Brandon Moreno is back in the cage sooner than expected, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t taken time to reflect on his recent struggles.

The two-time flyweight champion had established a routine of fighting once every six to seven months over the past few years, and his return in Saturday’s UFC Edmonton main event comes after a slightly longer break after most recently fighting in February. At UFC Mexico City, Moreno lost a split decision to Brandon Royval and the result prompted Moreno to take a step back from thinking about competing.

“I think it was the break point,” Moreno said at UFC Edmonton media day on Wednesday. “That’s it. I said this before, I don’t want to put any excuse. I think Brandon Royval is doing an amazing job right now. He’s a tough guy with amazing rhythm in the middle of the fight, but I don’t know, I feel like that night was that kind of night when your mind is not there. That’s very frustrating because I did all the training camp, the elevation, I leave my family for two months, really nice sparring sessions, everything, and then in the fight I wasn’t there. My body was there, but my mind—I don’t know, that’s very frustrating for me.”

“No excuses,” he added. “I don’t want to come here and start to put a lot of excuses. I think it’s very normal between fighters, maybe you can ask other fighters, ‘Did you have fights where you feel like your mind wasn’t there?’ They’re going to say yes, and that night was one of mine.”

The loss to Royval put Moreno on a two-fight losing streak, just the second time in his career he’s suffered consecutive losses, with Alexandre Pantoja recently defeating Moreno for the flyweight title at UFC 290. Both of those losses came via split decision in exceedingly close five-round fights.

Moreno planned to take time off after the Royval fight, but his competitive itch kept flaring up. It’s thanks to his team and family that he was able to stay away from the octagon as long as he has.

“I think it’s very easy, I’m a competitor,” Moreno said when asked what made him come back sooner than expected. “When I decide to take a little break of competition, everything was fine in that moment, but after that, three weeks after, I’m starting to think again, ‘Damn, I want to fight. I want to fight. I want to fight.’ Then it’s when my wife, my family helped me a lot with that.

“My wife and my coaches like, ‘Hey, you have to take a break. You have to take it serious. You have to rest, be with your family, with your daughters. Make more nice moments with them first.’ So I had to calm myself. I had this fight with myself in my mind to take this break serious.”

On Saturday, Moreno fights the streaking Albazi, a contender coming off a lengthy layoff of his own that is yet to lose in five UFC appearances. Though the fighters appear to be heading in opposite directions, Moreno isn’t discouraged by his past two outings; rather, he felt his competitive performances were evidence that his best is still to come.

“It’s crazy—and I’ve been talking with my coaches about this—I feel very frustrated because even when I lost my last two fights, I feel my prime,” Moreno said. “I feel very strong. I feel stronger, with better technique, with more knowledge about the fight game, just the result is not what I’ve been having [before]. So now my goal is to show that to the world. To back up all my words, to back up all my hard work at the gym and that’s it.”

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Brendan Schaub has no regrets about his retirement from MMA, although the journey getting there was a little rocky.

Not so much because Schaub struggled with the decision but rather due to a public intervention of sorts held by his friend and UFC color commentator Joe Rogan just days after a 2014 loss to Travis Browne. The podcast that served as an episode of Schaub’s long-running show The Fighter and the Kid ended up as an emotionally charged conversation about why the Ultimate Fighter finalist should call it a career.

“The reality of your skill set, where you’re at now, I don’t see you beating the elite guys,” Rogan told Schaub during the episode. “I don’t see you beating Cain Velasquez. I don’t see you beating Junior dos Santos. I don’t see you beating Fabricio Werdum.

“It’s not that you don’t try hard, that you’re not dedicated, that you’re not disciplined, that you’re not intelligent. There’s shit that other people can do that you can’t do.”

Schaub responded defiantly with plans to return to the UFC, but ultimately that fight against Browne served as the final appearance of his career. A decade removed from that infamous confrontation, Schaub admits it was incredibly difficult to hear Rogan’s words in that moment but looking back now he’s thankful that his friend was brutally honest with him.

