Category Archives: Mmamania.com

Newly-crowned featherweight champion Ilia Topuria will make his first 145-pound title defense against one of the greatest fighters in the history of MMA as former featherweight kingpin Max Holloway charges “El Matador” in the UFC 308 pay-per-view (PPV) main event this October on “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi!

Event: UFC 308: “Topuria vs. Holloway”
Date: Sat., Oct. 26, 2024
Location: Etihad Arena on “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi, UAE
Start times: ESPN+ PPV, ESPN, ESPN+ (10 a.m. ET Prelims | 2 p.m. ET Main Card)

UFC 308 Main Event On ESPN+ PPV:

145 lbs.: UFC Featherweight Champion Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway

UFC 308 Main Card on ESPN+ PPV:

185 lbs.: Robert Whittaker vs. Khamzat Chimaev
205 lbs.: Magomed Ankalaev vs. Aleksandar Rakic
265 lbs.: Ciryl Gane vs. Alexander Volkov
145 lbs.: Lerone Murphy vs. Dan Ige

UFC 308 Prelims Card on ESPN/ESPN+:

170 lbs.: Rinat Fakhretdinov vs. Nursulton Ruziboev
205 lbs.: Marcos Rogério de Lima vs. Kennedy Nzechukwu
170 lbs.: Geoff Neal vs. Rafael dos Anjos
185 lbs.: Abus Magomedov vs. Brunno Ferreira
205 lbs.: Ibo Aslan vs. Raffael Cerqueira
155 lbs.: Myktybek Orolbai vs. Mateusz Rębecki
185 lbs.: Shara Magomedov vs. Armen Petrosyan
135 lbs.: Farid Basharat vs. Victor Hugo

*Fight card, bout order and number of fights remain subject to change.*

MMAmania.com – All Posts

Alessandro Costa has withdrawn from his Matt Schnell fight.

“NoNo” was scheduled to face “Danger” on the UFC Vegas 97 main card this Sat. night (Sept. 7, 2024) at the promotion’s APEX facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to a report from MMA Fighting, there are no plans to find Schnell a flyweight replacement.

“I won’t be able to fight this September 7th due to an injury that won’t allow me to get 100 percent for this fight,” Costa wrote on Instagram. “It was a very important fight to get into the rankings and it wouldn’t be a good idea to fight injured.”

“My team and I decided not to [fight],” Costa continued. “I’m already recovering and will be ready to go back very soon!. Thank you all for your great support and good vibes always.”

Costa (14-4) is just a couple of months removed from his Kevin Borjas victory at the UFC 301 pay-per-view (PPV) last May in Brazil. As for Schnell (16-8, 1 NC), he’s looking to snap a two-fight losing streak after recently falling to Matheus Nicolau and Steve Erceg.

For the revised UFC Vegas 97 fight card and ESPN+ lineup click here.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

MMA gyms are a funny place. In the same room and sometimes even the same class, a new student enjoying their one free week of jiu-jitsu might share the mat with a world-class UFC fighter. That accessibility is an unusual aspect of the sport. Certainly, nobody is walking into Arrowhead Stadium and having a catch in the vicinity of Patrick Mahomes!

There is a downside: strange people can also enter the gym. Wannabe tough guys, social media stars, alleged street fighters — the door is open to all of them. That’s how we end up with body builders being felled by “Wonderboy” low kicks and Sneako getting demolished by an ex-champion.

In the latest edition of UFC fighter vs. random person, Featherweight prospect Blake Bilder (8-2-1) takes on someone only described as a “street fighter.” Bilder knocks down the hapless street fighter twice then puts him to sleep twice using the Von Flue and triangle chokes.

The fight actually happened a few weeks ago, but Bilder is extremely active on social media and posted the clip again recently. It made rounds on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, and fight fans are largely unimpressed or outright angry.

Here’s a quick sample of the reactions:

“Bunch of grown men just filming and watching it happen and laughing, embarassing.”

“he is 34 as well what a joke”

“What’s his deal and why did he keep finishing this man? Pause”

“When does this clown fight again so we can hate watch”

“Being knockout out this many times in one day cannot be healthy …”

“No matter how many years of training you’ve done, destroying some untrained guy in jeans shows a lack of sportsmanship and a lack of discipline.”

