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UFC CEO Dana White isn’t backing down on waiting for Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic.

Jones and Miocic were originally supposed to face off for the heavyweight title in the main event of UFC 295 in November 2023. But shortly before the event, Jones suffered a torn pectoral muscle that forced him from the card, and instead of having backup fighter Sergei Pavlovich step in against Miocic, the UFC opted to postpone the fight entirely. The two are now looking to finally matchup against each other in November, and while the bout has received an increasing amount of backlash recently, White isn’t having it.

“What do I do?” White said to the media following the latest episode of The Contender Series. “A guy who is looked at as the greatest heavyweight in the UFC, this fight is set up, Jon Jones gets hurt, it’s not his fault. He has to wait and go back into f*cking training camp again. He was training. So do I just yank it away from Stipe and say go f*ck yourself and sit on the sidelines for two more years?

“If I did that, you guys would be like, ‘Oh, you f*cking disrespected the greatest heavyweight ever!’ and so would the f*cking fans. So I should just shit on Stipe because Jon got hurt and not make the fight that he was already supposed to fight?”

The growing criticism to the Jones-Miocic matchup comes both from the rise of interim champion Tom Aspinall and Miocic’s recent history. Though Miocic is considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, the 42-year-old has not competed in over three years, when he was brutally knocked out by Francis Ngannou, and holds no wins over current UFC fighters. In contrast, Aspinall has five wins over currently ranked heavyweights in that time, including his short notice to fight for an interim title when the UFC postponed Jones-Miocic at UFC 295.

But when reporters pushed back on Miocic being given a title shot under those circumstances, White remained adamant that this was the only realistic way to handle this scenario.

“I have two legends of the sport that wanted to fight each other,” White said. “These guys are lined up, one guy gets hurt, and this is the fight that they both want. What do you do? You don’t show the guys the respect? I guarantee you this, if Stipe wins, Stipe is going to retire. This will be Stipe’s last fight. So are you, the media, telling me I should just tell Stipe to f*ck off? ‘Good luck to you Stipe, ride off into the sunset, go fight some fires and that’s a wrap for you buddy, because Jon got hurt.’ Or do I show this guy the respect that I should show him and give them both the fight that they want? That’s the position I’m in.

“If Stipe was 32 years old, then yeah, [an interim title fight] is probably what we do. But this is probably Stipe’s last fight, win or lose, and I’m not going to disrespect the guy. He accepted the fight, he was ready for the fight, and Jon got injured.”

Of course that’s cold comfort for Aspinall, who has lobbied for a shot at the undisputed title since winning the interim belt. But White says that eventually, he’ll get his turn.

“Aspinall’s a young, badass dude,” White said. “He’s got plenty of time. These guys are going to fight in November and he will fight Jon Jones if he wins, I almost guarantee you that. And if Stipe wins, we’ll figure out what’s next for Aspinall.”

Though not yet official, Jones and Miocic are expected to face off in the main event at UFC 309 which takes place on Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

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Mariya Agapova is removing her gloves and she’s taking her talents to BKFC.

The promotion announced via Instagram stories on Tuesday that Agapova has signed with the bare-knuckle outfit following a six-fight run in the UFC. No information in regards to a debut date, or opponent was revealed.

Agapova hopes a change of scenery can get her fighting career back on track.

The 27-year-old was highly touted as a prospect entering the UFC, and delivered a first-round submission of Hannah Cifers in her octagon debut. From there, things began to fall off, as Agapova was on the receiving end of one of the biggest upsets in UFC history in a loss to Shana Dobson in August 2020.

“Money Mashka” ended her UFC tenure going 1-3 in her past four outings, getting submitted in her final three promotional appearances.

BKFC also announced the signing of one-time UFC heavyweight Braxton Smith, who was finished in the first round by Parker Porter in his only UFC fight at UFC 288 in May 2023.

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Demetrious Johnson isn’t officially done with his MMA career, but he might be close.

One of the most accomplished fighters in MMA history, Johnson holds a number of UFC records, including most consecutive title defenses (11), amassed when he ruled the flyweight division from 2012 to 2018. After losing the title to Henry Cejudo at UFC 227, Johnson then got traded to ONE Championship, where he’s spent the past six years and is the current flyweight champion. However, Johnson has not competed since winning his trilogy fight against Adriano Moraes back in May of 2023, and apparently “Mighty Mouse” isn’t focused on returning any time soon either.

“I always like to leave that door open,” Johnson told the JAXXON podcast. “… You’re always going to have that love for mixed martial arts… I’m not officially retired. I’m just saying mixed martial arts is not on my mind right now.”

