Category Archives: Bloodyelbow.com

Injuries have prevented Gunnar Nelson from fighting for more than two years. Still only 33-years-old, the Iceland native returns to action at UFC London this Saturday against Takashi Sato.

The last time Gunnar Nelson stepped into the UFC octagon was nearly two-and-a-half years ago. On top of which, it’s been more than three years since the Icelandic grappling talent got his hand raised in competition. This Saturday, the 33-year-old returns to action on the main card of the UFC London fight card.

Injuries have prevented Nelson from competing since his September 2019 decision setback to Gilbert Burns. That fight might not seem like ancient history, but when it happened, Burns had only recently moved back to welterweight and was unranked at 170 pounds. Since defeating Nelson, ‘Durinho’ has fought for the UFC welterweight crown and is currently the No. 2 ranked fighter in the promotion’s 170-pound rankings. All of which is to say that things move fast in the world of MMA, and Nelson has a lot to prove on Saturday against late replacement opponent, Takashi Sato.

There was a time when Nelson was considered a future UFC title contender on the rise. He began his career with a 9-0-1 record, catapulting him into a deal with the UFC. There he immediately thrived, rattling off four straight victories to open his time in the Octagon—the latter of which netted him back-to-back “Performance of the Night” bonuses via submission.

Heading into the winter of 2014, Nelson was riding high. He was 4-0 with the UFC and ranked No. 12 in the division when the promotion booked him in his first main event, against Rick Story. Nelson dropped a split-decision in that bout, marking the first time he’d tasted defeat in MMA. (Bloody Elbow described the scorecard that awarded the fight to Nelson as “ridiculous”)

And while that loss may not have been a catastrophic setback for the SBG Ireland trained fighter, he hasn’t won two bouts in a row since. Alongside his long injury layoff, he’s currently riding a two-fight losing skid. Fans shouldn’t overlook who those two (semi-recent) losses came to, of course. As noted, his most recent defeat was at the hands of Gilbert Burns. Nelson’s previous setback was a March 2019 split-decision loss to Leon Edwards—currently the No. 3 ranked fighter in the official UFC welterweight rankings and the likely next opponent for champion Kamaru Usman.

Nelson has time to get back in the mix. At 33, he is younger than Burns, Usman, and No. 1 ranked welterweight contender Colby Covington. But if he wants to make a move, he needs to get a big win over Sato on Saturday and parlay that victory into a matchup against a ranked opponent in his next booking. If he can’t make a statement this weekend, it just may be that he finds himself firmly regulated to the territory of ‘what if’ stories in the world of MMA.

UFC London certainly won’t be the biggest fight card of Nelson’s career, but the results could determine the trajectory of what he has left to offer at the highest level of mixed martial arts.

UFC London takes place Saturday, March 19 at 02 Arena in London, England. The entire card streams on ESPN+.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

Renato Moicano stepped on on super late notice to face Rafael dos Anjos.

Renato Moicano suffered a lopsided beating at the hands of former UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos this past weekend. Moicano appeared in the five-round co-main event on just a few days notice, after dos Anjos’ original opponent Rafael Fiziev bowed out due to COVID-19.

Despite taking a heavy loss, one many people think should have been stopped before the final round, Moicano told MMA Junkie that he didn’t regret seizing the short notice opportunity.

“My manager sent a message to me saying, ‘What do you think about dos Anjos’ style?’ And I said, ‘He’s good, but I can beat him. If I have a good training camp, I can be ready,’” Moicano said, when he recalled how the fight with RDA got made. “Then he said that he (dos Anjos) was looking for an opponent in five days. I thought, ‘Man, I’m heavy. I’m 180 (pounds).’ He said let’s go offer it to the UFC and I said, ‘Offer it and let’s see what they say. Just tell them I’m heavy.’

“We told them I was 180 and they said, ‘OK, we’re going to figure this out because there’s a lot of people involved. A lot of people answered the call to try to fight him.’ So I was waiting, and I didn’t think of it too much because when opportunity comes, you have to take chances.”

Moicano revealed that he “wasn’t 100 percent” when he took the fight. However, he added, “I hate excuses, I really hate excuses.”

“If I take the fight, I always believe in me, and I always believe I can beat anybody in the UFC. I know that. So I don’t really care too much about the loss and if I have or I don’t have a training camp. Even if I don’t have a training camp, I can fight anybody and beat anybody in the world.”

The bout at UFC 272 was Moicano’s first to go five-rounds. The Brazilian said he’s eager to do that again, but would prefer that to come after a full training camp.