“This is f—ked up. I dont get why you guys keep letting him spar just for content. That guy is clearly not going to be okay after all this.”

Like most fighters nowadays, Bilder joined the UFC roster via Contenders Series. Since then, he defeated Shane Young via unanimous decision in a successful debut, but he’s lost his last two via unanimous decision. At the moment, Bilder does not have a fourth UFC appearance booked.

Insomnia

Matt Brown shredding!

Slick work from close range:

Josh Koscheck is one of the more underrated wrestlers of UFC history, overshadowed by a GOAT. His blast double was incredible!

Only one thing is certain here: there will be blood! This is a perfect 145-pound veterans booking.

A fancy edit of “The Suga Show.”

Circling a pair of wrestlers for the final takedown-wins-it-all match up of practice is a time-honored tradition.

“F them kids” — Michael Jordan, Tim Elliott

Brian Ortega is keeping it weird ahead of Noche UFC.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Stabbing front and powerful round kicks aimed at the same target:

Cumulative strangulation throughout all the transitions caught up to him.

A knockout overshadowed by denim and the promotion’s name.

Random Land

Hilarious tweet or brilliant short story? The line is blurred.

Midnight Music: Jangle pop, 1983

Anecdote of the Week: Oh man, I have so many stories that could go here.

A shocking amount of random people walk into Team Alpha Male and try to stir s—t with the professional athletes. Somewhat well-known back in 2017, there was the incident where some online body builder weirdo showed up to TAM to scuffle with Cody Garbrandt, got his hat slapped off by the 130-pound front desk guy, and then fled the wrong direction down a one-way street just before “No Love” actually arrived. Later, he allegedly faked his death on Twitter.

I wasn’t there in person for any of that though, so here’s my silly one: for several years, I worked as an assistant coach to Urijah Faber, helping him run an 8:30 AM drills class three times a week immediately leading up to the official pro practice. The class was open to the public, but if pros showed up, it would be tailored to them. If not, it was a lot of Urijah’s favorite jiu-jitsu sequences. I either helped drill with the pros or took over instruction of the civilian grapplers, depending on the demands of the day.

One day, we just have a group full of regular jiu-jitsu folk. There is, however, one newer sign-up. The man was probably 220 pounds of muscle and mental health issues. The drill class didn’t feature any live rolling, because it was … a drills class … and the guy didn’t have the ability to focus for that long. His expression was growing darker by the minute, and his drilling partner was looking visibly concerned. Sensing a looming disaster, Urijah walks over to chat.

As I’m instructing a group on how to lock up a fundamental triangle choke, I hear the frustrated proclamation, “I just want to roll!” Rather than simply saying no, or this isn’t that kind of class, or you don’t know enough to roll yet, or I don’t need this I own the gym and have a huge net worth, Faber accepts without blinking. He rolls with the erratic newcomer for the better part of 20 minutes and shows up to the end-of-class huddle covered in finger nail scratches. The other guy is too exhausted to join the huddle, laying in a pool of sweat that the pro team will shortly be jogging through.

Long story short: you can probably convince a Hall of Fame UFC fighter to wrestle you through sheer disruptiveness.

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

Anything continues to be possible in 2024, including Heavyweight legend rematches you might not need.

RCC Boxing (h/t Red Corner MMA) has reported that a rematch in boxing between mixed martial arts (MMA) legends, Fedor Emelianenko and Andrei Arlovski, is in the works for a date and location to be determined. The match would happen in the RCC Boxing promotion if it comes to fruition, according to the report.

A rematch in the ring under boxing rules would be a fitting full-circle moment for Emelianenko and Arlovski as they first met inside the Affliction ring in January 2009. In one of Emelianenko’s greatest of many career highlights, he knocked out Arlovski in round one after “Pitbull” went for an ill-advised flying knee in the corner of the ring, catching a fist while airborne.

That loss snapped a strong five-fight winning streak for Arlovski that bled out of his first run with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and into Affliction and Elite XC. Arlovski, 45, lost his three fights after Emelianenko and looked to be headed towards retirement until he strung back together a winning streak and rejoined UFC where he stayed until June 2024. Arlovski lost a split decision to Martin Buday at UFC 303, finishing out his contract.

