Alex Pereira likes his chances against his upcoming title challenger.
UFC 300’s big highly anticipated main event bout was revealed after UFC 298 this past weekend (Feb. 17, 2024). The Light Heavyweight title will be on the line when the champion, Pereira, looks to fend off the returning former titleholder, Jamahal Hill, in Las Vegas on April 13, 2024.
The 205-pound division has been cursed to an extent since its all-time great, Jon Jones, vacated the strap in February 2020. It’s been a revolving door of champions with only one successful defense between five different titlists, two of which fell from injuries. The most recent of those two was Hill, and because of that, he’s been critiqued and questioned when it comes to where he ranks amongst the top Light Heavyweights in UFC (currently No. 1 officially).
“He’s not in second,” Pereira said on The MMA Hour. “I don’t know which position I’d put him, but at least fourth. … If I were to move up to Light Heavyweight today and had to make my debut and there’s Jamahal Hill, Jan Blachowicz, and Jiri Prochazka, and I had to choose the best fight for me out of those three, I’d choose Jamahal.”
Coincidentally, Pereira has defeated both Blachowicz and Prochazka thus far in his two-fight UFC Light Heavyweight run. Between Pereira and Hill, they have a tie to Hill’s crowning moment, his last fight, when he defeated Pereira’s coach and the former champion, Glover Teixeira, via a unanimous decision at UFC 283 in January 2023.
Throughout this whole saga, the current No. 3-ranked contender in the official UFC rankings, Magomed Ankalaev, has made his case for a title shot. Pereira hopes he can silence doubters with a future win over the Russian next.
“[Fighting] Ankalaev would be good because many people talk,” Pereira said. “Sometimes we want to prove a little bit, not to the fans, but to specialists that say this is a [tough] fight and whatnot. People don’t know the way I train. We know that a fight is a fight, but it would be nice to be able to prove to these people that I’m good on the ground as well.”
Oban Elliott | Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
No man is flying higher than Oban Elliott is right now.
This past Saturday, Elliott made his UFC debut, taking a unanimous decision win over Val Woodburn at UFC 298. It was the fulfillment of a childhood dream and a promise made to his late father, and as such, Elliott is on cloud nine at the moment.
“I’m living the dream. I literally am living the dream,” Elliott said on The MMA Hour.
“I might be the happiest man in the world right now. Honestly. If I would have finished him in the first round, amazing — might have gotten 50 grand as well — but I think this is going to pay a lot more than $ 50,000 in dividends going forward. Three rounds under the lights like that, in a big arena like that, and I became more comfortable as the fight went on. I’m not just coming to the UFC for a little bit of hype, I’m going to the top, in my head. So that’s three rounds of solid experience banked. It couldn’t have gone any better. Getting dropped and overcoming that — I knew I had that in me anyway, but on the big stage, would I have froze? No. I stood strong. I couldn’t be more proud of myself.”
Scoring his first UFC win was only the beginning of Elliott’s night. After doing the required post-fight media and medicals, Elliott was in for a surprise as had the chance to meet CM Punk, who was in attendance. A lifelong wrestling fan, Elliott jumped at the opportunity.
“Get the medical done, go and do the media,” Elliott said. “Go and get the media done, then I’m doing my pictures, and as I’m doing my pictures, Megan Olivi runs up … ‘Oban, do you want to meet CM Punk?’ F****** right I want to meet CM Punk! … We go back down to the thing, I meet CM Punk. … We were just talking, bouncing ideas off each other. I’d love to tell you exactly what we were talking about but it was so surreal. We were just talking about how I watched him before. I was fanboying!
“I asked him about the nerves. ‘As wrestlers, do you get nervous? Because I’ve always wanted to ask one of you guys this, and you being the best in the world.’ And he said, ‘The day I didn’t feel the nerves is the day I quit 10 years ago.’ So I can take that with me the rest of my career now. No matter how much I’m s****** myself in that changing room, the best in the world in his craft will get butterflies. And they day they weren’t there for him, he walked away.”
And Elliott’s night still was not over, because after CM Punk, Elliott got to finally meet his childhood hero, Chael Sonnen.
