seems to be chasing partnership and sponsorship deals with companies that aren’t considered blue-chip brands.
It’s already been a bone of contention in the past. In 2012, Anheuser-Busch warned the UFC about some comments UFC fighters had made around that time.
“We’ve communicated to the UFC our displeasure with certain remarks made by some of its fighters, and they have promised to address this. If the incidents continue, we will act,” Anheuser-Busch said, before adding that it “embraces diversity and does not condone insensitive and derogatory comments rooted in ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, etc.”
It only seems reasonably that many other major corporations continue to hold on to that type of thinking.
While Kelley was ranting about “dirty f-cking Brazilians” the Crypto.com logo was right there next to him. They say there’s no such thing as bad press, but it’s not difficult to imagine that plenty of major potential sponsors wouldn’t feel that the cost of getting their logo in the Octagon was worth the risk of association.
While the UFC likes to portray itself as some kind of rebel outfit, those days are mostly long gone. The promotion is worth billions of dollars, and has become a weekly cornerstone for ESPN—especially on their ESPN+ streaming service. The UFC of today is, in many regards, as corporate as they come, complete with Endeavor stockholders looking for maximum return on their investment. One of the easiest ways they could likely deliver on that is to clean up their act. After all, it’s already a clear part of the promotion’s “Code of Conduct.”
That document (which the UFC seemed to have misplaced almost as soon as it was published in 2013) gives the company clear power to discipline their contracted talent for..
Derogatory or offensive conduct, including without limitation insulting language, symbols, or actions about a person’s ethnic background, heritage, color, race, national origin, age, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation.
All the UFC needs to do is blow the dust off and enforce the thing.
The UFC has grown by leaps and bounds over the years, and I don’t doubt that that trend will continue. But if it doesn’t take the simple step of living up to its own code of conduct, it could also be leaving a lot of opportunities on the table.
That self-imposed limited growth might have been acceptable when the promotion was owned by the Fertitta brothers, but today, with corporate ownership expecting constant massive returns, the UFC stifling seems like it could be a lot more unacceptable.
Instead of stubbornly sticking to its guns, the UFC needs to look forward and see its best interest would be served by acting when one of its fighters steps so clearly out of line. After all, they’ve already made it clear with their recent flag ban that they’re perfectly fine stifling ‘free speech’ when they feel the need.
Bloody Elbow reached out to UFC, ESPN and Crypto.com for comment on what Kelley said during the UFC Vegas 54 broadcast. We did not receive a reply from any of the three prior to publication.
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