Emelianenko, 47, on the other hand, retired from MMA after a first round technical knockout loss in his rematch against Ryan Bader at Bellator 290 in February 2023 (watch highlights). Although “The Last Emperor” has maintained his in-cage days are firmly behind him, he’s teased entering the ring to box ever since that night. Meanwhile, Arlovski teased some big possibilities in life outside UFC the week after he fought Buday.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

Former two-division champion Conor McGregor has not competed in more than three years and as of this writing, has no immediate plans to make his Octagon return. That may explain why “Notorious” is taking a back seat to reigning bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley, who had no idea how much money he was going to make as 135-pound titleholder.

“O’Malley is the biggest star in our sport right now,” retired middleweight and current UFC analyst Chael Sonnen said on his YouTube channel (transcribed by MMA Fighting). “And ‘Red Panty Night’ is still real. Conor’s not in the sport, he’s not even licensed. Conor could not walk in and fight tonight if he wanted to. I’m just sharing with you, who’s in the sport, it’s one of those things. Conor has no more of a claim to this sport right now than [Georges] St-Pierre or Khabib [Nurmagomedov]. In fact, St-Pierre and Khabib have attended more UFCs in the last year than Conor.”

McGregor was scheduled to return from his lengthy hiatus, extended by way of broken leg (and broken relationships), atop the UFC 303 pay-per-view (PPV) card last June. Unfortunately, another injury prevented his “Notorious” comeback and his current timeline appears to be 2025 … or never, depending on who you ask.

During his absence, O’Malley competed five times and captured the bantamweight crown.

“I feel that O’Malley, as the biggest star, who’s the hardest working guy outside of the cage that division has ever seen, Top 5 in the sports history — he might be No. 1 — he is a Top 5 in history of the hardest working guys outside of the cage,” Sonnen continued. “For him to have landed this rocket ship in this position and whoever gets in the passenger seat and now you’re telling me [the oddsmakers] believe that he’s two-and-a-half times more likely to lose than he is to win and even if he wins he draws into a guy with a similar disastrous style? That is a lot for a young man to take on, but that seems to be exactly where O’Malley does his best work. That seems to be, when that house is on fire, and he’s right on the edge and people aren’t believing him and he’s got to stay sharp and if he’s not sharp he’s going to fall into a bed of needles, that seems to be where Sean O’Malley performs his finest.”

We’ll find out when “Suga” fights Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306 on Sept. 14 at The Sphere.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

The Saudi Arabian boxing power broker wants to slash PPV prices on Riyadh Season events down to $ 20 in order to combat piracy.

If combat sports fans have any concerns about Saudi Arabia taking over the boxing landscape in the past couple of years, they’re keeping mostly quiet because power broker Turki Alalshikh keeps delivering the goods.

Alalshikh is the Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, a government department in Saudi Arabia that regulates and promotes entertainment events inside and outside the country. They’re the ones bankrolling all the recent major heavyweight showdowns, with long-awaited but never realized bouts finally becoming a reality.

Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk 1 and 2, Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou, and Francis Ngannou vs. Anthony Joshua were all put together quickly and easily by Alalshikh, who uses his Saudi bankroll to bulldoze through any problems or disagreements he encounters.

Now, Alalshikh is about to make another move which will make combat sports fans happy: he’s going to slash the price of boxing pay-per-views.

“You mention the PPV, I think this is my next big fight,” he said in an interview with talkSPORT. “I dream of a PPV with a good price to make the fans happy and subscribe and get them to watch it legally. Usually when I see a high PPV [price], a lot of people go and watch the fight illegally, and this is not healthy for boxing and the platform.”

“What I will try to push is to have our Riyadh Season shows at less than £20 in England and less than $ 20 around the world. I would prefer to have one million fans subscribe and buy the PPV for $ 20 than less than 500,000.”

The price of pay-per-views has skyrocketed over the years. I remember a day long long ago in 2006 when UFC events cost $ 39.95. Nowadays UFC pay-per-views cost $ 79.99, and the upcoming Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga fight is $ 89.99.

“The people go around it illegally because the price is high,” Alalshikh said. “In the future, this will not build boxing. If I give the fans good fights at a good price, then I will increase the fanbase.”

