The Craig Jones Invitational brackets are out, and they are packed with stars.
Event organizer Craig Jones headlines the CJI event Saturday when he squares off in a men vs. women superfight against IBJJF Hall of Famer Gabi Garcia. Also on Saturday, UFC star and former ADCC champion Mackenzie Dern faces former ADCC champion Ffion Davies in a superfight as well.
The first day of the Craig Jones Invitational on Aug. 16 will start at 6 p.m. ET, and the second day will begin at 8 p.m. ET.
The event is free on YouTube.
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Serghei Spivac made quick work of the durable veteran Marcin Tybura in the main event of UFC Vegas 95 this past Saturday night at the UFC APEX. After the win, Spivac didn’t have a specific name in mind, but called for someone ranked higher, and then Jailton Almeida issued a callout of his own to Spivac. Is that the way to go for “Polar Bear” after a bounce back win?
On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what could be next for Spivac after becoming the first fighter to submit Tybura. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Chepe Mariscal following his dominant decision win over Damon Jackson in the co-main event, Danny Barlow after defeating Nikolay Veretennikov, along with fellow main card winners Chris Gutierrez, Yana Santos, Toshiomi Kazama, and more.
Audio-only versions of the podcast can be found below, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Canelo Alvarez | Photo by Kaelin Mendez/Getty Images
Canelo Alvarez doesn’t see UFC as competition.
The boxing superstar returns to action on Sept. 14, when he defends his WBA, WBC, and WBO super middleweight titles against Edgar Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs). Alvarez’s 66th pro bout takes place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the same night as UFC 306, which goes down at the new Sphere venue just a few blocks away.
UFC CEO Dana White has expressed his annoyance at MGM choosing T-Mobile Arena as the location for their fight, and star Conor McGregor warned that UFC’s show will overshadow Alvarez vs. Berlanga.
Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs) responded to the trash talk in an interview on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game. Suffice to say, he’s confident he’ll beat UFC on Mexican Independence Day weekend.
“It’s just different,” Alvarez said. “Maybe other boxing matches, maybe, but Canelo is different. There are other kind of fights, but Canelo is just different. I don’t care if the UFC is there, when Canelo fights, it’s different.”
One knock against Alvarez’s upcoming matchup is that Berlanga lacks the notoriety of some of Alvarez’s other challenger options, namely WBC interim champion David Benavidez. Saudi promoter Turki Alalshikh also accused Alvarez of intentionally pricing himself out of negotiations for a superfight with Terence Crawford, to which Alvarez simply responded with a laughing emoji.
Alvarez explained why he feels justified in defending against Berlanga in the face of calls to take on other opponents.
“Look, at some point all the fighters did [what they were told],” Alvarez said. [Oscar] De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Julio Cesar Chavez, Mike Tyson, everybody did this. There are stars and superstars and they made the championship, not the championship made them. So it’s way different. I come and I do my career and I fight with [Miguel] Cotto with a clause, and I fight with Mayweather with a clause, and I fight with everybody to build the Canelo Alvarez I am. Right now I can do whatever I want.
“The IBF [says], ‘Hey, you need to fight with this because this.’ Who’s [William] Scull? I never hear about him, just when they say, ‘This is your mandatory.’ I never hear about him. I don’t want to do whatever they want. I want to do what I want. In this position I can do whatever I want. Because I deserve it, because of all I did. They said, ‘You don’t want to fight [Gennady] Golovkin,’ I fight him. [Erislandy] Lara, I fight him. Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders, Caleb Plant, [Austin] Trout, Mayweather, Cotto, [Dmitry] Bivol, everything. I did everything, and now [Berlanga]. But like I said, I did everything and now I can ask whatever I want and I can do whatever I want.”
Jon Anik stands by his performance at UFC 304 — most notably, his call of the main event.
Anik, who called the event alongside Daniel Cormier and Michael Bisping this past July in Manchester, England, took some criticism for how he called the welterweight title fight between new champion Belal Muhammad and Leon Edwards. The longtime play-by-play voice of the UFC is part of the Anik & Florian Podcast group of shows, which includes a program hosted by Muhammad and Anik’s twin brother Jason. Consequently, a friendship has grown from the relationship.