“I want to fight five rounds again, but in my best shape, sharp, ready to perform and ready to put the fans applauding and going crazy. I want to be known by the fans, and I want to make money. So what is better than a main event? I feel like this could be my bonus if UFC says. ‘Main event, you vs. Bobby Green in a UFC Fight Night. Let’s go.’”

Moicano joined the UFC in 2014, as a featherweight, and impressed with wins over Zubaira Tukhugov and Jeremy Stephens. His upward trajectory was stifled by a submission loss to Brian Ortega in 2017. Moicano bounced back with bonus-snatching wins over Calvin Kattar and Cub Swanson.

Those victories set him up for a fight with former UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo. In their 2019 fight Aldo turned back the clocks and finished his younger compatriot with a second round TKO. Moicano then lost to Chan Sung Jung, also by TKO.

After those disappointments, Moicano moved up to lightweight. He’s currently 3-1 at 155 lbs with wins over Alexander Hernandez and Jai Herbert. His loss to Dos Anjos was a catchweight bout at 160 lbs.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

For Aspen Ladd, things are still personal between her and former UFC champion Miesha Tate.

There is a bit of a heated history between Aspen Ladd and former UFC champion Miesha Tate. It all started in late 2021 when “Cupcake” accused Ladd of trying to cheat on the scale but still missing weight for her eventually-canceled bout against Macy Chiasson at UFC Vegas 38.

Things then took a more personal turn when Tate mentioned Ladd’s supposed romantic relationship with her head coach Jim West. From then on, Ladd began pushing for a fight against Tate, but to no avail.

Tate has since moved down to flyweight, while Ladd jumped up to featherweight in her last fight. But as the 27-year-old stated in a recent conversation with James Lynch, a fight with Tate is something she still fancies. So much so that she says she’ll do it for free.

“That’s the Karen of MMA. I just wanted to hit her. I still want to hit her,” Ladd said of Tate. “But that’s not gonna be in my future right now, I have a different fight. But just purely… they wouldn’t even have to pay me, honestly. That’d just be a fun one.”

Ladd also believes that Tate likely isn’t making another run for UFC gold.

“The sport’s kind of passed her by. She was a dominant wrestler, and that’s kind of what got her where she is. I think she came back for money. She’s talking a big talk, but she’s not gonna make another title run.

“And at ’35, she wasn’t doing well. She’s like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna drop weight and see.’ But that’s a tough weight class, too.”

Ladd made her featherweight debut last October against Norma Dumont and lost via decision. She will be moving back to bantamweight for UFC 273 next month to face number three-ranked Irene Aldana.

Tate, meanwhile, will make her 125-pound debut against former title contender Lauren Murphy on May 14. She last saw action in November against Ketlen Vieira and lost unanimously on the scorecards.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

Tim Elliott admitted cheating at UFC 272. Is it the just the jab refs need to take fouls more seriously?

In any given MMA event, odds are good that there will be several bouts where a fighter breaks the rules. The fouls might from anything as small as a 12-6 elbow or a cage grab, all the way to an eye poke or a kick in the groin. For their actions the referee might stop a fight and warn the offending fighter, but chances are good that they won’t even go that far. As often as not, officials will simply issue a verbal warning during the course of the action. The fighter willing to take advantage of that reality will find themselves with plenty of chances to tip the scales in their favor.

Enter, then, Tim Elliott—who more or less said, “hell yes, I cheated” at UFC 272. And although nothing may come of his admission, it might be time for MMA referees to get a little more aggressive with enforcing the rules.

At this point in MMA’s decades-long history professional fighters know what is and isn’t a foul (or at least they really should). They also know referees don’t want to be seen as influencing the outcome of a fight. That’s why it’s rare for a fighter to get a point deducted even if they break multiple rules over the course of a single contest. It’s not unheard of to have a fighter get warned for a groin strike, an eye poke and another foul or two during their bout and suffer nothing more than a talking to—or at worst, the dreaded and feared strong verbal warning.

Even when referees are willing to take direct action, it’s not at all uncommon for them to stop bouts because of an eye poke or a groin strike and go on to inform both the victim and the offender they know the foul was an unintended accident. But unless they’re a mind reader, that can only ever be trusting speculation.

For his part, Elliott very clearly cheated at UFC 272. During the second round of his bout opposite Tagir Ulanbekov, he hooked his opponent’s glove and landed strikes while the Dagestani fighter struggled to free himself from Elliott’s grip.