“I quickly get dressed, boom-boom-boom, get down, back in the car, straight to the thing,” Elliott said. “There’s a team waiting for me, they shuttle me off, put me through the lift, I go up through the backstage, walking along the stage, I’m thinking ‘Where is he?’ ESPN set, there he is! We come, embrace, and he thanks me for giving him a shoutout in the cage. ‘Of course!’ He thanks me for that. He actually talked a technique straight away, ‘You know when you had him in the mounted triangle, you grab his head straight away.’
“Just an unbelievable moment. And then he tells me, ‘This is just the beginning and we’re going to keep this going. Gangsters Inc.’ Hugged him, shook his hand about 50 times, hugged him about 50 times, told him I loved him about 10 times, and every time he said, ‘I love you too!’ The best.”
Elliott has been open about Sonnen’s influence on his career, saying that Sonnen was his biggest idol growing up and part of the reason he became a fan of and pursued MMA. So given that he finally got to meet Sonnen, and CM Punk, and have the full UFC experience, Elliott is still buzzing a few days after UFC 298.
“We’re just talking and he said, ‘It’s not a surprise. I’ve been following you for so long.’ He always kept his distance, was following from afar and would send me the odd message, but didn’t make a friendship of it,” Elliott said. “This is just the maddest thing to absorb. And I’m still thinking about meeting CM Punk while I’m talking to him. And earlier in the week, [Michael] Bisping! Come on! Bisping!
“At the fighter meeting with Bisping and he looks me in the eye and tells me, ‘Your dad would be so proud of you.’ I burst into tears. Coming from him. I’m thinking to myself, what did I do to deserve this? How has this worked out so well?”
Now 10-2 in his professional career and a former Cage Warriors amateur champion, the 26-year-old Elliott is fully on his way in UFC, and for his next act, “The Welsh Gangster” hopes to move to 2-0 in the promotion with a win a little closer to home.
“They’re saying they’ve got a Manchester card in July,” Elliott said. “That would be really good. A home show would be nice, timing wise. I’ve got to let me body heal. I had a few bumps and bruises going into this fight. I’ve got make sure everything is OK before going into another training camp. But definitely in the summer. Not too soon, where I’m rushing. Hopefully the Manchester card in July, if that is true.”
And as for an opponent? Well, Elliott had too big of a weekend to be too concerned about that.
“Honestly, and this is a very important part of an interview, you’ve got to set up the next fight,” Elliott said when asked about an opponent. “But I can’t think of a single person that is even worth thinking about at the minute, after week I’ve had. … I’m afraid I don’t have any name in mind. For now, let’s just enjoy this one.”
Sean O’Malley | Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Sean O’Malley has heard the voice of the people, and that voice says ‘Merab Dvalishvili.’
This past Saturday, Dvalishvili extended his current win streak to 10 in a row with a dominant unanimous decision win over Henry Cejudo at UFC 298 in Anaheim, Calif. Following his win, Dvalishvili called out O’Malley, who was sitting cageside for the event, but the UFC bantamweight champion did not jump at the idea, with O’Malley later saying that after he beats Marlon “Chito” Vera at UFC 299, he wants a fight against newly crowned featherweight champion Ilia Topuria.
But now, O’Malley is changing course after receiving overwhelming feedback from fans.
“Let me start with this: initially I was calling for Ilia,” O’Malley said in a video posted to his YouTube Channel. “I wanted the Ilia fight. I wanted that fight. It excites me, but I also thought the fans would get excited about it. But I got a lot of pushback saying, ‘You’re ducking Merab! Merab is next!’ So Merab’s next. Let’s do Merab.”
There is already quite a bit of backstory to a potential O’Malley-Dvalishvili fight.
O’Malley claimed the 135-pound title by finishing Dvalishvili’s friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292. But prior to that event, the two nearly got into it when Dvalishvili stole O’Malley’s jacket during a faceoff between O’Malley and Sterling.
O’Malley ended up getting the last laugh when he won the belt by knocking out Sterling and he is confident the same thing will happen to Dvalishvili.
“I’m telling you guys, I knock Merab out,” O’Malley said. “I rewatched Henry vs. Aljo after I was there and I told you guys, I’m knocking Aljo out. All you guys said, ‘No way. You’re not knocking Aljo out! He’s going to take you down and kill you!’ Here we go again. Obviously, I’ve got to get through Chito, but I’m telling you guys, when I fight Merab, I’m knocking that dude out. He’s sloppy. I’m accurate. I’m too fast. I’m too sharp. I’m telling you boys. I put Merab’s lights out, worse than Aljo. Aljo, little TKO. Merab, I’m putting to sleep. Turning his nose straight.”
