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Former UFC title contender Darren Till was reportedly arrested in Sweden for DUI.

The last time we heard from UFC middleweight Darren Till was during a recent interview before his scheduled UFC London bout with Jack Hermansson. “The Gorilla” had to pull out from the July 23rd event due to a leg injury as he also admitted to being “at a f–ng low point” of his career.

As it turns out, Till is dealing with other factors outside the Octagon. According to Swedish news outlet Expressen (and confirmed by MMA Junkie), the 29-year-old Liverpool native was arrested on DUI charges on July 31st in Central Stockholm.

As noted in the news report, police officers stopped a silver Audi that was “being driven at high speed.” The preliminary investigation later stated that Till was “noticeably drunk.” Till also reportedly submitted a breath test, which came back three times above the limit.

For his part, Till admitted to having “drank one to two beers” and that a DUI charge “would ruin his career.”

Per MMA Junkie, Till admitted to driving intoxicated and eventually accepted a penalty order, which wasn’t specified.

Till (18-4-1) is on a two-fight skid. He last saw action in September 2021 against Derek Brunson and lost via third-round submission.

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Hernandez is returning to the weight class in which he began his career.

Alexander Hernandez is changing weight classes for his next fight.

Iridium Sports Agency announced on Wednesday that the UFC lightweight veteran will take on Billy Quarantillo at UFC 282 on December 10th. It’s Hernandez’s first fight at featherweight since a regional scene win over Joel Scott back in 2013.

Hernandez (13-5) seemed destined for lightweight title contention when he burst onto the UFC scene with a stunningly quick KO of Beneil Dariush, followed by a decision over Olivier Aubin-Mercier. A showdown with Donald Cerrone proved to be too much for Hernandez, who was knocked out by ‘Cowboy’ in what proved to be the final stoppage win of Cerrone’s career. Since then it’s been an up-and-down period for the 29-year-old, alternating wins over Francisco Trinaldo, Chris Gruetzemacher, and Mike Breeden with losses to Drew Dober, Thiago Moises, and Renato Moicano.

Quarantillo (16-4) hasn’t fought since a thrilling three-round decision loss to Shane Burgos at UFC 268 last November. That would’ve been Fight of the Night on most other cards, but they had the great misfortune of following the Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Chandler classic. Having been eliminated early on The Ultimate Fighter back in 2015, Quarantillo eventually got into the UFC through his win on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2019. He started his UFC career with three straight victories over Jacob Kilburn, Spike Carlyle, and Kyle Nelson before a loss to Gavin Tucker. His last win was a third-round TKO stoppage of Gabriel Benitez in July 2021.

UFC 282 is expected to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. A light heavyweight title rematch between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira is targeted for the event but nothing’s official on that front. One high-profile matchup confirmed for the card is a welterweight fight between Santiago Ponzinibbio and legendary former UFC champion Robbie Lawler.

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The middleweight champ is fired up for the heavyweight top contender’s bout in the UFC Paris main event. Not so much for the middleweight co-main.

It always behooves the champ to keep an eye on the division around him. Pay attention to the matchups, watch the fights; after all they never know when someone might make themselves a contender for the crown. When the upper echelon of a weight class is populated by fighter who’ve already had their chance at glory and failed, however, it’s no surprise if things feel a little less interesting.

Given a chance to talk about this week’s upcoming UFC Fight Night in Paris, France, middleweight king Israel Adesanya gave his thoughts—not just on the heavyweight main event between Tai Tuivasa and Ciryl Gane, but also on a battle of familiar foes Robert Whittaker and Marvin Vettori. On a recent episode of the Blakamoto & Oscar Show, Adesanya made it clear that ‘The Italian Dream’ vs. ‘The Reaper’ isn’t exactly a bout to get his blood flowing. Mostly because he’s already fairly sure who will walk away with the win.

“I’m excited for the main event. The co-main event, I’m excited for as well—actually, I’m not,” Adesanya said when asked about the fights (transcript via MMA Mania). “I’m not gonna lie. I’m not gonna bullshit you guys and give you the P.C. answers. I’m not actually excited for the co-main event.

“I’ll watch it. Meh. I know who’s gonna win. Rob’s gonna win so that’s why it’s not exciting for me. But, the main event, I don’t know who’s gonna win and I like Gane but I love Tai. That’s my dog.”

