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Following an unexpected call out from former title challenger, Jorge Masvidal to his fellow UFC alum, Chael Sonnen earlier this week, the Oregon native has hinted a potential coming together with the Floridian next weekend at UFC 299 – issuing his own barb to boot.
Sonnen, a former undisputed middleweight and light heavyweight championship challenger under the banner of the UFC, called time on his combat sports career back in 2019, following a summer knockout loss to former UFC light heavyweight kingpin, Lyoto Machida with the pair competing under the Bellator MMA banner.
And receiving a stark call out from Miami veteran, Masvidal this week, Sonnen was offered the chance to meet the former welterweight title chaser inside the boxing ring – with the former eyeing a move to the squared circle later this annum.
“I can’t stand that lesbian-looking transitional b*tch, Chael Sonnen,” Jorge Masvidal said. “And no offence to lesbians because there’s some hot, cool-ass lesbians out there, it’s just him with them glasses and that haircut – he just, he looks like he’s in transition.”
“I would love to bust up Chael, but he would never get into a boxing ring with me,” Jorge Masvidal explained. “…Chael would be one guy that I would love to f*cking break his eye orbital. Just because he’s a cheating f*ck. Like, if you – he’s gotten caught with more substances in his body, than any other competitor in the history. At one time, he had six or seven different substances in his body for one of his title fights. It’s like, you’re a f*cking piece of sh*t human being. …Do all the steroids you want, it don’t matter, I’m still gonna break your eye orbital, bro.”
Chael Sonnen responds to Jorge Masvidal in brutal fashion
However, issuing his own response to Masvidal, Sonnen hinted at a potential run-in with the former at UFC 299 next weekend at the Kaseya Center in Miami – before mocking the former’s appearance and apparent dress sense.
“I will not let him get close,” Chael Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “I cannot trust Jorge Masvidal. Jorge Masvidal will be in Miami next week, where I will be. I will be the person in the nice trimmed suit. I assume he will be the thug with a up. …”
Chael Sonnen responds to Jorge Masvidal calling him out.
“I will not let him get close. I cannot trust Jorge Masvidal.
Jorge Masvidal will be in Miami next week, where I will be. I will be the person in the nice trimmed suit. I assume he will be the thug with a hood up that I… pic.twitter.com/abg1QIh8Wo
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) March 1, 2024
What do you make of Jorge Masvidal’s beef with Chael Sonnen?
Discuss your favorite fighters, the upcoming card or whatever's on your mind.
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Robert Whittaker | Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Robert Whittaker has his path to the title all mapped out.
At UFC 298, Whittaker got back in the win column with a hard-fought unanimous decision win over Paulo Costa. The win is Whittaker’s first since getting stopped by Dricus du Plessis at UFC 290, and the man affectionately dubbed “Bobby Knuckles” by fans was pleased with his ability to rebound from one of the more deflating performances of his career.
“I’m very happy obviously to get the W, to get the result you’ve been working towards,” Whittaker told Submission Radio. “It kind of validates all the changes and all the work you put in. I think I can fight better than that. I think technically I can fight better than that. But I think that’s as good as I could fight with the circumstances that day, right? So, one of my biggest focuses moving into this fight was just making sure I didn’t feel the way I did for the Dricus fight against Costa. And it was changing and doubling down on the intensity and the focus and the drive every session, every minute of a session, every week of training for months leading into this fight. And I’m very happy with that result.
“I’m stoked with the way that went down, because my headspace and my focus and my resolve was unbreakable, it was unshakable. And that was good. I’m happy I took the grit back on the reigns with that. It was taking back control of something that is so fickle that I think a lot of people forget that it’s something that can be controlled. So, that was massive, and I take that as a massive win. It’s not really about the fight. It’s about me as a fighter and my mentality moving forward. But I think technically I could fight better, but that was the best I could have fought at the time, perhaps.”
A former UFC middleweight champion, Whittaker lost the title to Israel Adesanya in 2019 and then fell short in their rematch in 2022. The loss to du Plessis set Whittaker well back from his goal of reclaiming the title, however, the win over Costa put Whittaker right back in the conversation and he believes that defeating former champion Sean Strickland could propel him back towards one more crack at gold.
“Sean’s up there as well,” Whittaker said. “I think that’s a good direction. It’s moved me towards that goal that I’m looking for. Moves me in the right direction. So, I think that they’re the most logical choices moving forward though. The only thing I can kind of put down is the date I’m looking for. So, I hear on the grapevine that there’s a Perth card in August, perhaps. I would love to get on that, to run a show with that.”
With new champion du Plessis seemingly set to face Adesanya sometime later this year, a matchup between Strickland and Whittaker would make a ton of sense. And while Whittaker isn’t specifically calling out Strickland, he’s also not not calling him out.
“Don’t sound bite me saying ‘Rob wants Sean Strickland in August,’” Whittaker said. “That’s the logical move to make. I want to fight for the title, right? I understand that’s a bit of a long whatever at this point. And Sean doesn’t look like he’s tied up. So, it is the logical step. Sure. Yeah. Ah, you can sound bite me whatever [laughs].”