Johnson has been open over the past few years about wanting to pursue other opportunities outside of just MMA, including other combat sports disciplines and special one-offs. But Johnson says that doesn’t mean he’s done with MMA. For the ONE flyweight champion, it’s a matter of the right fight.

“It doesn’t mean if something came through, ‘Hey man, you want to do this fight?’ Sure, why not?” Johnson said. “I still train every day. My weight is still good…

“I don’t train MMA. I train martial arts. It’s jiu-jitsu. I haven’t hit pads in, what – (yesterday) was the second time I hit pads in a year and a half. I can still move. I still have it. I feel like people think when you don’t train mixed martial arts you can’t do it. It might not be to the highest level, but I can get back to the highest level. So for me, I think when the time does come and I do officially retire, then I’ll be more open about, these are the reasons why, I set goals for myself.”

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Robert Whittaker has some words of caution for Alex Pereira.

At UFC 305, Dricus du Plessis made the first successful defense of his middleweight title by stopping former two-time champion Israel Adesanya. It was an impressive win that caught the attention of former middleweight champion and current light heavyweight champion Pereira, who suggested post-fight that he might make a return to 185 pounds to square off with du Plessis. But Whittaker says Pereira shouldn’t view du Plessis as an easy mark.

“Well, I hope not,” Whittaker said on Submission Radio when asked if he believes Pereira will go back down to middleweight. “Honestly, I don’t think that’s a good fight for him. I don’t think that’s a good fight for him. But also, when you move up to light heavyweight, moving back down is tricky. And it’s not like you move up for one fight. He stayed up there. He’s been fighting up there for a while now. So it’s it would be it would take a lot out of him to get down, and Dricus is so strong there.”

Pereira began his UFC career as a middleweight and won the title over Adesanya at UFC 281. After losing the belt in their UFC 287 rematch, “Poatan” moved up to light heavyweight, where he won the title and has defended it twice.

But despite those recent successes, Whittaker still questions how a depleted Pereira would do against the power and aggression of du Plessis.

“Alex gets hit,” Whittaker said. “OK? And Dricus likes getting hit.

“It’s hard to see someone with the amount of power to stop Dricus from walking forward into you, and Dricus hits hard. You saw that in the fight against Adesanya. Adesanya has got a really good chin, and Dricus was still hurting him enough to, you know, to to make him uncomfortable. So yeah.”

Whittaker, of course, knows plenty about du Plessis. The former middleweight champion faced off with “Stillknocks” back at UFC 290, where he was stopped in the second round. And like he believes Pereira might be doing now, Whittaker says he didn’t give du Plessis the credit he deserved heading into that fight.

“I’d like to think that I never underestimate my opponents, but I probably did [with] him,” Whittaker said. “Maybe, it’s hard to say. The prep wasn’t ideal. Everybody says it. You look at him fight, and the guy looks like a pub fighter, right? But he just keeps smashing people.

“Like I said, in that first fight with him, I saw the punches coming. I moved out of the way. I felt good in there. I was like, ‘I got this.’ And then I got punched in the face. It’s not a pretty style, but it’s effective. Super effective. And I think the biggest thing is the mentality behind his shots. If you’re not at that level, if you’re not on the same plane of offering as he is, then he’s going to run away with it.”

If Pereira does make good on his warning and return to 185 pounds, it won’t be for awhile. The UFC light heavyweight champ is currently scheduled to defend his belt against Khalil Rountree Jr. in the main event of UFC 307 on Oct. 5 in Salt Lake City.

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Gable Steveson, a 2020 Olympic gold medal wrestler and former WWE prospect, is set to be released from the Buffalo Bills roster after he attempted to make a career switch to play in the NFL.

NFL Network first reported the news as teams prepare to cut down to the 53-man roster required by 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Without a single down of football experience prior to 2024, Steveson decided to try his hand at football as he followed in the footsteps of fellow University of Minnesota wrestling standout Brock Lesnar after he attempted a similar move during his career. Lesnar left WWE and worked out with the Minnesota Vikings during the preseason but ultimately he suffered the same fate with his release before eventually becoming one of the biggest stars in the UFC.

Steveson making the final roster was always a longshot considering his lack of experience but as a developmental prospect there’s a chance he could still get signed to a different roster or a practice squad as the NFL season gets underway in less than two weeks.

Prior to his attempt to play professional football, Steveson was widely considered one of the best wrestlers on the planet after he delivered a thrilling performance to capture gold with a last second takedown at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Following that win, Steveson returned to college where he crushed his competition before winning a second NCAA championship.