Having faced both men twice, ‘The Last Stylebender’ is in a unique position to judge the potential dynamics of the fight. He’s also pretty much right in line with the betting lines, which see former middleweight champion Whittaker as a solid, if not quite commanding favorite, sitting in the -225 range to Vettori’s +185 underdog.

A bit ironically, Gane is a much larger favorite in the main event over Tuivasa. The Frenchman is sitting at a healthy -560 line to Tuivasa’s +400.

Adesanya is currently preparing for a November 12th showdown against former kickboxing foe Alex Pereira at UFC 281. Pereira bested Adesanya twice in the ring, the second time via a crushing third round knockout. Despite their shared history—and thanks largely to Adesanya’s remarkable success in his run to UFC gold—the City Kickboxing talent is still a narrow favorite to retain his belt this fall. Oddsmakers have the New Zealander sitting at about -170 to the Brazilian’s +140 underdog line.

UFC Paris goes down this Saturday, September 3rd, at the Accor Arena. Alongside the main and co-main event, the card is expected to feature middleweight bouts between Alessio Di Chirico & Roman Kopylov, Abusupiyan Magomedov & Dustin Stoltzfus, and Nassourdine Imavov & Joaquin Buckley.

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Dana White says he doesn’t care, but he likes the fact that Jake Paul is taking on a real opponent.

The UFC is obviously big business, with near-weekly events and massive PPV’s month after month. But no matter how large the company gets, UFC president Dana White is constantly asked questions about a guy who has never even stepped into the Octagon before – Jake Paul.

At the post-fight media scrum following last night’s Contender Series event, White was asked about Paul’s proposed boxing match with former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, which is reportedly scheduled for late October. He is usually pretty hard on Paul, but in the case of a fight against his former middleweight legend he actually seemed somewhat impressed:

“I don’t give a sh-t, but, if he’s really fighting Anderson Silva, if he’s really fighting Anderson Silva, if that’s true, it’s about time. He’s got a real fight on his hands there, regardless of how old Anderson is. That’s a real fight.”

Later in the media scrum though, his real thoughts about Paul came to the surface again:

“Stop asking me about Jake Paul, you guys,” White said. “I don’t give a sh-t what Jake Paul does. I know you love this sh-t, but c’mon, this guy has nothing to do with my business. He doesn’t fight for me, he’s not even in the same f—king sport as me.

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I don’t care.”

Paul vs. Silva, if it’s real, is rumored to be going down on October 29th. No possible location has been named as of yet.

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Really?

After initial rumors, TMZ has followed up and reported that Jake Paul’s next opponent will really be UFC legend Anderson Silva.

While teasing the next match up, Paul’s boxing promotion, Most Valuable Promotions tweeted out that the YouTuber will “almost certainly” be the underdog this time, saying “he knows that and he wants that.”

Nope! Well at least at the start.

For some reason, the betting odds opened with Paul as the slight favorite. Outlets opened up their lines and initially had the YouTuber as high as a -180 favorite. Odds on Silva, opened up having him as a slight underdog at +150.

If you think that’s weird, so did other early bettors. In a matter of hours, the odds have already started to shift with a lot of money coming in on the UFC great.

Pro Boxing Odds has tracked the betting lines with Paul going from a -180 favorite to a +130 underdog in just a few hours. As of this writing, Silva is now a -160 favorite, and it could shift even more if people still think that’s a good value bet.

Paul is 5-0 in his young boxing career. Silva, who retired as one of the all-time greats in MMA, impressed in his return to pro boxing last year. He had two bouts in 2021, beating former WBC champ Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and swiftly knocking out fellow MMA star Tito Ortiz.

Silva represents a huge step up in competition for Paul, both in size and skill, but he will also be over two decades older. Silva is 47, Paul is 25.

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After failing to secure the Republican nomination for the Hawaii gubernatorial race, BJ Penn is accusing the party of getting “played” by the “communist Hawaii Democrat establishment.”

BJ Penn’s dreams of becoming Hawaii’s next governor appear to be dead in the water. The former UFC champion recently ran in the Republican primary for a chance to secure the GOP nomination for his home state’s upcoming gubernatorial race, securing 26.1% of the vote in the process.