MMAmania.com – All Posts

Syndicate MMA head coach John Wood knows grappling got Merab to the dance, and they’re not going to try and re-invent him for his title fight against Sean O’Malley.

Merab Dvalishvili has the biggest fight of his career when he headlines Noche UFC at the Sphere on September 14th against bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley.

Dvalishvili is still tight with his longtime team at Serra-Longo in New York, but since moving to Las Vegas he’s been training out of Syndicate MMA under head coach John Wood. And while Wood is undoubtedly working hard on Merab’s ability to hang with a striker of O’Malley’s pedigree, he’s not looking to re-invent the Georgian into something he’s not.

“I always, as a coach, look at the things that make Sean Sean and what we need to do to get around it,” Wood told Red Corner MMA. “And I never wanna overlook what got Merab to the dance, what brought Merab into this fight.”

“We have to try and keep those things in check, and not lose ourselves,” he continued. ”’Oh, we have to go learn traditional boxing. We have to do these things to compete with O’Malley.’ Because that’s how we’re gonna get knocked out.”

So what is Wood’s goal when working on the evolution of Merab Dvalishvili?

“Merab is a crazy man, we’ve just started to make him a technical crazy man,” Wood said. “Sean, there’s always holes in everybody’s game. If you’re really good at this, it opens up this. If you’re really good at countering that, it opens up this. It might take us a few more times to get where we need to get, but we’re gonna get there.”

“We’ve never seen Sean get pressured enough to where he breaks. But when you start to pressure him, there is a level of he does get tired. He does start to get a little whatever, but he’s very composed. He’s a world champion for a reason, so it’s not like you can pressure Sean and he just goes to s—. But if Merab can do Merab?”

All Dvalishvili has to do is avoid getting knocked out like his friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling.

“We’ve got a guy in here right now that’s a world champion striker who is a sniper just like O’Malley,” Wood said. “He’s built like him, doing things like him. There’s a lot of really good strikers [at Syndicate]. I’m not saying he is O’Malley, but we’ve got a lot of guys that can emulate that. I don’t think anybody out there can emulate what Merab does, the chaos that he brings.”

“Every fight since he’s been here at the gym, he’s getting better,” Wood assessed. “And he’s learning how to control and use his weapons properly. So Sean’s very good. There’s very few holes. But there’s definitely things we can capitalize on that we will capitalize on.”

MMAmania.com – All Posts

It’s been a tough twelve months for Usman, who was suspended over a drug test failure and then had to withdraw from his comeback fight due to illness.

Usman Nurmagomedov is set to return to action on Saturday September 7th at Bellator Champion Series: San Diego, where he’ll defend his lightweight title against Alexander Shabliy. It’s a re-booking of a fight previously set for Champion Series: Paris in May which was canceled due to an undisclosed Nurmagomedov injury.

Now Usman is revealing the actual cause of his withdrawal: an illness which he suspects could have been COVID-19.

“The last time when we’re preparing for Paris, I was coming fresh out of the month of Ramadan,” Usman told MMA Junkie through a translator in a new interview. “We had to fast, and my body was weak. I don’t know. Maybe it was the coronavirus, but there was something with my lungs so I couldn’t recover properly.”

“I got sick. And I was trying to do my best. I was still trying to fight and get the proper preparation, but I just couldn’t beat it. So unfortunately that fight was off, but now that’s time we prepared.”

Don’t get it twisted: Usman Nurmagomedov is no Umar Nurmagomedov, who has withdrawn from several fights over the past four years. The Paris fight against Shabliy is the first time Usman pulled out of a fight, and he’s looking forward to finally competing again for the first time since November 2023.

“The training is done. The camp is done. Now it’s only weight cut, and you’re gonna see us on September 7th. It’s gonna be in a great fight.”

The delay has been so long because Nurmagomedov failed a California commission drug test following his Bellator 300 win over Brent Primus. For some reason, the substance he popped for has never been disclosed by the commission, leading to a lot of speculation and some criticism.

“We have a deal with California Commission, and I cannot tell to media or someone,” he said. “But it was medication. If it were a steroid, they have to say, ‘This was a steroid.’ And they have to give me more time for suspension. They have to give me like one year, two year, and we have example from other guys. It was medication, and this was like nothing. Everything is good now.”