“When you’re fighting especially at that level, the UFC level, especially these days everyone is so damn good, you have to be all in,” Schaub told MMA Fighting. “I think when it comes to me in particular, especially when Rogan was talking to me, Rogan knew I had this other set of skills. I think, not to take anything away from Rogan, I think he knew I was going to be successful outside of fighting. He’s like, ‘Dude, you can do all this stuff, what are you doing?’ He was right. He was 100 percent right.

“At the time, I was mad. My mom and my brother and dad were so mad at him for doing that publicly and I told him that. Now they thank him. They’ll call him, they’ll thank him because he’s the one that really helped me out with that stuff.”

Since retiring from fighting, Schaub has continued to produce his podcast alongside comedian and actor Bryan Callen as well as launching his own YouTube channel. He developed Food Truck Diaries — a series that he previously did with Showtime where he would sit down with a fighter, grab some food and engage in a long conversation rather than just a standard interview.

Schaub also got involved in standup comedy among many other endeavors that have kept him plenty busy since he stopped fighting.

While retirement isn’t a “one size fits all” for every athlete, Schaub had plans for a career outside the cage. That’s one of the reasons why he remains satisfied with his decision to call it a career while numerous fighters struggle to walk away.

“The fighters, it’s a special breed to be a fighter, especially at that level,” Schaub said. “It can’t be your entire identity. That’s how I’ve been able to bounce around and do different things. I never just say I’m a football player, I’m a fighter, I’m this, I’m that, I’m a comic, podcaster. I like a bunch of different things. So I never just put myself in one lane. I’m OK getting backlash going, ‘Oh he’s not really into whatever it is, off-roading, he’s not really into comedy, he’s not really into podcasting, oh he’s just a football player fighting.’ All good, people are going to do that stuff.

“I think the No. 1 issue, these fighters get so wrapped up and their identity is just as a fighter. There’s some great personalities out there. Great personalities.”

Despite being retired for the better part of the past decade, Schaub still gets calls every now and again gauging his interest in a comeback.

The most recent instance was an offer from Jorge Masvidal’s Gamebred Bareknuckle MMA and Schaub admits he was tempted in the moment — mostly due to the financial windfall it would have earned him.

“We had Jorge Masvidal and his manager Dean [Toole] on and I work for them now doing commentating but that’s how that came about. They offered me a fight,” Schaub said. “I’m like bare-knuckle MMA? They’re like yeah. I was like you don’t have enough money, there’s no way. He goes, ‘Give us a number.’ I gave them an outlandish number and he was like dead serious, just looked me in the eye and goes ‘OK.’ I’m like what?

“For a second I’m like shit, I’ll just hit the road now get some road work in now, let’s get going, that’s an insane amount of money. I just can’t force myself to do it. At 41, my kids, I can’t take another blow to the head. I’m good. I don’t need to be Elon Musk or ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone rich. I’m good. I’m good where I’m at.”

Schaub also revealed for the paycheck he would have received that a fight against another top-level opponent would be required and that only further justified his decision to pass.

“They’re like, ‘For that number you’re going to have to fight [Junior dos Santos] or Derrick Lewis.’” Schaub said. “I’m like no, hard pass. I don’t need those problems.”

With no plans to ever fight again, Schaub admits under the right circumstances he would be tempted, but every one of those scenarios is low risk, high reward. If that component isn’t involved, Schaub is happy doing exactly what he’s doing right now, which doesn’t involved getting punched in the head for a living.

“It’s a shame I’m so big,” Schaub said. “Because if a Logan Paul or a Jake Paul came about or a KSI, sign me up! When you’re talking about the [Junior dos Santos] and Derrick Lewis’ of the world? Hell no.

“Now some YouTuber? I’ll play ball there and make all the money and get the views. To fight these actual killers? It ain’t happening. I’ve got kids.”

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Payton Talbott takes a big step up in his next fight as he seeks to keep his perfect record intact.

The blue-chip bantamweight prospect faces 23-fight veteran Raoni Barcelos at UFC’s first pay-per-view show of 2025 on Jan. 18, multiple people with knowledge of the booking told MMA Fighting.