Ulanbekov’s coach, former UFC lightweight champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov, was incensed by the foul. Replays showed Nurmagomedov standing, screaming at the referee and slamming his hand on the canvas while Elliott committed the foul. Unfortunately for them, referee Chris Tognoni simply let the bout continue, offering a verbal warning during the action.

The UFC’s cameras caught a second glove grab during the round, which Tognoni appeard to miss—and which resulted in an elbow strike from Elliott. The 35-year-old from Wichita, KS walked away from the bout with his hand raised in victory. He never tried to pretend the fouls were accidental.

“If you’ve ever been in a fight — and maybe I’m different — I’m trying to win, man. It’s the referee’s job to step in there if I’m doing something wrong,” Elliott told MMA Fighting’s We Got Next podcast. “He was telling me all kinds of sh-t, he told me to let go of the glove and I let go of the glove. But for me, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m in there fist fighting. People are going on and on about the morality of the sport and the warrior spirit and all of that bullsh-t, but I don’t f-cking care. I’m not a martial artist—I’m a fighter and this is my job. I’m trying to make money at this job, and that’s what I did [at UFC 272].”

Later in the same interview, the Glory MMA & Fitness fighter seemed to put the onus on the UFC as well, saying the top brass of the promotion “don’t care” about the cheating.

“The bosses don’t care, Dana White doesn’t care, Mick Maynard—I’m good with all those guys. They had no problem cutting my checks, cheating or not cheating. I sleep fine at night and a lot more comfortably now that I have money in the bank.”

But did Elliott, for all his candidness, just spoil a good thing for his UFC cohorts? After all, the refs, officials and athletic commissions have all been happy to give fighters the benefit of the doubt on fouls for years. The end result is a fighter not only saying he cheated, but that cheating isn’t something the promotion is at all concerned about either. It’s a bold move; almost like Elliott is daring the referees and athletic commissions to take action.

Will there be repercussions for his actions? Will his words be just the nudge referees need to stop giving fighters the benefit of the doubt, and to start buckling down when the rules are broken? I for one, wouldn’t mind seeing it happen.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

Alex Pereira is proud of his second UFC win, against tough middleweight brawler Bruno Silva.

Although it wasn’t nearly as shocking as his UFC debut, Alex Pereira still sounds very satisfied with his second victory inside the Octagon. After going three rounds against a game Bruno Silva, ‘Poatan’ picked up a unanimous decision at UFC Vegas 50, keeping him right on track for big plans in the future.

In an interview with Combate, the former two-division Glory champion said he expected the fight against Silva to be a tough one. Since his opponent was also a dangerous striker, Pereira knew he had to be careful not to get caught. However, being able to show some of his grappling is what made Alex the most happy with his performance.

“It was a war. I said it before, he’s a tough guy. He has shown it before, he was coming off three knockout wins. I had that in mind so I wouldn’t get frustrated. I never said I was going to knock him out. I had some good moments, but there were some moments when I’d stop, feel like it wasn’t the right time and he would recover.”

“I’m an experienced guy.” Pereira said. “Especially on the feet. But I’ve been able to showcase some of my grappling and my takedown defense, too. At one point he tried to take me down and I got him in a guillotine, but I was at an angle that wasn’t that good. Had he been on my right side, I would’ve been able to pull him and I’m almost sure I would’ve gotten him. I’ve been training right, I’ve dedicating myself and this is the outcome.”

Now with another victory under his belt, Pereira has set his sights on a high-ranked opponent for his next outing: Jared Cannonier. Since the obvious long term goal for the Brazilian is a rematch with champion Israel Adesanya, Pereira believes a win over the ‘Killa Gorilla’ could put him very close to that goal.

“If people are saying I should fight Adesanya, why not Jared Cannonier? I have nothing against him, but he’s highly ranked, too. He’s close to the belt. I think it would be a good fight.”

Pereira (5-1) entered his bout at UFC Vegas 50 off a flying knee knockout win over Andreas Michailidis, back in November 2021. The 34-year-old’s last MMA loss came in his mixed martial arts debut, when he was submitted by Quemuel Ottoni, all the way back in October 2015.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

Ex-title challenger Marlon Moraes is barely holding onto a ranking after another loss over the weekend.

The last few years have not been kind to Marlon Moraes. Since fighting for the UFC bamtamweight title in 2019 and getting stopped by Henry Cejudo, Moraes has picked up just one (controversial) win in his last five fights, and has now been stopped four times in a row. The latest person to take him out was Song Yadong, who stopped former WSOF champ in a little over two minutes at UFC Vegas 50.