Considering Penn’s seeming complete lack of past political ambitions, it’s a pretty surprisingly solid result for ‘The Prodigy’. But the 43-year-old hasn’t seemed be taking the loss nearly so well. In the initial wake of the primary election results, Penn announced that he was refusing to concede the race. In the weeks following he has moved to officially contest the election, claiming signs of ballot tampering.

“There is an appearance of inaccurate reporting, ballot mishandling, ballot design components, breaches at counting centers and ballot deposit sites, discrimination, voter suppression, and media violations are the main catalysts for this inquiry,” Penn stated, as part of a 123-page complaint filed on August 26th.

Perhaps it’s not terribly surprising then, that alongside the André Pederneiras black belt’s contestation, Penn recently released a statement to his Instagram account suggesting that he will not be supporting GOP nominee James ‘Duke’ Aiona in the general election. Penn event went so far as to accuse the Hawaii branch of the Republican party of bringing Aiona into the race specifically to stop candidates like Penn from getting the nomination.

Aiona is expected to face off against Democratic Party nominee, and current Lieutenant Governor Josh Green in the general election. If primary voting numbers are anything to go by, it looks like Aiona will have a lot of ground to make up if he hopes to become governor.

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Former light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira vows to make things different at UFC 282.

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira will probably have his last chance to attain gold in the Octagon in December. Reportedly paired up against Jiri Prochazka for an immediate rematch at UFC 282, the Brazilian vows not to make the same mistakes that cost him the title.

In an interview with Ag Fight, Teixeira analyzed his performance in the first fight, attributing his fifth round defeat to a mistake in a fight he was winning up to that point. For that reason, Glover feels like he does not need to change his gameplan too much ahead of the rematch, though he promises to be more attentive.

“What I would do differently is I wouldn’t tap,” Teixeira said. “I wouldn’t get submitted. That fight went down my way, so the preparation (for the rematch) will be the same. Of course we’re going to make some adjustments, because he should come back better, too. That’s about it, though. If the fight goes down the same way, I’m going to be focused to not to fall into any traps. It was careless, really. Fifth round, I was winning the fight. Nobody expected a submission there. It was really careless.

“I’m going to be really focused, though,” Teixeira said. “My goal is to bring the belt back home. The gameplan was to take him down once every round and win that way. Prochazka was a great fighter on the ground. He showed great defense and that’s going to happen toboth of us. Next time it might even be a better fight, who knows?”

Before the loss to Prochazka, Teixeira (33-8) was on a six-fight winning streak, which included victories over some notable names in the division, such as Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos and former champion Jan Blachowicz. The 42-year-old’s most recent defeat prior to Jiri took place in July 2018, when he dropped a unanimous decision to Corey Anderson.

Now, Teixeira is expected to take on Prochazka at UFC 282, on December, though the pairing has not yet been officially confirmed for the date. The card is scheduled to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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The Show Money crew is back to spew their sometimes educated, sometimes random theories on the only show exclusively dedicated to the business of MMA.

The Show Money crew is Paul Gift, “the economist”, Jason Cruz, “the lawyer”, and John Nash, “Bloody Elbow’s Financials Columnist”, who also happens to be the man who knows everyone and everything in MMA. They bring you the business side of MMA, in depth, in a way you won’t find anywhere else!

In this episode the issues discussed include:

Segment 1:

• Dana’s GQ comments
• Nate Diaz
• Luke Rockhold
• UFC FInancials

Segment 2:

• ONE Championship’s Amazon deal
• Possible ONE IPO

Segment 3:

• UFC Antitrust Lawsuit Update

Be sure and follow Paul at @MMAanalytics, John at @heynottheface, and Jason at @dilletaunt for all of their twitter musings.

CHECK OUT THE AUDIO PODCAST OF THE SHOW ON BLOODY ELBOW PRESENTS SOUNDCLOUD CHANNEL:

If you enjoy our shows, give us a shout out in the comments here on Bloody Elbow, and give us a “like”, share & subscribe on your BE Presents Podcast platform of choice: SoundCloud, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, OverCast, Player FM, & Amazon Music – For previous episodes, check out our playlists on any of our BE Presents channels.

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“I’m the champ, I’ll just leave it at that.”