While some fans criticized his call of the fight, Anik went back and re-watched it, and as someone who strives for perfection on every broadcast, he was totally fine with how it sounded live.
“I have interpersonal relationships on both sides of this,” Anik told MMA Fighting. “I actually go further back with Leon than I do with Belal. Tim Simpson, [Leon’s] manager, is a good friend of mine, and historically, for me, the call that has, I think, helped my career the most was something that relates to Leon Edwards. If you listen to the Anik & Florian Podcast, our show open ends with Leon Edwards saying, ‘Head shot dead,’ right? So there’s a lot of connective tissue and interpersonal stuff for me on both sides of all of these fights.
“But yeah, I felt like the call was down the line. … Now, you can imagine all the different things that commentators hear from fans and fighters and coaches and bosses over the years. But I sleep well at night, I stand by that call, and I stand by Belal Muhammad as a friend. When we launched his podcast with my twin brother, four or five years ago, whatever it was, he had 18,000 Instagram followers. He was unranked. We believed in him in terms of him having a social media presence, and that he could maybe become a contender, if not championship athlete. And you know what? We bet on the right f*cking guy, and if I got married a second time, he might be a f*cking groomsman.
“So I can’t help that I have friendships that I have developed in this sport, but you can be sure I’m not as close with Belal as I am with Dominick Cruz, and once any of these guys hit the tunnel or hit the inspection zone, last thing I’m thinking about is their mothers and their brothers and the interpersonal stuff. So, it is what it is, it comes with the territory and people who don’t want to credit this win in this historically great division by Belal Muhammad? Cry. Cry.”
Following Muhammad’s win, Anik did take a bit of a victory lap on social media, but when it comes to the broadcast itself, and when the lights are on, Anik is a consummate professional who calls fights right down the middle regardless of who is involved.
Now that the dust has settled in regards to the event, Anik revealed how he saw the matchup on paper heading into it — and it may be surprising to some.
“I didn’t like him in the fight,” Anik said. “Can I say that now? Does that sound objective? I still believe Leon Edwards is the toughest matchup for him in the welterweight division, and Shavkat Rakhmonov, and Ian Machado Garry, and Sean Brady and others are right there — [and] this was a big result for Sean Brady, who I think is a cannonball coming in his own if he can get past Gilbert ‘Durinho’ Burns — but I still think Leon is the toughest matchup for Belal. And even though promotionally, they don’t want to go in the direction of a trilogy and an immediate run back of that title fight between Belal Muhammed and Leon Edwards, I have an appetite for it, and I actually believe Leon, if not, some long-reigning champion probably deserves it.
“If Shavkat is not ready, or Usman’s not ready, or another guy I’m not thinking of is not ready, I can assure you, Leon would shorten up a training camp to — as he says — try to get this back in blood.”
Former ONE Championship flyweight champion Adriano Moraes has booked his first fight in over a year when he returns for a rematch against Danny Kingad at the upcoming ONE 169 scheduled in Atlanta on Nov. 8
ONE Championship officials confirmed the matchup to MMA Fighting on Thursday.
The matchup against Kingad serves as Moraes’ return to action after he suffered back-to-back losses to Demetrious Johnson as they completed a trilogy of fights. Moraes pulled off a stunning knockout to beat Johnson back in 2021 to defend his ONE flyweight title.
Johnson then got revenge with a knockout of his own in the rematch in 2022 before the Brazilian dropped a unanimous decision to the former UFC champion back in May 2023. Moraes hasn’t fought since that night.
He returns against Kingad, who is a mainstay in the ONE flyweight division after first debuting with the promotion back in 2016. Kingad actually fought Moraes in his fourth appearance with ONE but suffered a submission loss in the first round with the flyweight title up for grabs.
Following that loss, Kingad won his next six fights in a row before he also fell to Johnson via decision in the finals of the ONE Flyweight World Grand Prix.
Now almost exactly seven years after they first met, Moraes and Kingad meet again in the second ONE Championship card in the United States in 2024 following an event scheduled in Denver in September.
Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya | Photo by Will Russell/Zuffa LLC
UFC 305 is a legacy-defining card nearly two years in the making.