UFC 311 is rumored to take place in Los Angeles, but an official location is yet to be announced.

Talbott, 9-0 in just three years as a professional fighter, has made a major impact so far in the 135-pound division with a trio of UFC wins, capped off by back-to-back bonus-winning stoppages of Cameron Saaiman and Yanis Ghemmouri in 2024.

Barcelos (18-5) tapped Cristian Quinonez in his most recent appearance this past February to rebound from defeats to Umar Nurmagomedov and Kyler Phillips. The former RFA champion holds a UFC record of 7-4, with three finishes to his credit.

UFC 311 so far features four Brazilian talents, with Jailton Almeida battling Serghei Spivac at heavyweight, top-ranked light heavyweight Johnny Walker facing Bogdan Guskov, and Karol Rosa taking on rising bantamweight Ailin Perez.

Mike Heck contributed to this report.

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Breaking news on this Thursday as Belal Muhammad is out of his UFC 310 main event with Shavkat Rakhmonov due to a bone infection.

On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel gives their first reactions to the news, discuss the latest information, and what the UFC can do to save the card.

Additionally, they answer fan questions about Ilia Topuria’s big win at UFC 308, what’s next for the current featherweight king after knocking out Max Holloway, and if Alexander Volkanovski or Diego Lopes should be next for the belt. Additionally, topics may include Khamzat Chimaev’s absolute destruction of former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in the co-main event, other standout moments from the card, Dana White vs. Francis Ngannou, Donn Davis, and the PFL, UFC Edmonton headlined by Brandon Moreno vs. Amir Albazi, and much more.

Host Mike Heck is joined by MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew to answer your questions all show long.

Watch the show live at 12:30 p.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. PT in the video above.

If you miss the show live, you can still watch above, or listen to the podcast version, which can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods.

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Former UFC featherweight champion Germaine de Randamie has “left the building” and retired from mixed martial arts, she announced Thursday.

The 40-year-old veteran, who returned to the cage in April of 2024 after recently giving birth to a son, revealed she has decided to walk away from the sport without a farewell bout. The Dutch striker was offered a fight with Jacqueline Cavalcanti on Jan. 11, but said, “I promised myself I would retire from fighting December 31st, 2024.”

“This is not how I imagined it, envisioned it and dreamed about it. Absolutely not,” de Randamie said on a video posted on social media. “But sometimes in life, you got to roll with the punches, like they say, right? The last couple of weeks I’ve been in close contact with the UFC, since I’ve been cleared by the doctor, and I literally begged them for a fight this year. I begged them, give me one more fight this year. But unfortunately, the UFC told me they had no more spots left on the cards. Every card was fully booked for this year, which in a way of course disappointed me because, like I said, I’ve not envisioned it this way. This is not the way I wanted to do it, and it hurts, but it is what it is. So that’s why I’m shooting you this message. After 25 years, I’m gonna lay my gloves down. This is it. No more fighting.”

De Randamie leaves MMA with a record of 10-5 with seven of those wins under the UFC banner, including a featherweight title win over Holly Holm and victories against future MMA champions in Julianna Peña, Raquel Pennington and Larissa Pacheco. “The Iron Lady” lost a decision to Norma Dumont in her final UFC fight.

“I wish I had one more fight. One more fight. I wanted to make that work so bad one more time, but like I said, it’s not going to happen,” de Randamie said. “So I decided it’s time to lay my gloves down. I’m retiring from fighting. It’s been 25 years of an amazing rollercoaster with the highs of the highs and the lows of the lows. Things I couldn’t imagine having. I am blessed that I was able to do what I did. And I’ll still continue to train and be a part of some people’s amazing journey, but actively I’m retiring from MMA today.

“I want to thank you all. Also to the UFC, thank you all. It’s been an amazing ride. And don’t forget, I always say, die with memories, not dreams. The Iron Lady has finally left the building.”

Check de Randamie’s full retirement speech below.

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Sean O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch believes his fighter is a tough matchup for Ilia Topuria.

