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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Watch Teofimo Lopez vs. Jamaine Ortiz full fight video highlights full fight video highlights from their junior welterweight title bout, courtesy of multiple outlets.

Lopez vs. Ortiz took place Feb. 8 at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas. Teofimo Lopez (19-1, 13 KOs) and Jamaine Ortiz (17-1-1, 8 KOs) competed in the main event. On the line in the headlining contest were Lopez’s WBO and The Ring junior welterweight titles.

The fight aired live on ESPN+.

Catch more video highlights below.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Gina Carano has broken her silence regarding the lawsuit she filed days ago against Disney and Lucasfilm after she was fired from her role on the Star Wars spinoff series The Mandalorian.

Her exit came after Carano made a number of controversial posts on social media including one particular photo that seemingly compared the backlash conservatives face in America to the atrocities suffered by the Jews during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Disney eventually released a statement saying Carano was not employed by the studio and there were no plans to bring her back for another appearance on The Mandalorian but added that “her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Almost exactly three years later, Carano filed the lawsuit in California with backing from Twitter owner Elon Musk, who vowed to pay legal expenses for anybody facing repercussions from statements made on his social media network. Speaking about the lawsuit for the first time, Carano reveals why she believes she was targeted for termination by Disney.

“I think maybe because I’m a bit unassuming,” Carano told FOX News. “I’m easy to work with and I think sometimes if you asked anybody on that set, they would say I was the most non-controversial person but I think like we’ve seen all over America, a lot of us are getting sick and tired and so I think that I was a bit unassuming in standing up. I think that’s why I was targeted.”

In her lawsuit, Carano claimed that she was targeted by Disney while many of her co-stars made similar controversial statements on social media but faced no punishment whatsoever.

The ex-Strikeforce fighter says her firing was just a breaking point with cancel culture and she needed to fight back, which is what led to the lawsuit.

“What I’ve learned is that if this can happen to me, this can happen to anyone,” Carano said. “I’m easy to work with and I am passionate about what we do. I am always excited to be on set. I even worked with them as much as I possibly could to resolve any issues that they had but eventually you have a line and when that line gets crossed, you have to say enough. Enough is enough.

“If I would have caved and I would have done something that disrespected myself, I wouldn’t be doing any favors to the next generation, to my nieces, to your children. I felt like since I didn’t have any children, I was a person that could stand up and say something. The things that I said were so gentle. They weren’t aggressive. They were never with ill intent. They were never malicious and that’s how I know, because I was so conscious, that if this can happen to me, this can happen to you and if we just pass this along to the next generation, it’s just going to get worse and worse.”

Of course, Carano will face an uphill battle in court because California maintains “at will employment” laws, which means “without an employment contract, the employer or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without cause.”

Add to that, Disney has definitely taken action against other employees for controversial statements made on social media so Carano isn’t alone there.

Director James Gunn was famously fired from his film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after offensive messages he made years earlier on Twitter resurfaced. The split didn’t last forever with Disney eventually re-hiring Gunn to direct his film before he left the studio to take on a new role at Warner Bros. Discovery.

Roseanne Barr was effectively fired when her series Roseanne was cancelled by Disney after she unleashed a torrent of racist tweets back in 2018.

Still, Carano says she’s fighting the good fight with her lawsuit and she’s thankful that Musk is backing her up after he’s had his own war of words against Disney in recent years.

“I have people at these fan expos that I absolutely love and I have them coming up in tears, and mass amounts of people in tears, and just thank me for taking a stand,” Carano said. “Thank me for saying the things that I said and that has made it all worth it. No matter what happens, that has made it all worth it.

“I really applaud Elon Musk and X for championing me in this lawsuit and I appreciate all your love and support out there and I hope I make you proud.”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Meltdown
| BJPenn.com

UFC

Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) antitrust lawsuit gets more and more compelling with each new bit of information.

There have already been leaks of UFC CEO, Dana White, trashing his fighters via text, Jon Jones, in particular. In the latest release of information from the lawsuit gathered by Bloody Elbow, White put down one of his fellow promoters, Scott Coker, to help boost his star-creating ability in a deposition questioning. Specifically, White noted how Coker was only capable of “recycling” already notable names for his organizations of Strikeforce or Bellator.