Even before his Olympic run, Steveson had expressed interest in potentially pursuing fighting or professional wrestling but he ultimately decided to sign with WWE after winning his gold medal. Unfortunately, Steveson never quite developed the way WWE had hoped and he was released from the roster in May.

That led to Steveson’s decision to switch to professional football where he played defensive tackle for the Buffalo Bills and recorded three tackles during limited action on the field during the preseason.

Now Steveson, who is still only 24 years old, has been released from the Bills roster and it remains to be seen what he plans to do next in his career.

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Kamaru Usman doesn’t understand why MMA fans act the way that they do sometimes.

The former UFC welterweight champion is on the path to returning to the octagon for the first time since losing a short-notice competitive decision to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294 this past October. Usman and new 170-pound champion Belal Muhammad have been going back-and-forth on social media since UFC 304 in July.

Usman has dropped three straight fights, but was on quite the run before that, as he compares himself to two other longtime, dominant former champions.

“I didn’t care what I was going through, I didn’t care what I was dealing with, I didn’t care what I was battling physically, mentally, emotionally,” Usman said on Weighing In. “It didn’t matter to me. I was going to jump in there and perform, and perform, and perform — and the same thing with Israel Adesanya, which is why you saw a ton of those title defenses, and I’m sure [it’s the same with] Alexander Volkanovski, who also came out and expressed that sometimes.

“We do these things to jump in and go, and go, and go to try to entertain the masses, and of course, we reap the benefits that come with that, we get the checks [that] come with that. Now, I’m in a place where, OK, with all of that comes a lot of injuries. All the things that you’ve been dealing with, it catches up to you. … Because you stack up all of these injuries over time, it starts to diminish your performances to where people start to forget how good that you are, just how much time you spent building your career, doing the things that made you successful to where they start to [say things like], ‘Oh, he’s washed,’ which is… how disrespectful are MMA fans? How disrespectful are they?

“‘Oh, he’s washed, oh, he can’t do this anymore, he’s not that.’ They were saying that before Jon Jones came back and then fought Ciryl Gane.”

Prior to the loss to Chimaev, Usman lost two straight championship fights to Leon Edwards — including a stunning head kick knockout in the final round of UFC 278 in August 2022 that caused Usman to lose the title.

Despite all of the success Usman has found in the sport over the years, a different amount of pressure comes with it — including pleasing the fans. The former champion actually envies a lot of the younger fighters who are just scratching the surface.

“I just tell them, ‘This is the fun time right now,’” Usman said. “All you get to do is come in [the gym], you have so much time to just learn. … Yes, I know everyone sees the glitz and glamour and the lights and go, ‘Oh, man. That’s what I want. I want the outfits, I want the nice shirts,’ and all of these different things. Yes, that’s great.

“But guess what? Once you become champion and you get there, now you fly to New York for a two-day press conference — a day flight to get there, then I’m there for two days, then I have to fly back. That’s three to four days that I just lost where the rest of the guys are just training, going to the gym, training every day. … It catches up to you, and that time is not that fun anymore because, hey, now you got bills-bills, now you got problems-problems.”

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Joe Rogan is torn on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul.

The blockbuster boxing bout is slated to headline a massive event on November 15 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and stream on Netflix for subscribers. Speaking with actor Russell Crowe, Rogan weighed in on the fight between Paul and Tyson, along with the widespread concerns about Tyson taking this fight while nearing 60 years of age.

“58 is 58 — no matter what you’re taking, and what they’re doing for you, you’re still 58,” Rogan said on a recent episode of his podcast. “But 58-year-old Mike Tyson is not 50-year-old Mike Jones that lives down the street. It’s a different kind of human being, he can still knock your head into another dimension if he can catch you.”

The fight was originally scheduled to take place in July before Tyson withdrew due to a medical emergency, but the boxing Hall of Famer and former heavyweight champ has been medically cleared and is back to training in preparation for his in-ring return.

After Tyson’s removal from the contest, Paul went on to face Mike Perry instead and stopped the BKFC star in Round 6.

Rogan, a longtime color UFC commentator, sees Paul as a boxer who doesn’t get enough credit.

“The thing is, can [Tyson] catch a 28 year-old guy who is at the top of his career, who is winning legitimate boxing matches?” Rogan asked. “He’s beating former UFC world champions like Tyron Woodley, Jake had that very good fight with Tommy Fury, who is a legitimate boxer. That was a very good fight. And he just beat up Mike Perry, who was a bare-knuckle champion.