This Saturday, Dricus du Plessis defends his middleweight title against former two-time champion Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 305, in Perth, Australia. It’s a fight that’s been building for months upon months, with heaps of expectation and intrigue surrounding it. Can du Plessis back up his mountains of trash talk or will Adesanya join Randy Couture as only the second fighter ever to win a third title in the same weight class?
But before that, in the co-main event, former flyweight title challenger Steve Erceg makes his return to the cage after falling short against champion Alexandre Pantoja, taking on perennial contender Kai Kara-France on home soil. How will this fight affect the flyweight division and Pantoja’s stranglehold on the weight class?
MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew, Damon Martin, and Shaun Al-Shatti convene to chat about some of the biggest storylines heading into UFC 305 this weekend.
1. Who has more riding on a win at UFC 305, Dricus du Plessis or Israel Adesanya?
Al-Shatti: The answer isIsrael Adesanya, and it’s not really close. Aside from the obvious factors of age and experience giving du Plessis the longer runway to climb back to the belt (the champ is five years younger and far less battle-weary), Adesanya is teetering on a razor’s edge of that inevitable thing we just tend to do in pro sports: Retroactive legacy readjustment. Right now, “The Last Stylebender” is pretty widely hailed as the second-greatest middleweight of all-time. There was some GOAT talk starting to dribble out of the dumber side of MMA at one point during his peak reign, but that was always reactionary drivel and I’m glad we as a community have adjusted accordingly since The Stricklanding.
Adesanya can likely cement his title forever as the second-best to ever do it at 185 pounds if he waltzes out to Perth and beats a man he clearly disdains to become a three-time champ. But if he loses for a third time over his past four fights and drops to 7-4 in undisputed UFC title bouts? Suddenly the door swings open for that résumé to start getting ripped apart with a fine-tooth comb. Just picture it in your mind. Say Adesanya gets rinsed by du Plessis — you already know what the response will be. Izzy was never actually that good. He reigned over a weak middleweight division. His only good wins were Whittaker and Pereira, but he should’ve lost the rematch against the former and it took him four tries to do the latter.
Which, you know, fair. Obviously some of that is revisionism at its finest, but a hit list filled with Marvin Vettoris and Paulo Costas hasn’t exactly aged as gracefully as we expected in 2021. If there’s a world where we end up looking back at this middleweight era and its top standouts are Whittaker, Strickland, Adesanya, and du Plessis in some order, and Adesanya has lost badly to two of the other three, his place in the pantheon may look quite a bit different than it once did, especially with his straight-up refusal to fight Pereira again.
“DDP” doesn’t share those same kind of weighty stakes, at least not yet.
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesIsrael Adesanya
Martin: As much as Dricus du Plessis has riding on this one as the incumbent champion, there’s no doubt Israel Adesanya has more on the line as the challenger.
It’s been almost a year since we last saw Adesenya and that night he lost in lopsided fashion to Sean Strickland — a fighter he seemed destined to beat as the loud-mouthed middleweight was basically serving as a stand-in for du Plessis when he couldn’t make a quick turnaround to fight in July and then again in September. Instead, Strickland beat the brakes off Adesanya and took the title from him. Since that time, Adesanya has largely stayed in the shadows and he’s continued to lurk on the outside looking in, basically being a recluse from media or public appearances, which seems to signal he’s only interested in fixing what went wrong in his last fight and making sure he’s ready to take the title back now that du Plessis is champion.
Winning fixes everything in this sport but losing is so catastrophic that a second straight defeat could spell utter doom for Adesanya. At 35, another loss could make it much tougher to tell if Adesanya is still in the middle of his prime or beginning that slow — or potentially fast — expulsion from the island of relevancy. His performance at UFC 305 could determine if Adesanya puts himself back in the conversation as one of the all-time greats, perhaps riding shotgun to middleweight GOAT Anderson Silva, or if his best days are truly behind him. There’s even a real world scenario where a bad loss could end with Adesanya saying, “Peace out, see ya, don’t want to be ya.”
And that’s not even factoring in the intense rivalry that Adesanya shares with du Plessis after their borderline “should we even be talking about this” trash talk about who was a real African turned uncomfortable long before this fight ever got made. It all adds up to Adesanya desperately needing a win because he can ill afford another loss, especially if du Plessis is the guy who gives it to him.