As expected, Moraes’ stock fell again when it came to the rankings – to the point that he’s almost not even ranked at all anymore.

Things were better for Yadong, who rose five spots this week, and for Magomed Ankalaev, who entered the top four with his headlining victory over Thiago Santos.

Here’s a look at all the changes this week.

Men’s P4P – No changes.

AD

Heavyweight – No changes.

Light Heavyweight – Ankalaev rises two spots to four, his highest ranking ever. Anthony Smith falls one to five, while Santos is down one to six.

Middleweight – No changes.

Welterweight – No changes.

Lightweight – No changes.

Featherweight – Sodiq Yusuff is up one to 11 after a UFC Vegas 50 win. Edson Barboza slips a spot to 12. Ilia Topuria cracks the rankings at 15.

Bantamweight – Yadong rises five big spots into a tie for nine with Pedro Munhoz. Morales falls four spots to 13.

Flyweight – No changes.

Women’s P4P – No changes.

Women’s Bantamweight – No changes.

Women’s Flyweight – Cynthia Calvillo is up one to nine, dropping Jessica Eye one to ten.

Women’s Strawweight – No changes.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

The UFC’s COO tried to defend their controversial low fighter pay.

The UFC has been immensely successful and lucrative, with the organization repeatedly boasting about breaking all their financial records year after year. One of the biggest criticisms about the MMA world leader though has been that fighter pay hasn’t kept up with the growth, and the athletes still get a very small share of the revenue.

UFC COO Lawrence Epstein tried to defend the company, saying some of the criticism has been “completely disingenuous.” He spoke to Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal about it, and here are snippets from his post called “UFC battles narrative on fighter pay.”

Critics claim that UFC only shares 16% of its revenue with fighters when determining their split for an event. UFC COO Lawrence Epstein disputed that figure, when interviewed this month, but declined to provide specifics.

…

On top of saying that fighter pay is growing, Epstein said UFC is investing heavily in growing its brand globally — for example, building several performance institutes and working to get the sport legalized in more countries. It also handles its own production, unlike major stick-and-ball sports.

“Some of the stuff is completely disingenuous,” Epstein said of the criticism over fighter pay. He believes three primary factors have led to the current situation: Paul’s focus on the issue; fighters going public with contract negotiations to gain public backing they can leverage in the talks; and broader societal shifts in America where workers are demanding higher salaries.

“With Jake Paul, he profits from the attention economy where the more attention you get, the more money you get,” Epstein said.

…

UFC said it helps fighters land endorsements, citing nearly two dozen fighters who are aligned with Monster Energy, three aligned with Modelo, two with Guaranteed Rate and one apiece with Crypto.com and Dapper Labs. It also shares revenue from NFT sales 50/50 with fighters.

UFC says it provides fighters a marketing platform that, if capitalized on, can lead to major wealth like that amassed by superstar Conor McGregor or, to a lesser extent, Ronda Rousey.

Let’s go over some of his arguments, which they have already repeated in past attempts to defend fighter pay.

• Perhaps the biggest issue is how Epstein — and the actual article — frames this as a “narrative,” but in reality, “critics” did not make those claims about the revenue share. The UFC themselves did. UFC released those revenue share figures as part of the antitrust lawsuit, and it also showed how they had a target goal to maintain fighter pay at 17% of the revenue for years.
• Is fighter pay only an issue due to other companies’ workers recently demanding higher salaries, and Jake Paul’s trolling? It is more than fair to question Paul’s motivations, but will they contest the actual points and issues he’s raised? Are we also going to blame it on that and just ignore the very long history of documented low fighter pay and wage share, that again — UFC themselves reported?
• “Fighter pay is growing” is the same defense UFC has used for years. Yes, technically fighter pay has risen, but they conveniently leave out how the promotion’s profits have significantly grown even more. We’ve already discussed this in-depth before, but this line still holds true: “While fighters are definitely making more than they did in 2005, so are the promoters. In fact, the gap between the fighters and the promotion has only increased over the last 15 years.”
• Speaking of “disingenuous,” saying that UFC “handles its own production” implies that the promotion has costs so great, and banks on readers not knowing that a lot of those monetary figures have actually already been released. We already have a good idea of what their expenses are per event and per year, and as they’ve released and repeatedly bragged about, UFC’s profits are still immense despite all of that.
• UFC saying they provide “a marketing platform” and helped around 30 fighters “land endorsements” ignore how they’ve previously banned outside sponsorships for every other fighter. That move has actually been very lucrative for the UFC, as now almost all sponsorships go directly to them, while fighters do not get a cut.
• It’s also worth pointing out that while they brought up McGregor and Rousey’s “major wealth,” they’re arguably the two most underpaid fighters ever, if you consider the amount of money they brought in for the UFC. They only got a small slice of the pie, which is why even boxers that draw far less PPVs routinely get paid more. Both superstars did earn millions from their UFC careers, but they were worth exponentially more to the promotion.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