Just because he’s changing course, O’Malley isn’t giving up on the Topuria fight entirely. That fight is simply getting pushed back as Dvalishvili has earned his opportunity, not just through his fights, but through his actions.
“The Ilia fight can happen some day,” O’Malley said. “He keeps doing his thing, I keep doing my thing, that’s a big fight some day. I just want to fight for the people. I want to make the biggest fights possible. And I’ll give credit to Merab, Merab’s f****** improved, not just fighting, but on social. He’s doing a really good job building himself up, being himself, being a goofy, ugly ass, and he’s doing a good job. So that’s fight’s next.
“Merab, I hope you’re at weigh-ins as the backup fighter in case Chito doesn’t show, like he didn’t show up to Anaheim because he’s scared. I’m taking Chito out, I’m taking Merab out, if Ilia’s still champ, I’ll take him out too.”
O’Malley defends his bantamweight title against Vera on March 9 at the Kaseya Center in Miami.
Anthony Hernandez | Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Anthony Hernandez is smiling his way straight to the top.
This past Saturday, Hernandez chalked up another win inside the octagon, submitting Roman Kopylov on the main card opener of UFC 298. The win earned Hernandez the No. 12 spot in the UFC middleweight rankings, and also made “Fluffy” some extra fans when he finished the fight in style, grinning and celebrating while locking in the fight-ending rear-naked choke.
fluffy hernandez smiling and nodding like a maniac cause he knows the fight over is cold pic.twitter.com/hZxAynA9dH
— Conner Burks (@connerburks) February 18, 2024
Speaking on The MMA Hour, Hernandez said that the celebration was a spur of the moment thing brought on by recognizing a famous face in the crowd.
“I saw f****** Mario Lopez is there,” Hernandez said on Wednesday’s The MMA Hour. “Cool ass dude. We chit-chat every now and then, and I saw him going crazy. And after I got under his chin, I was like, ‘I got this s***!’ I was just talking to him, basically, and I was going crazy. That s*** was a blast. It was dope to see people in the crowd.
“I do really good around crowds. I’m not the type of guy to talk s*** in interviews, to honestly even do interviews, but when I fight, that’s me. That’s who I am. This is the f****** game of war. I’m going to talk my s*** when we’re fighting because now I can hit you, I try to get in your f****** head. That’s who I am as a person. If you hit me, I’m probably going to talk s*** to you in real life too.”
Hernandez joined the UFC in 2019 following a 40-second win (later overturned to a no-contest after Hernandez failed a drug test for marijuana) on Contender Series, but he struggled early in his UFC tenure, dropping two of his first three bouts. However, since his TKO loss to Kevin Holland at UFC Jacksonville in 2020, “Fluffy” has been perfect, running off five consecutive wins, four by stoppage, with two earning Performance of the Night bonuses. Still only 30 years old, the California native believes that everything is finally coming all together for him as he makes his run to the title.
“As long as we can stay healthy, I think we’re on the right path,” Hernandez said. “I think I can be the best in the world. I thought when I was 25 and came into the UFC [that] I was going to clean up shop. I had a rude awakening and then had to do some adjustments, and then I lost my father and I had to get my head right again, and all kinds of bulls***. Life happens. No excuses. But now I’m back on track and I’m focused and I’m ready to make my run as a man.”
Now ranked, Hernandez is not that far off from a title shot in the suddenly wide open middleweight division. And for his next outing he would like to keep this momentum going with another step up the ladder.
“In a perfect world, May would be dope,” Hernandez said. “I’m healthy right now. I’ve already started training again. The way I see it, Mick [Maynard] and Dana [White] have a plan when I’m ready. Now I’m ready for whenever. I know they have a plan, so if they call me with a name that’s ahead of me, I’m f****** ready. I want to take it. I want to show the world what I’m ready to do. I’m ready to get this f****** belt and change [my] kids’ lives.
“Anyone who is ahead of me,” Hernandez continued when asked about an opponent. “Whoever the f*** is going to get me to the title the fastest way. I will fight anyone. I’ve said this for the longest time and I mean it, I don’t give a f***. I feel like I’ll beat them somehow, and if not, I’ll gas them the f*** out and then strangle them or some s***. [Laughs.]”
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