“That’s Scott Coker’s MO. Scott Coker doesn’t build anybody, right?” White said. “He doesn’t turn anybody into stars. He just takes old names and recycles them. He’s a — he — he’s a very, very bad promoter. Very bad at what he does.”

Former women’s Bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey, was undeniably the biggest star in Strikeforce history as she helped launch the female fighters into a different stratosphere of notoriety. Therefore, UFC kept the fighters around when it purchased Strikeforce in 2012. Rousey debuted at UFC 157 against Liz Carmouche in February 2013, and from there was officially a star, not before, says White.

Question: Right. Is it your — not withstanding the fact that the UFC got some — I think as you testified earlier, some really great fighters from Mr. Coker’s Strikeforce promotion; right?

White: That we turned into stars. When you have Ronda Rousey and you can’t turn her into a star, you should probably go open a restaurant or something.

Question: And so — and so is it your testimony that at Bellator, Mr. Coker is continuing to essentially recycle has-been fighters? Is that —

White: Well, no. He — he recycles big names.

Question: Right.

White: That’s what he does. Rampage Jackson is a huge name. Tito Ortiz is a huge name. And — and basically, he re– you know, takes guys with big names and puts on fights with them instead of turning guys into stars, even when he has a roster packed with stars, and one of them include Ronda Rousey.

Question: Well, Ronda Rousey wasn’t a star at the time that she was fighting under contract with Strikeforce; right?

White: Till I turned her into a star.

Question: Right. But the point is, she wasn’t a star at Strikeforce; correct?

White: Yeah, no.

Question: Okay. So — and at this time in 2013 —

White: Just for the record, I turned her into a star immediately when she got to the UFC —

Question: Okay.

White: — her first fight.

Contradictory to these claims, White was quoted before Rousey’s official arrival in UFC saying the following.

“I think she’s a big thing now. She’s already done things that we couldn’t get done, I mean she’s been on talk shows that we could never f—ing get on,” White said while Rousey was still with Strikeforce, noting her appearances on mainstream outlets. “I heard she was the best-selling cover of ESPN: The Body Issue, that was what I heard.

“My point is, she’s one of those breakthrough stars,” he continued. “You guys know I went to the Sons of Anarchy premiere with her? When we got out of the car, the whole f—ing place erupted, like she was on the show or something … she’s ‘there.’“

Rousey’s UFC career spanned four years from 2013 to 2017 and saw her fight eight times with a 6-2 record (12-2 overall). All six wins were title defenses as the Bantamweight champion.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Themba Gorimbo is a man on a mission.

This past Saturday, Gorimbo had the best performance of his career, knocking out Pete Rodriguez in just 32 seconds at UFC Vegas 85. This followed up Gorimbo’s win this past May over Takashi Sato, where the Zimbabwean fighter caught the eye of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Needless to say, it’s been a life-changing past 12 months for Gorimbo, who believes that everything that has happened is proof that he’s destined for still greater things.

“I did ask myself [why me], but I always say, this is not me, this is God,” Gorimbo told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. “That’s what I say all the time. And I say God wouldn’t do this for me so that I can fail. That’s why I was so confident in this last fight. Even leading up to the fight, I’ve never trained like this in my entire career, and I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to top it, to work harder than this. …

“There are very few stories like this, where someone uplifts you the way he did for me. Just being in America, for me, without the house and everything, just being America is a blessing, coming from where I come from, Bikita, it’s a rural area in Zimbabwe. Maybe in that whole district, maybe there’s a few of us in America. In my village, I know for sure I’m the only one here. So it is a big thing just to be here and now to have someone like ‘The Rock’ supporting me being here, you just know that this is not me, this is not my doing. I just remind myself every day that this is not me, this is God.”

Johnson’s support can certainly get you a long way. The WWE and Hollywood star bought Gorimbo a house and remains in his corner, even giving Gorimbo counsel as he struggled with his newfound fame and the backlash that goes with it.

“I’m a human being and I’m emotional,” Gorimbo said. “And if someone comes to me and says things, you look back like, maybe? You start questioning yourself as a person. It was really bothering me, and sometimes I would cry by myself, because you think to yourself — it’s just a difficult situation I was in. …

“Luckily, I talked to [Johnson] as well. He spoke to me about all this. Actually, he called me and he told me that he foresaw all these things as well. He told me things are going to be like this from now on. ‘You’ve got to be like this.’ Obviously it’s easier said than done, because he’s been there too, feeling those expressions.”