Check out Bloody Elbow’s pre-fight, fight night, and post-fight coverage for UFC London: ‘Volkov vs. Aspinall’, set for Saturday, March 19th in London, England. The main event is a heavyweight fight between rising English contender Tom Aspinall and former Bellator champion Alexander Volkov. The co-main event sees ex-lightweight contender Dan Hooker’s return to featherweight, as he takes on England’s Arnold Allen, who is undefeated in eight UFC appearances.

Also on the card is ex-Cage Warriors champion Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett, who’s second UFC outing will be against Kazula Vargas.

The main card airs live on ESPN+ at 4 PM ET/1 PM PT, with prelims on ESPN+ at 1 PM ET/10 AM PT.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

Check out the current card for the UFC’s return to the United Kingdom.

After three long years, the UFC is finally taking the Octagon back to the United Kingdom. The promotion will be staging an oft-delayed show at the 02 Arena in London on Saturday, March 19th and the main card is pretty stacked for a regular Fight Night event.

The headliner will come in the heavyweight division, with title contender Alexander Volkov looking for his fourth win in five fights when he meets the surging Tom Aspinall. Aspinall is 4-0 in the UFC thus far with three performance bonuses, and will look to crack the top ten of the division with a victory here.

The co-main event will see the return of Paddy Pimblett, who will be looking for his second straight UFC win when he meets Rodrigo Vargas. The card also features an excellent featherweight matchup between the always game Dan Hooker and Arnold Allen, who is still undefeated in the UFC after eight fights.

Here’s a look at the full current card.

Main Card (ESPN+)

Alexander Volkov vs. Tom Aspinall

Paddy Pimblett vs. Rodrigo Vargas

Arnold Allen vs. Dan Hooker

Shamil Abdurakhimov vs. Sergei Pavlovich

Nikita Krylov vs. Paul Craig

Gunnar Nelson vs. Takashi Sato

Preliminary card (ESPN+)

Jai Herbert vs. Ilia Topuria

Muhammad Mokaev vs. Cody Durden

Mike Grundy vs. Makwan Amirkhani

Molly McCann vs. Luana Carolina

Jack Shore vs. Timur Valiev

Cory McKenna vs. Elise Reed

Nathaniel Wood vs. Vince Morales

Bloody Elbow – All Posts

McKinney suffered the first loss of his UFC career to Dober in a wild round at UFC Vegas 50. 

Terrance McKinney seemed to be on his way to yet another first-round win in his fight against Drew Dober at UFC Vegas 50 on Saturday. That was until Dober survived some hairy moments, turned the tide and handed ’T. Wrecks’ his first loss in the Octagon.

McKinney stepped in on short notice against Dober for an injured Ricky Glenn, who was forced to withdraw just days before the event. Hoping to improve to 3-0 and capitalize on what he said was a ‘perfect opportunity’, McKinney was eager to put on an exciting performance against a veteran like Dober. He did that, but it cost him dearly.

Less than a minute into the first round, McKinney blasted Dober with a knee and several punches that sat him down on the canvas twice. The 33-year-old gathered his wits and returned to his feet, but McKinney kept the pressure up and swarmed him each time. Dober survived the onslaught and returned fire, dropping McKinney with a knee and following up with punches on the ground to put an end to the wild fight after nearly four minutes of non-stop action.

McKinney has since responded to his loss to Dober in a series of tweets and conceded there were some issues he must fix before his next fight.

“Respect to Dober, he’s tough,” wrote McKinney in one tweet. “I appreciate everyone who supported me, a few fixes and I’ll be back even better.”

“Yessir whoever, whenever, I’ll be smarter next time,” wrote McKinney in another tweet. “I’m just a young street ninja that’s just how we get down. Gotta beat ‘em before the teachers or cops show up.”

The lightweight prospect got off to a great start in his UFC career with wins over Matt Frevola and Fares Ziam at UFC 263 and UFC Vegas 49, respectively.

Bloody Elbow – All Posts