“He’s a real fighter, he can fight. And if Mike Tyson and him are fighting, and Mike can’t catch him, then it’s hard to tell.”

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Since retiring from UFC, Matt Brown has put a lot of time into building businesses — most notably his gym — and setting himself up for success in a post-fighting career.

While he never headlined pay-per-views or won championships, Brown spent 16 years in the UFC, and during that time he learned a lot about how the promotion does business. It’s thanks largely to that experience that the now 43-year-old former fighter believes the conversation about fighter pay is much more nuanced than simply saying UFC should be paying athletes more money.

On the surface, Brown agrees that everybody on the UFC roster is underpaid compared to the vast amounts of revenue the organization is generating. But the cause and effect of why that’s happening goes much further than simply stating that UFC needs to pay more.

“It’s hard to expect the UFC to just be completely fair about it,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “They’re running a business, and they run it very f*cking well. They’ve done an amazing job building their business. I think 99 percent of people in their shoes would be doing very similar to what they’re doing.

“Does that make it right? That’s up to each person to decide on their own. I think it’s just way more complex than people give it credit for.”

As much as the responsibility always falls back on UFC’s shoulders for underpaying athletes, Brown says anybody complaining about fighter pay can’t expect business owners to do anything differently than attempt to maximize profits for their businesses. But Brown also knows some of the blame rests with the fighters themselves for not holding UFC to account over the years — and he’s pointing the finger right at himself as part of the problem.

“If anybody is to blame for fighter pay, it’s the fighters — and I’m one of them, at least formerly,” Brown said. “I never fought against the UFC about my pay. You’ve seen on Instagram, Twitter, different interviews where the fighters stick up for the UFC.

“I’ve never heard of a business in my life where the employees — if you want to call us employees or even subcontractors — where they’re going to say, ‘I shouldn’t be paid more, they’re paying me a perfect amount of money.’ That is so unbelievable to me.”

In the past, Brown acknowledged that his only real complaint about pay came down to an in-person meeting with UFC CEO Dana White where he expressed his concerns. There was no real argument or negotiation because Brown says White agreed with his argument and the two sides reached a new deal without any further discussion.

That said, Brown never really complained about his pay with UFC because he essentially understood that arguing probably wouldn’t get him anywhere good.

“Look, I’ve always been happy with how the UFC’s treated me, I like them,” Brown said. “There’s no hate against them at all, but if I thought sticking up for myself and fighting with them about pay would get me paid more, I would absolutely do it in a heartbeat. I only question if guys are saying that because we know the amount of power that [UFC] have.

“If you try fighting against [UFC], your chances of getting more pay just get diminished. You’re just lowering your chances of getting more pay. So of course you publicly stick up for them even though something in the back of your head is saying, ‘Damn, this isn’t really what I want.’”

Another subject that comes up often regarding fighter pay is the lack of a union to represent MMA’s athletes, which plays a massive part in negotiations with other sports leagues like NFL or NBA.

But even that’s a tough comparison because the NFL is ultimately made up of 32 teams and 32 owners, and the NFL Player’s Association represents athletes across all those various teams who join the union on the day they start playing professional football. Thanks to the revenue sharing model set up for the league, the competition during the season still ultimately benefits everybody under the NFL umbrella.

That’s not the case in MMA.

UFC is by far the biggest and most profitable organization, but there’s no relation between UFC and competitors like the PFL or ONE Championship. A fighters’ union would almost have to be league specific, and that gets even more complicated when you’re dealing with contracts, athletes signing or leaving UFC to go elsewhere, and then maybe even moving on to an international promotion where a union would have no control or influence.

A better comparison would be contrasting UFC to one NFL team with no natural competitors to really challenge them on a global scale.

“UFC is like the [Dallas] Cowboys if the Cowboys had won the past 20 Super Bowls in a row and there’s not even a close second-place team,” Brown said with a laugh. “Like, literally every college star only wants to go to the Cowboys. They have complete power over every Super Bowl.

“They’re going to win for the next 20 Super Bowls and they’re like, ‘You want to go play for the f*cking Bears? Go for it. There’s another kid coming out of college tomorrow, buddy.’”

Brown doesn’t know if there’s ever going to be a solution long-term to solve fighter pay concerns, but he recognizes there’s an ongoing antitrust lawsuit at least attempting to deal with some of the disparity between UFC and other major sports leagues.

In the meantime, Brown offers advice to every other fighter either in UFC or hoping to make it to UFC when it comes to long-term planning for the future.