Meshew: Both of my colleagues are horribly mistaken: Dricus du Plessis has the most to lose on Saturday. By a WIDE margin.
First off, in a very literal sense, DDP is the one with something to lose right now. He has a shiny belt he gets to carry around. Adesanya does not. So if DDP loses, he will directly and tangibly lose a belt. How will he hold up his pants?!?!
But more to the point, du Plessis is also the one risking his legacy on Saturday, for all the exact reasons Shaheen and Damon noted.
Adesanya is the second greatest middleweight of all time. It is almost incontrovertible unless you’re arguing with a real Munson. That means that, ultimately, he doesn’t have much to lose. Sure, a loss means he can’t chase down Anderson Silva for GOAT status, but he never was doing that anyway. And the man has solidified himself enough that a loss doesn’t take the silver medal away from him either. Sure, some bozos will try and re-write history but there’s always a turd in the punch bowl. They don’t make the rules and they don’t matter.
On top of that, Adesanya is 35 years old and not a young 35. Man has been kickboxing for a lifetime. He’s got city miles on him. 113 official fights and counting, and the number is probably well north of that, adding in all the gym wars, street scuffles, and whatever the hell else he’s gotten up to in his life. The human body can only take so much and Adesanya’s pushed his further than most. And everyone knows it. If he loses to DDP, there’s a built-in escape hatch. “Well, Izzy got old. Father Time comes for us all. But man, think about when he was in his prime.” That’s how the conversations go.
Conversely, du Plessis is a new, young champion in the prime of his career. The man has been talking a springbok-sized mountain of crap for a long time about Adesanya and now the bill has come due. If he goes out there and gets washed, the stain will live with him forever. He’ll be dunked on relentlessly for the rest of his career. Because lord knows Adesanya isn’t one to let things go. We’ll get Jon Jones-levels of petty Tweets for the remainder of his career.
Plus, DDP’s title win was controversial. If he doesn’t defend the title, it’ll be erased, far more than Adesanya’s legacy will. Yes, he’ll forever be a champion, but so was Dave Menne and we don’t talk about him at all.
Maybe du Plessis could get back to the belt after a loss, but he’ll never get back what he will lose on Saturday night. Other than the thing to hold up his pants.
2. How far away from a title shot are Kai Kara-France and Steve Erceg?
Photo by Alexandre Loureiro/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesSteve Erceg
Martin: What in the world happened to the depth in the UFC flyweight division?
For a while it seemed like the 125-pound division was flourishing, especially with a series of thrilling matches between Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo. Now one of those guys is on indefinite hiatus and the other is closing in on a title shot in the bantamweight division. That leaves champion Alexandre Pantoja without a lot of options right now.
Despite Pantoja standing around without a true No. 1 contender, it’s crazy to consider that Kara-France or Erceg should even sniff a title shot without three or four wins in a row. First off, Erceg just lost to Pantoja — yes, it was a compelling, close-fought battle but the result still went to the champion and let’s be honest, “Astro Boy” got the opportunity by default anyways when the UFC desperately needed a fight to headline a card in Brazil after exhausting the reserves to build UFC 300 into an unforgettable event.
Meanwhile, Kara-France lost his last two fights — albeit one of those in disputed fashion — but he also hasn’t been seen since that night in June 2023. Even if he tears through Erceg impressively, there’s no world where he should get a title shot without at least a couple more wins.
Where does that leave Pantoja exactly? Maybe the UFC should look towards the land of the RIZIN sun.
Meshew: Another way to ask this question is: what the (Mike) Heck does this fight even mean? And the answer is diddly squat.
Don’t get me wrong, the co-main event on Saturday is gas. Premium, 93 octane gasoline. But it doesn’t mean much. As Damon noted, “KKF” is on a two-fight losing streak. Sure, a win puts him back in the mix but even in a weight class desperate for new challengers, at best this puts him one away.
And my boy Vincenzo, AKA “Vinny Cigs,” just lost to the current champion. If Brandon Royval beats Tatsuro Taira, he’d have that same problem but a better resume. E-Cig is still up a creek there (and if Taira wins, he’s getting the title shot). Plus, at some point Amir Albazi will probably fight again, and at this rate, might just get a title shot via process of elimination.