For five years in the UFC, Demetrious Johnson was the undisputed king at 125 pounds. But after losing the title in 2018 to Henry Cejudo, “Mighty Mouse” left for Singapore and signed with ONE Championship where he is the current champion at flyweight after exacting revenge on Adriano Moraes over the weekend via a fourth-round flying knee KO win.

But unlike in the UFC, ONE’s flyweight division is contested at 135 pounds, a weight that Johnson is more comfortable at. And as he told Ariel Helwani in a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, fighting back at 125 pounds is a thing of the past.

“I’ve said this in the past, I don’t think I can make 125. I know I could, but do I want to do it? Absolutely not,” he said. “I don’t think it would be healthy for me, I don’t want to jeopardize my kidneys or my liver. So I don’t put myself in that category with Pantoja, Figueiredo, Moreno, all those guys.

“I put myself in the category with Aljamain Sterling, Petr Yan, ‘Sugar’ Sean O’Malley, Dominick Cruz…

“I’m not weighing at 125 pounds. I can’t make it anymore. I don’t want to make it anymore. For me, I see myself as a bantamweight here in America, where in Asia, it’s flyweight.”

A day after his big win over Moraes, Johnson said that he’s still only 136 lbs, which is small for flyweight by today’s standards, let alone bantamweight.

As for any rankings or GOAT debates, the 36-year-old Johnson says being a champion is what matters, regardless of the weight classification.

“I truly believe that when it comes down to it when everything’s said and done and I walk away from this sport, I believe I’m one of the best flyweights to ever do mixed martial arts,” he said.

“You guys think I’m the best flyweight in the world right now, not fighting in America? Dope. That’s awesome. But, for me, I’m the champ, I’ll just leave it at that, y’all decide, I don’t want to get into this discussion.”

With the win over Moraes, Johnson improved his pro-MMA record to 31-4-1.

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Youtube streamer Keemstar alleges the former UFC Champion will serve as Paul’s sixth opponent on an upcoming Showtime Boxing card.

The younger Paul brother might soon be adding another former UFC champion to his list of opponents. Controversial Youtube news streamer Keemstar reported that Jake Paul’s next fight will be set for October, and it would be against MMA legend and current professional boxer Anderson Silva.

Keemstar, who reports on influencers, previously said that Jake’s brother Logan Paul would fight Mike Tyson. While Tyson revealed that negotiations did take place, the fight didn’t pan out.

For what it’s worth, Paul and his company Most Valuable Promotions have been preparing fans for a fight announcement sometime this week, hinting that they’ve already secured a big name that’ll be the betting favorite in the match up.

“Jake Paul will almost certainly be the underdog,” Most Valuable Productions’ official account tweeted on Saturday. “He knows that and he wants that.

Silva and Paul have previously expressed interest in a matchup, with Paul even relating his time meeting Silva as a boy on the MMA Hour Podcast last January.

“I think he was the first celebrity I ever saw,” Paul told host Ariel Helwani. “Right when MMA was blowing up, my dad was a super big fan and we went to this local MMA event and they must have paid Anderson Silva to come because it was in Ohio so I don’t know why he would have been there, but I actually asked for his autograph and we took a picture with him. I’m maybe like 12 years old but I think he was the first celebrity that I met. So it would be fun to bring it back full circle and fight someone who was one of my first idols.”

Retiring from MMA in 2020, Silva shocked the world by returning to boxing at the ripe age of 46. Securing a 1-1 record with a debut loss in 1998 and a win in 2005, few placed much hope in a career resurgence for the Spider. Despite facing a former WBC middleweight champion in Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, Silva earned a decision win with flashes of his lost prime shining through. He followed this with a TKO victory against fellow MMA legend and failed politician Tito Ortiz, bringing his record to 3-1. Today he’s still regarded as one of the greatest strikers the sport of MMA has ever seen, retiring with a 68% knockout rate and a record of 34-11.

Paul was initially scheduled to face both Hasim Rahman Jr and Tommy Fury, before weight troubles and visa issues torpedoed both matchups respectively. He sits at a 5-0 record, holding a knockout and a decision win over former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, and a KO over former Bellator Champion and UFC alumni Ben Askren. As it stands, only one of his fights has gone to the judges.

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