This past Saturday, Topuria solidified his reign atop the featherweight division, knocking out Max Holloway in the main event of UFC 308. Next up for Topuria appears to be a rematch with former champion Alexander Volkanovski, with Diego Lopes also waiting in the wings. But while those matchup seem destined to take place, Welch believes Topuria’s biggest challenge could come from his bantamweight charge.

“I do think stylistically there is Sean could give Ilia problems,” Welch told Submission Radio. “He really could. But Ilia topuria is a very, very scary fight… You make one mistake with Ilia Topuria and you’re going to be lights out, looking up at the ceiling or whatever. That’s a scary, scary fight, but I do believe that Sean, with his range and with his speed and with his overall skill set, he could give Ilia problems. I do believe that.”

This is not the first time O’Malley’s camp has thrown out a possible matchup with Topuria. After successfully defending his bantamweight title against Chito Vera, “Suga” teased a possible champ vs. champ matchup, but was ultimately made to fight Merab Dvalishvili instead. Dvalishvili won a dominant decision to take the title and, at least for now, take a matchup with Topuria off the table.

One matchup that may be on the table for O’Malley is a rematch with Dvalishvili. Though UFC CEO Dana White has said Umar Nurmagomedov should be first up for Dvalishvili, both O’Malley and his rival have campaigned for the rematch. And if somehow the stars align and give O’Malley another crack at Dvalishvili, Welch is confident things will go differently this time, and put the Topuria matchup back on the table.

“A healthy Sean, I do believe we go out there and end up KOing Merab in between some sort of scramble or something,” Welch said. “On the in-betweens, I think Sean will be able to catch his chin and put him down.

TOP STORIES

Relatable. Ben Askren sees similarities between how Dana White treats Francis Ngannou and himself.

Next. Dricus du Plessis wants Khamzat Chimaev for his next middleweight title defense.

MVP. Michael “Venom” Page wants Shara Bullet fight at middleweight next.

BMF. Kamaru Usman believes he had a major hand in the BMF title.

Rankings. Khamzat Chimaev made big moves up the latest middleweight rankings.

VIDEO STEW

MMA Fighting Global Rankings Show.

Michael Page interview.

UFC Edmonton Media Day.

Dricus du Plessis on TMZ Sports.

FLAVOR IN YOUR EAR

No Bets Barred.

SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Justin Gaethje gets dropped by a body shot during training.

Testing the waters.

Gotta get that studying in.

Jockeying for position.

Chris Curtis is enjoying Thailand.

Abdulrashid Sadulaev is one bad man.

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Ailin Perez (11-2) vs. Karol Rosa (18-6); UFC 311, Jan. 18.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m sure Topuria is losing sleep over Sean O’Malley moving up. I mean, what would he do? Sure, he could take Sean down easily and submit him, but he could also knock Sean into the next dimension. The plethora of choices for how to win would simply be too much for Topuria, breaking his brain and leading to a TKO (short circuit) victory for O’Malley.

EXIT POLL

If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @AlexanderKlee or @JedKMeshew on Twitter and let us know about it. Also, follow MMAFighting on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and like us on Facebook.

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Caio Machado found himself on the wrong end of two close decisions in the UFC, and now feels he desperately needs a victory to stay on the company roster.

The Brazilian talent built his MMA career competing in Canadian soil until he beat Kevin Szaflarski at Dana White’s Contender Series to enter the UFC, and disagrees with the judges that had him losing decisions to Mick Parkin and Don’Tale Mayes inside the octagon.

Machado decided to cut down to 205 pounds for the first time following the setbacks, and expects to perform better — and have more punching power — to ultimately save his career when he faces Brendson Ribeiro at Saturday’s UFC Edmonton.

“I”m in a super complicated situation because of those two losses, and it’s a bit more frustrating because I disagree with both of them,” Machado said in an interview with MMA Fighting. “Decisions are complicated in MMA. But the focus now is to win, win or win. This is the fight of my life, my career is on the line. I cut weight, I’m feeling better, and I’m ready for this challenge.”