Bellator was supportive enough to Nurmagomedov through the situation that they let him keep the lightweight belt despite the drug test fail.

“I know who I am, I’d never do something like steroid or something like that,” Usman declared. “People only talk about this because they cannot win against us, and they have to say something. You guys, you can talk whatever you want, but who cares?”

MMAmania.com – All Posts

A new GOAT debate has just dropped as White is pushing Rogan as the best commentator across all combat sports to ever do it.

Dana White knows a GOAT when he sees one.

The UFC CEO has been spending a lot of time lately declaring Jon Jones the greatest fighter of all time in mixed martial arts, and he says you have to be “f—ing stupid” to think otherwise. Now he’s widening his lens to other areas of the combat sports landscape like commentary, and he has a clear GOAT there too: Joe Rogan.

In a new interview with Brian Kilmeade on FOX’s One Nation, White considers Rogan to be one of the best hires he ever made as head of the UFC. Sure, Rogan had already worked at several UFC events before White and the Fertitta brothers bought the promotion in 2001. But White claims he didn’t even know that when he watched a VHS tape of Rogan defending MMA on a sports show.

“I ended up reaching out to Rogan, we hit it off and that’s it,” White told Kilmeade.

“He said, ‘Wait a minute. So you’re telling me I can come to the the sport that I love the most in the world, have the best seat in the house, and talk about it on TV? I’m in!’ He did the first 13 for free, and the rest is history. Now he has the biggest podcast in the world, and he’s the greatest combat sports commentator of all time.”

For years, Rogan worked alongside Mike Goldberg on nearly every UFC event. Goldberg handled the play-by-play and Rogan was on color commentary duty, using his deep knowledge of fighting to fill in knowledge gaps for new fans (and Goldberg as well, oftentimes). It was a solid arrangement, and much better than most of what we’d seen up to that point. Few fans had complaints in that era.

These days the booth has changed and Rogan only works U.S. pay-per-views, usually alongside Jon Anik and Daniel Cormier. International events and UFC Fight Nights are handled by a rotating roster that includes Paul Felder, Michael Bisping, and Dominick Cruz. All including Rogan have their fans and haters. Some on both sides note that certain booth combinations result in less than stellar analysis — and that’s been a frequent critique of the Rogan / Cormier pairing.

But just like Jon Jones, Joe Rogan has been at this for a very long time and it’s gonna be tough for anyone to make their mark in this sport like he has. He’s definitely the most popular and best known to ever do it in MMA. Does that make him the GOAT? Across all combat sports??? We’ll let you debate that in the comments below.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

Kayla Harrison has big plans after UFC 307.

Harrison returns to action for her highly anticipated second UFC fight against No. 2 ranked Bantamweight Ketlen Vieira next month at UFC 307, which goes down inside Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is headlined by Light Heavyweight champion Alex Pereira vs. Khalil Roundtree.

It was pretty confusing that Harrison wasn’t given a title shot after dismantling Holly Holm at UFC 300 (watch highlights). Instead, she had to wait for the winner of Raquel Pennington vs. Julianna Pena, which will co-headline UFC 307.

While her sole focus is Brazil’s Vieira, Harrison will be ready to step in on less than a minute’s notice if one of the Bantamweight co-main eventers falls out.

“If one of those b—ches gets sick or hurt or injured, I will take that fight on 30 seconds notice. I’m ready. Best in the world, I’m ready. So let’s go… where’s Tanya Harding when you need her?” Harrison laughed while telling Grind City Media’s John Morgan recently.

With a win, Harrison is no doubt next in line for the title, and she doesn’t have a preference, although she would like to maim Pena (possibly because of these comments).

“I mean, honestly, to have a preference would mean that I have an emotion,” Harrison said. “I don’t care. I really do not care. Like, the goal is the belt. But if we’re talking about Kayla, the psychopath, like, of course, I would rather put an elbow through Juliana’s skull than Raquel’s. Like, Juliana’s face is annoying. Of course, I would pick that face like, of course.”

UFC 307 goes down on Oct. 5, 2024.

To checkout UFC’s upcoming schedule of events click here.

MMAmania.com – All Posts