No, both men are still a few away from scrapping for the belt, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything on the line. As Damon noted, Kai Asakura is making his way to the octagon and I strongly suspect his debut will come against the winner of this fight right here. Either a battle of the Kais or “Astro Boy” gets a chance to establish himself as Steve “Kai Killer” Erceg. Then we’ll just need the UFC to trade for Kai Kamaka III to complete the quest, before Erceg bumps up to middleweight and challenges Caio Borralho, to see the true extent of his powers.
Al-Shatti: As much as it pains me, Vinny Cigs still has some work to do regardless of what happens at UFC 305. He just challenged for the belt in May and even that was more of a rare “Well, we really don’t have any other options, do we?” type of scenario. As well as he acquitted himself in that Pantoja fight, Erceg isn’t the guy who’s going to be given a second shortcut in line anytime soon. But Kara-France? Oh baby. For him, it’s riiiiiight there for the taking. The unlikely nobody-won outcome of UFC 304’s marquee flyweight fight left this division adrift without a clear — or even murky — No. 1 contender. A Kara-France coming off a UFC 305 win would pretty much be the only elite name left at 125 pounds with, A) Any tangible sense of momentum, and B) No disqualifyinghistory with the champ. (Kara-France lost to Pantoja on TUF 24, but that was an exhibition fight more than eight years ago.)
Even his loss to the only other viable option right now (Amir Albazi) can be easily hand-waved away with one glance at MMA Decisions and Albazi’s inactivity since. Tatsuro Taira remains one win away and I still expect UFC to give Asakura a welcome-to-the-show fight before throwing him straight into the title mix. So make no mistake about it, whether he deserves it or not, Kai Kara-France is vying for gold next if he wins at UFC 305.
3. What fight from the undercard are you most interested in?
Martin: UFC 305 is incredibly top heavy but one prelim that got my attention ahead of this weekend is Jack Jenkins returning from injury to face Herbert Burns. Now you might be asking how is this a compelling fight when one guy is coming off a horrific elbow dislocation and the other has a history with his gas tank matching a heavyweight journeyman fighting at Denver altitude?
That’s exactly why this is a fun fight!
With Jenkins’ past reputation built around his uncanny ability to literally break his opponents’ legs with kicks and Burns knowing that his UFC career is dangling by a thread after three straight losses where only an impressive win might keep his roster spot, that sets up the potential for some real fireworks.
Of course, Burns could also try to play it safe, but it’s tough to imagine he’s going to lean on his less-than-reliable conditioning enough to try and grind out Jenkins for three rounds. Instead, Burns may just throw caution to the wind and go for broke while Jenkins attempts to chop him down like a lumberjack going after an Australian eucalyptus tree. That could result in a surprisingly wild finish.
Al-Shatti: Oh man. This really isn’t the most inspiring lineup, eh? Since one obvious pick is already taken, I suppose I’ll go off the board and sneak in Tom Nolan vs. Alex Reyes from the deep prelims. Firstly, did y’all know Nolan is a 6-foot-3 lightweight?! He is! That’s wildly absurd but I love it dearly. But also, I respect the instincts of my friend Jed (sometimes against my better judgement), and when he boldly labeled the former Rugby player as his No. 1 prospect among the 47 signees of the most recent Contender Series season, I had to take notice.
And I’m glad I did.
Nolan may have slipped on the proverbial banana peel in his UFC debut, but his sophomore effort against Victor Martinez was a vicious reminder of the potential of the man Mr. Meshew so aptly described as “a lightweight with shades of Jalin Turner crossed with Dan Hooker.” Nolan is huge, he’s mean, he’s athletic, and he’s been given the perfect dance partner with a get-or-get-got all-star like the 37-year-old Reyes. Make no mistake, this one is a showcase for Nolan’s unique brand of ultra-violence, and I am very much here for it.
Meshew: Because Shaheen is a butt, he took the guy I was OBVIOUSLY going to take and I’m now in a bind here because most of these fights are uninspiring.