“If you’re an aspiring UFC fighter or MMA fighter, you need to view the UFC for what it is,” Brown explained. “It is a stage to magnify your brand so you can make money in other ways. That’s where you’re going to make the real money. Even Conor McGregor, he certainly could have retired just off the money he made in the UFC, but he’s made what 10, 20 times more probably outside the UFC? That’s the way you’ve got to do it.

“I hope that changes sometime, where like an NFL player only has four years but as long as they live below their means, which is pretty easy to do when you’re making millions of dollars a year, they can retire just off of four years of [playing football], where in the UFC that’s just not the case.”

Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio

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MMA Fighting has DWCS results for all the action from season eight, week three of UFC’s Contender Series on Tuesday night at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nev.

In the main event, 26-year-old Russian Andrey Pulyaev and 29-year-old American Liam Anderson collide in a middleweight contest.

Check out the DWCS results below for Contender Series season eight, week three.

Fight Card

Andrey Pulyaev vs. Liam Anderson

Bogdan Grad vs. Michael Aswell

Marco Tulio vs. Matthieu Duclos

Malcolm Wellmaker vs. Adam Bramhald

Jack Duffy vs. Nick Piccininni

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Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya will forever be linked to one another after four battles across two different sports, so naturally, Pereria used his YouTube channel to weigh-in on Adesanya’s failed attempt to regain the UFC middleweight championship.

Pereira said he was “very confident” that Adesanya would beat Dricus du Plessis at UFC 305 and wonders if the Nigeria-born fighter suffered an injury that prevented him from using what “Poatan” saw as a great weapon against someone like the champ.

“Of course, I don’t know how Adesanya was,” Pereira said. “When we are there, we don’t talk about injuries, we don’t talk about problems. We are there and we want to fight, want to win. No excuses. Maybe Adesanya had an injury, I don’t know. You could see he kicked very little. Things I say, that inside kick of Adesanya is very good. Not everyone can do that, but he can do it very well.

“I knew it was a good weapon, and he didn’t continue doing that inside kick. Even Dricus said it bothered him, and also bothered me. I’ve said it before for the people who asked me. He didn’t continue to do it. When he is only throwing hands, I think it’s easier for the opponent to protect themselves, or to get out. It was more boxing there, so it was easier for [du Plessis].”

Adesanya reacted to Pereira’s comments on social media.

“Life goes on, I’ll be here cheering for him like I’ve always been saying,” Pereira continued. “This is honest. I respect him a lot, I like his fighting style. His story is marvelous. I mirror him a lot, he’s a guy that knows what he is doing, but this last fight just wasn’t for him. I hope he recovers, strengthens his mind, and comes back stronger.”

Pereira also weighed in on potentially returning to middleweight to face du Plessis. The Brazilian, who won UFC’s 185-pound title before moving up to light heavyweight after losing to Adesanya, posted about it after the UFC 305 main event.

Du Plessis responded at the post-fight press conference, stating that Pereira should stay at 205 pounds to avoid the weight cut, and offered to face him there in the future.

“In fighting, anything can happen, you lose or win. I think it’s a good fight for me,” Pereira said. “Me and Dricus, I see the fighting style. I would do a completely different fight than Israel did. Of course, it’s what I imagine, but that can all change. I’m sure Israel imagined something else and it was different. But I would train, focus on a fight like this to do my best and leave with a win.

“After I did that, Dricus talked about my weight. First of all, when I gave the ‘excuse’ that the weight messed me up, no one agreed. No one said anything. If I used that as an excuse, no one wanted to say, ‘Yeah, that’s right, weight was a problem for Alex.’ No, everyone was quiet. But after I talked about going down one more time, the first thing Dricus said was that it was a problem when I fought Adesanya, when I got knocked out. I did this my whole life. For those who don’t know, I dropped down eight times, to 81kg, and always fighting at 85kg. I’ve hurt my body, getting older doing the same thing, cutting a lot [of weight], and seeing it wasn’t good for me. That last one was a warning to me, that I had to go up and that’s what I did.

“But if you guys remember, when I went up in weight, I said I could do this again, go down to middleweight, but I needed some time to recover. I think I was able to recover, I have four fights in this new weight class, where I took some time to rest. I think if I go down one more time, I’ll do well. No excuses. I want to win. I could lose — OK, good I have that in mind, because I’ll go harder. … Seems like he is a bit scared. If it’s someone who really wants to fight me he would have said, ‘Come, I’m waiting for you’. But no, he tried to make me scared so I wouldn’t do that, but he’s the one that’s scared.”

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