While the Perth card is only rumor at this point, the UFC went to Australia twice in 2023, both for pay-per-view events. Of course those events were headlined by then-champions from the region, but with Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovski both losing their titles, the UFC’s return to “Oz” could instead be a Fight Night card this time around, which would be the first since 2018. And if that’s the case, Whittaker would be more than happy to headline against Strickland.
“Five rounds comes with a lot more work,” Whittaker said. “It’s not like I don’t want to do it, it’s just it’s a lot more work. But in saying that, five rounds also means that I’m most likely headlining it, and I would love that. I love that idea too. Because I think I owe Perth a fight. I owe Australia a fight. So, to be able to do that would be the bee’s knees, if you would. But Sean, he said it himself, all I do is blitz. So, I’m going to blitz him a lot. And yeah, see how that goes.”
Reinier de Ridder launched his career with a perfect 16-0 record and started to think that he would always dominate his competition.
It was hard to argue with his logic considering de Ridder ran roughshod over two divisions in ONE Championship, amassing seven straight wins, five finishes, and a pair of titles along the way. Ahead of his last fight, de Ridder once again believed he was destined to dispatch another opponent when Anatoly Malykhin dropped down from heavyweight to take a shot at the light heavyweight title.
It took less than five minutes for de Ridder to pay for his hubris, as Malykhin blasted him with punches to score a first-round knockout.
Looking back now, de Ridder blames himself for that loss.
“To be honest, I kind of underestimated him,” de Ridder told MMA Fighting. “I was at a time in my career, being undefeated, having basically a lot of fights that went my way pretty easily, not to sound too arrogant or cocky. I never got hit basically before that fight. I was never hurt, never rocked. I had the feeling, this is just how fights go — I take them down, I choke them out.
“Obviously that wasn’t the case that time, and it was a lot of areas after I recovered and took some time off, found a lot of areas where I came up short. Made a list and kept checking them off this year.”
While he never suffered a knockout loss, reigning UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones has detailed his own experience looking past Alexander Gustafsson back in 2013 and how that served as arguably the biggest lesson learned of his entire career. He never underestimated another opponent and refused to do anything at half-speed when preparing for a fight.
As much as he wishes he didn’t have to lose to get there, de Ridder believes he traveled down a similar road as Jones when it came to disregarding a potentially dangerous opponent. Now he needs to make the best out of a bad situation in his rematch with Malykhin at ONE 166, which airs at 7 a.m. ET on Prime Video on Friday in the United States.
“That’s definitely the thing I’ve taken away from this,” de Ridder said. “Now I have the opportunity to make it a good thing. I’ve been grinding for it. I have the opportunity in front of me to make it a good thing. It’s s*** right now, but when I finish him, then it will all be good. It was just a little bump in the road and I’m off cruising again.
“But I definitely did the same thing [as Jones]. I underestimated him. I kind of got away from what makes me special. Got away from my obsession with technique, my obsession with getting everything as perfect as possible. I was working hard before the fight but not like I did before. Maybe I needed a little bit of a wake-up call, and I definitely got it.”
If de Ridder is successful on Friday in his defense of the ONE middleweight title, he’ll even up his series with Malykhin at one win a piece.
That could potentially lead to a trilogy fight, with Malykhin already holding both the ONE heavyweight and light heavyweight titles — but don’t suggest that to de Ridder right away.
After waiting more than a year for the rematch and obsessing at getting his chance at revenge, de Ridder hopes he’ll be able to move past Malykhin, at least for the time being.
“I don’t even want to hear the name Malykhin after this,” de Ridder said with a laugh. “Leave me alone! I need some fresh blood. Someone else after this one. He’s been on my mind for so long. We’ll see after March 1. But I don’t want to hear Malykhin in the year 2024 anymore.”
“That’s what I’m planning on March 1, [beating him] and then don’t ever say that name to me again.”
Earlier this week, former UFC heavyweight Brandon Schaub shared in-car footage of him flipping his truck in an off-road accident. Schaub received a concussion in the incident but escaped serious injury.
View the original article to see embedded media.
The video revealed that Schaub was thrown around a bit in the rollover. After posting the video, many people reacted to the incident, including former middleweight champion Sean Strickland.
Yall…….. did you see brendan schaub flip his truck?!?! The panic in that man’s eyes lmao!!! I’ve handled motorcycle wrecks going 80 better than you handled a roll in a truck lmao.. Maybe you should come hang out with me, I’ll help you not be a pussy,” Strickland wrote on social media.
Yall…….. did you see brendan schaub flip his truck?!?!
The panic in that man's eyes lmao!!! I've handled motorcycle wrecks going 80 better than you handled a roll in a truck lmao..
Maybe you should come hang out with me, I'll help you not be a pussy.
— Sean Strickland (@SStricklandMMA) February 29, 2024
Strickland won the 185-pound championship by defeating Israel Adesanya by unanimous decision at UFC 293 last September. He was beaten by Dricus Du Plessis in his first title defense at UFC 297 on Jan. 20.
“Tarzan” is one of the most outspoken athletes on the UFC roster. He regularly weighs in on other fighters, politics, and is an avid off-roader and snowboarder. He was sidelined from 2018 to 2020 due to injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident.
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