So, given the tragic skullduggery that has ensued, I will just cheat and choose the most obvious choice that’s ever shot a boot: Tai Tuivasa vs. Jairzinho Rozenstruik.
“But Jed, that’s on the main card!” Tough noogies. I’m editing this piece and thus no one can stop me. And for as much as I am somewhat interested in Casey O’Neill — talented fighter on the verge of collapsing behind a bad losing streak — we need to talk about another fighter who fits that criteria: Tai Tuivasa.
Two years ago, Tuivasa was shockingly close to knocking out Ciryl Gane and fighting for an honest-to-Shiva UFC title. It was a time when logic and rationality had been locked in the trunk and vibes had taken the wheel and slammed the pedal down. Had he done it, I somehow feel the world would be a better place right this moment. But instead, Gane survived and won and since then, the vibes have been atrocious.
Four losses in a row, two in the first round, and one by Odin-damned ezekiel choke. There are toddlers alive today that have never even seen a shoey. You call this a society? We oughta leave this world behind.
And Saturday, we have the chance to. Rozenstruik is a kickboxer, so there’s almost no chance he tackles and submits Tuivasa, meaning he’s “down to get down” as “Bam Bam” likes to say. And while Rozenstruik isn’t toothless in there, he’s also not Sergei Pavlovich. There’s a real chance Tai can resurrect the old Bam Bam and get this party started again.
Make MMA Shoey Again, 2024.
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesTai Tuivasa
Francis Ngannou | Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images
Francis Ngannou enters his MMA comeback fight this October with the heaviest of hearts.
This past April, Ngannou revealed that his 15-month son Kobe died following a medical emergency. The devastating news hit the Ngannou family just a month after his most recent fight, a second-round knockout loss to Anthony Joshua in a boxing match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ngannou is now set to compete in his first MMA fight in almost three years when he takes on Renan Ferreira at a PFL pay-per-view event on Oct. 19. In an interview with Sky Sports Boxing, Ngannou discussed how a return to training is helping him to work through the tragedy and how his son continues to motivate him.
“I need some activities,” Ngannou said. “I need to stay active, to be in a zone that I belong to. Maybe that also will help or change, I also need to keep it going to fight for my boy. For Kobe.”
“The past three months haven’t been the easiest,” Ngannou continued. “I think it has been by far the hardest shape in life since I lost my son. For some time, I felt like I didn’t even have to do this or questioning about if I should do it or fight again or something, but I know that my son had something good in his memory and I wanted to do something good in his memory. To use this not to be the reason for me to quit, but maybe to be a motivation and also to fight for him.”
Ngannou’s most recent cagefight took place at UFC 270, where he defeated Ciryl Gane by unanimous decision to retain the UFC heavyweight title. What followed was a protracted contract dispute with the promotion, which saw Ngannou eventually secure his release after a year of inactivity, leaving him free to sign with PFL and later land high-profile boxing bouts with Tyson Fury and Joshua.
With Ngannou making major waves in the boxing world, there was some doubt as to whether he would compete in MMA again. And when news of his son’s death broke, it raised the question of whether Ngannou still wanted to fight at all.
“It’s not that I have come close to retiring, it’s just that … you have different thoughts,” Ngannou said. “You see how fragile life is. You feel you’re hurt, you feel powerless, you feel useless. You question your existence, about the importance of all of this, or life in general, but it’s not that I have considered retiring or something. It’s just that you have to deal with something that wasn’t on the landscape before.”
An important part of the Ngannou mythology is his rise from an impoverished upbringing in Cameroon to combat sports star, a journey that culminated in Ngannou becoming UFC heavyweight champion in 2021.
But nothing Ngannou has gone through could prepare him for the loss of Kobe.
“I think it’s easy to overcome hurdles, to overcome life’s challenges when it’s just situations,” Ngannou said. “But this is something different. It’s something that hurts your soul. It’s different. I would not compare this to anything that I knew or that I experienced. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but it’s different.
“All of a sudden you feel like you haven’t been able to do anything in your life, you haven’t been able to overcome anything, you feel the most vulnerable as you have ever been.”
Ready or not, Ngannou has plenty to prove when he fights Ferreira on Oct. 19. Ferreira is coming off of a stunning 2023 campaign that saw him win a PFL heavyweight tournament and become the front-runner in the Ngannou sweepstakes.