Machado moved to Canada almost a decade ago to pursue a career unrelated to fighting, and loved it so much he kept postponing his return home. Canada eventually became home for the 6’4” man, who got married and became a father. Now a Canadian citizen, Machado decided to move back to Brazil to find new training and be by his father, who was fighting cancer — and beat it.

“I’m thrilled to be fighting in Canada,” Machado said. “Even though it’s a fight between two Brazilians, I’ll be representing both Brazil and Canada. My last fights were at the APEX, so I’m anxious to fight in front of a crowd again, especially being the home guy. It’s going to be awesome. I’m super excited to go there and perform in front of my crowd. I had my entire MMA career in Canada until I got to the UFC, so it’s like home to me.”

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Justin Gaethje has now been knocked down twice this year.

Back in April, Gaethje put his “BMF” title on the line against Max Holloway at UFC 300. After a back-and-forth war for five rounds, Gaethje answered Holloway’s call to slug it out in the final 10 seconds, only to then get brutally faceplanted just before the fight ended.

And now he’s been dropped again.

On Wednesday, Gaethje shared training footage to his Instagram account, showing him getting into a body shot challenger with his coach. After a few rounds of back and forth shots from each man, it was the former UFC interim lightweight champion who got crumpled with a nasty body shot.

After doubling over and falling to the ground, Gaethje grunts in obvious discomfort, while his head coach Trevor Whittman laughs and celebrates the unexpected outcome.

Gaethje has not fought since UFC 300, saying he wanted to take six months to allow his body to recover from the knockout and noting that another one like that would spell the end of his career.

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Kamaru Usman believes when the story of the BMF title is being told, his name should be part of the narrative.

Usman discussed the BMF title on his podcast with Henry Cejudo, and asked fans why they hold the championship — currently held by Max Holloway — in such high regard.

“Guys, why are we talking about it like this is a real title? It’s not,” Usman said on Pound 4 Pound. “This was a hypothetical that was made up because of me. It was made up because of me.”

The former welterweight champion says that when the BMF belt was introduced to the world at UFC 244, the original fight that the UFC brought to the table was Usman vs. Colby Covington. But the fight didn’t come together — which led to UFC CEO Dana White creating the BMF title that Nate Diaz called for in a callout for Jorge Masvidal, who had recently knocked out Ben Askren in record time at UFC 239 in July 2019.

When asked to elaborate by Cejudo, Usman says history would be different if he had defended his welterweight title against Covington that night in November 2019.

“Covington [and I] were supposed to fight at MSG, New York,” Usman explained. “The fight didn’t happen. They needed a fight to headline that card, they needed something with some steam. This is MSG, you can’t just put any fight card at MSG. You’ve got to come correct when you go to MSG. …

“What’s the hottest ticket out there? Jorge ‘Gamebred’ Masvidal — the hottest thing smoking. Then, of course, you have Nate Diaz with his mystique that he always carries. … Nate Diaz had already called out Masvidal after his previous fight. … Dana jumps on, how do we promote this fight? Let’s create this, all right. It’s called the baddest mother f’er belt. C’mon, are you serious?”

Masvidal would win the fight via doctor’s stoppage TKO, and was awarded the BMF title by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

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UFC Edmonton takes place this Saturday, with a flyweight double feature as Brandon Moreno takes on Amir Albazi in the main event and Erin Blanchfield faces off with Rose Namajunas in a five-round co-main event. So with all that action, and more, MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew is joined by Alexander K. Lee to break it all down.

On top of the two feature fights, there are 12 more bouts this weekend, many of them featuring Canadian fighters and Jed and AK discuss all the best betting options. Topics include whether Brandon Moreno can get back into title contention, if Erin Blanchfield is being underrated after suffering her first loss, how will all the Canadian fighters do on home soil, and more. Plus, Jed introducing AK to “THE CLIMB” as he continues his march towards glory.

Tune in for episode 106 of No Bets Barred.

New episodes of the No Bets Barred podcast drop every Wednesday and are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you find your favorite podcasts. The latest episode can be heard below.

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