Ultimately, Gorimbo believes that his story ends with a world championship. Only 2-1 in UFC and still well outside of the rankings, Gorimbo knows that many don’t believe it’s possible for him. But he believes that not only will it happen – it will happen sooner than anyone could imagine.

“With self belief, hard work, and you surround yourself with the right people, the sky is the limit,” Gorimbo said. “I think that’s my life, that’s my story, and that’s why when I tell people I’m going to become the UFC welterweight champion in 2024 — it does not look like it, and everyone criticizes, but my story and my life is not normal, even to myself. I don’t think I’m going to have a normal path to the title, but before you know if I’ll be there, and I’ll be taking the title and the world will then be like, ‘Oh, wow, that guy was real.’”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Sage Northcutt is looking to set the record straight regarding his short-notice withdrawal from a ONE Championship event last month.

Northcutt was scheduled to fight Japanese MMA icon Shinya Aoki at ONE 165 in Tokyo on January 28. An hour before their bout was scheduled to begin, the promotion revealed that Northcutt had bowed out, noting an “unforeseen circumstance with his cornermen.” As a result, former ONE bantamweight world champion John Lineker was literally pulled from the stands and thrown into the ring to ensure Aoki still had the opportunity to compete in front of his home country.

Speaking on the situation during a post-fight press event, ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong appeared to place much of the blame on Northcutt, noting that current ONE welterweight submission grappling world champion Tye Ruotolo offered to step in and corner Northcutt in the absence of his coaches — one being former UFC title challenger Urijah Faber. Northcutt reportedly refused the last-second change and opted out of the bout.

Taking exception to his employer putting the blame squarely on his shoulders, Sage Northcutt snapped back at ONE Championship in a lengthy post on social media to set the record straight.

“One Championship is implying that I pulled out of the Shinya fight for unforeseen circumstances,” Northcutt wrote on Instagram. “That is completely inaccurate.. I sent One Championship the necessary paperwork they required to get my coaches visas 48 days ahead of the event. I was told by them over the phone and by text my main jujitsu coach Fabio Prado did not need a visa since I paid for his airfare flights and trip so he was not classified as a working employee that needed a visa and that my other coach could get in as a tourist so he didn’t need one either,” Sage Northcutt wrote.

“My coaches were there for almost a week, and I was not informed that two of them could not coach until hours before my match. I received a text from an unknown number that texted me for the first time that day that was a ticket salesman asking me about getting my two coaches complimentary tickets to watch my fight in the audience.

“I personally believe that One Championship was not going to inform me that my coaches were not allowed to corner me until I arrived at the arena to fight if I did not hear from a ticket salesman hours earlier. We were also told hours before my match that if my coaches violated the visa requirements and were caught on camera, they could be arrested and there was a 99.8% conviction rate on all arrests,” Sage Northcutt continued.

“I made it clear to One Championship that I was not flying from America to Japan if I didn’t have my three coaches. I was told before I left to Japan by an executive that I would not have to fight without my coaches. They knew before I left that I would not be able to have two of my coaches. They never told me my coaches could be thrown in prison for any visa violation.

“There has been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with One Championship with what caused me to withdraw from my last fight as well as other things that I will talk about at a later time on Facebook, Instagram, and with media outlets.
• drug testing
• weight cutting/ policies
• active athletes/ roster
• One’s stability… etc.”

Sage Northcutt isn’t the only fighter frustrated with ONE Championship

Sage Northcutt has only fought twice since signing with ONE, but it sounds like the honeymoon is already over between the two.

Northcutt isn’t the only contracted fighter who appears to be at odds with the Singapore-based promotion. Reigning ONE featherweight kickboxing world champion Chingiz Allazov recently expressed a desire to terminate his contract. “ONE is one of the best kickboxing promotions, it’s true… but we don’t like the contract about this promotion,” Allazov said in a statement. Unfortunately for Allazov, ONE has no intention of granting the Azerbaijani-Belarusian fighter his release according to Nick Atkin of the South China Morning Post. His deal is reportedly up in December 2026.

It will be interesting to see what else Sage Northcutt has to say about the inner workings of ONE Championship.

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