Is the Brazilian slugger poised to spoil Ngannou’s comeback fight?
“I just have to find that out by fighting,” Ngannou said. “There’s only one way to find out, but also I think now I have a different motivation in my son. I used to fight for a lot of reasons, but I don’t think I had the biggest reason, the biggest purpose to fight until now.”
Michelle Waterson-Gomez has plenty to look forward to after authoring a career any fighter would be proud of.
Over the course of her 17-year pro run, Waterson-Gomez headlined UFC events, won an atomweight championship with Invicta FC, and stepped into the cage with a who’s who of the best female fighters in the world. At UFC 303, she announced her retirement following a loss to Gillian Robertson.
Waterson-Gomez, 38, isn’t sure what’s next for her now that her cagefighting days are over, but she’s happy that they are.
“I don’t know,” Waterson-Gomez recently said on The MMA Hour when asked if she will ever fight again. “At the moment, I’m really content with walking away. I’m content with turning the page and taking a step forward into this new chapter. I’m really excited. I’d love to get into acting, I’d love to get into broadcasting. I’d love to be on the other side of it.
“I’d love to coach some of my teammates to greatness. I’d love to be able to help other female athletes, other female businesswomen, other mothers pursue their dreams and whatever it is. I’d love to be able to be in their corner for that. I’m still a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, I want to get my black belt. Whether or not that involves having to compete, we shall see. But at the moment I’m just pretty content with just being mommy.”
The writing was on the wall for Waterson-Gomez to step away from competition, as her loss to Robertson marked her fifth straight setback, a skid dating back to September 2020. Though “The Karate Hottie” regularly went toe-to-toe with the likes of 2024 Hall of Fame inductee Joanna Jedrzejczyk and two-time UFC strawweight champions Carla Esparza and Rose Namajunas, wins over elite competition were few and far between as her career progressed.
One of Waterson-Gomez’s most notable triumphs occurred early in her career when she defeated Jessica Penne in an instant classic in April 2013 to become Invicta’s 115-pound champion. The then-27-year-old battled back and forth with Penne before scoring a dramatic armbar submission in the fourth round.
To this day, she considers it one of her crowning achievements.
“That was the time where I bit down on my mouthpiece and shut the world out and just believed in myself,” Waterson-Gomez said. “I was a 10-to-1 underdog against Jessica Penne and nobody thought that I could win that belt. She was bigger, she was a brown belt in jiu-jitsu at the time, I was a white belt, just had my daughter. Everything was stacked against me, but I knew — I knew in my heart that I was going to win. It didn’t matter how and I didn’t have a specific way how. I just knew that I was going to win.
“It was a war. It was back and forth, and at one point she was on top of me and she was ground-and-pounding me and raining down punches trying to split me open. I just remember looking over at my husband and he was just telling me, ‘Calm down. You’re fine.’ I was able to reverse that position and come out in the next round and finish her by submission. It all came to a head. I was kind of a little bit numb after the ref pulled us apart and I remember standing up and just dropping right back to my knees, thinking about all the hard work that had built up to that moment. So that was a beautiful moment for me, for sure.”
Waterson-Gomez followed the Penne win with another strong performance against Yasuko Tamada — “I was a savage in that fight,” she said — defeating Yamada by third-round TKO to defend her title.
Two fights later, Waterson-Gomez made her UFC debut with a submission of Angela Magana, which set her up for her first UFC main event against Paige VanZant at a show in Sacramento, Calif., in December 2016. She needed less than a round to choke Paige VanZant out.
“I love my fight against Paige VanZant because I was out for about a year and a half going through — I broke my hand in my UFC debut, but it didn’t matter because I won,” Waterson-Gomez said. “After that, it was a series of hand breaks, so it was like, ‘Gosh, I just got signed to the UFC and I keep breaking my hand!’ Every time I got a fight, it was like two weeks getting ready to fight and then my hand would break again, so it was like that for a year and a half. So it went from me getting signed to the UFC, riding this incredible high, to nobody knowing who I was, my hand was broken, maybe I need to stop fighting, I was paying all these medical bills.
“Then I got slated to fight Paige VanZant and then it was the main event at this incredible new stadium, huge opportunity, and that fight just all seemed to fall in line perfectly. They call it the zen flow. Call it whatever you want to call it, that’s what it was for me. Everything was happening in slow motion. I could see her movement, and everything just fell into place how it needed to. I was able to secure the submission, got Performance of the Night, and was able to bring extra money home, which is what meant the most to me because I was out for a year and a half costing my family money. So that fight was also very meaningful to me as well.”
At this moment, Waterson-Gomez has no plans to make any more memories as a competitor, though she expects to be involved with the fight game in some capacity. She prides herself on always making time for MMA fans and doesn’t see why that has to change now that she’s retired.
“Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to be in the back in a different arena,” Waterson-Gomez said. “I’d love to get into broadcasting.
“I’d love to be able to still touch the magic and be a part of the MMA world because there’s nothing like it, but to be able to compete, to be in the locker room, to feel those nerves, to hear the crowd, to have Bruce Buffer scream my name, and to be interviewed by Joe [Rogan]. All those things we take for granted. To be stopped by fans, to be asked to take pictures and autographs, those moments are priceless, and I was just really grateful to have those moments.”
With UFC 305 fast approaching, a preview taking a deeper look at the heated rivalry between middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya takes center stage in the UFC 305 Countdown video.
For Adesanya, the fight serves as a chance to reclaim his throne after he was defeated in a stunning upset against Sean Strickland back in September 2023. With Adesanya out, du Plessis stormed his way to gold with a win over Strickland and now he’ll attempt to do the same to Adesanya with his head coach Morne Visser doing everything to get him ready … including the use of a cattle prod during training.
Check out the wild UFC 305 countdown video to see how du Plessis’ coach makes sure he corrects mistakes in brutal fashion.
Ben Askren and Dana White | Photo by Carmen Mandato/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Ben Askren is pretty surprised UFC CEO Dana White hasn’t switched gears toward a Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall unification bout rather than Jones vs. Stipe Miocic.
After Jones withdrew due to injury from his heavyweight title defense against Miocic at UFC 295 this past November, Aspinall instead competed on the card, knocking out Sergei Pavlovich in short order to win the interim title. Since then, the bloom has seemingly fallen off of the proverbial rose in terms of fan interest for a Jones vs. Miocic re-booking, especially considering Miocic hasn’t fought since getting brutally knocked out by Francis Ngannou in March 2021. Aspinall continues to compete — he defended his interim belt with a knockout of Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304 — leading many to believe the Englishman is the world’s best heavyweight.
Askren is now left wondering, why isn’t UFC pushing for Jones vs. Aspinall?
“I almost feel like maybe Jon’s got some dirt on Dana or something, because Dana generally would not put up with this type of behavior,” Askren said on Funky & The Champ with Daniel Cormier. “He would say, and this is what the UFC is founded on where boxing [wasn’t], is, ‘We want the best guys to fight. We want to see who the actual best guy is. We don’t want to waste time with shenanigans, we won’t want to pad records to go to 40-0, we don’t do that, that’s what boxing does. In the UFC, we put the best guys in there and see who wins.’
“So the fact that Jon is being — I don’t want to say, [I don’t know] if allowed is the right term, but Dana’s playing along, and letting him and Stipe fight. Stipe is going to be close to four years [since his last fight] by the time they ever fight. … You have this young interim champion, he’s a beast, just smashes people, and the fact that they won’t put them in there together — and then there’s this good [chance] that Jon beats Stipe and then says, ‘I’m done, I’m gone.’ And then you never get to see [Jones vs. Aspinall].”
Jones has competed just once in the past four years, capturing the vacant heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 in March 2023.
Askren understands business and putting on the biggest fights possible, but at some point, he argues it has to be about the best two guys in a division competing for a world title.
“Dana almost always presses these issues with the best guys, it’s pretty rare when he hasn’t,” Askren said. “Like Sean [O’Malley] and Merab [Dvalishvili], he’s making that happen. He let Sean fight ‘Chito,’ that was one fight, but now Sean and Merab are fighting.”
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Photo by Alexandre Loureiro/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
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