CombatSports.org

Breaking
| BJPenn.com

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

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Kayla Harrison’s career in the Professional Fighter’s League (PFL) has come to an end.

Earlier on Tuesday night (Jan. 23, 2024), UFC CEO Dana White announced that the promotion had signed Harrison, the two-time Judo Olympic gold medalist and former PFL champion. She’s set to make her UFC debut on April 13 at UFC 300, facing former Bantamweight queen Holly Holm in a high-profile bout at 135 pounds.

Watch White’s announcement below:

There’s actually a lot to consider with this match up. First and foremost, the weight class is a really surprising change of pace. Holm has fought most of her career at Bantamweight, but she also has jumped up to 145-pounds on a few occasions. Harrison, conversely, has only made 145-pounds once in her 17-fight professional career! She’s fought almost entirely at 155-pounds, so she’s facing a 20 pound adjustment here.

Holm does feel like a perfect opponent for Harrison’s debut. She remains one of women’s Bantamweight’s best-known names, and there’s obvious history and parallels to draw given Holm kicked a different Judo Olympian in the face many years ago. Given the lackluster Bantamweight title fight a few days ago at UFC 297, this is a much-needed injection of an exciting new contender … if Harrison can make the weight!

A final factor to consider is how this affects the ongoing PFL vs. Bellator champion match ups. Harrison is not the most recent PFL Lightweight champion — that would be Larissa Pacheco, who defeated Harrison in November 2022 but also lost to Harrison twice previously — but she was a frontrunner to face Bellator Featherweight queen Cris Cyborg anyway. There’s been a lot of hype over the years for that potential match up, but it’s officially gone for the foreseeable future.

Insomnia

Why … why are they pirates?

Another fighter removed from the rankings pool for inactivity that fought (and won) far more recently than Brian Ortega …

Foot sweeps are always cool.

Dricus Du Plessis is enjoying his hard-earned title win in style.

This clip is so funny to me. There is only one “Stillknocks!”

MMA fighters and politics, a mix like chocolate and peanut butter.

Bryan Barberena should not be at Middleweight, so I’m predicting a “GM3” submission here.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

A TRIPLE upkick KO? That’s a new one.

The front kicks looked stabbing, and the composure off the back foot prior to the stoppage was really impressive too.

Lorenz Larkin taking apart prime Neil Magny with oblique-style kicks to the mid-section was awesome, and nobody else has really used that weapon since!

Random Land

An impressive show of strength.

Midnight Music: Post-hardcore, 1994

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

MMAmania.com – All Posts

submitted by /u/FiveStarShenron [link] [comments]

MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

TKO Group Holdings, the merged company with UFC and WWE, announced Tuesday that WWE’s Monday Night Raw, the flagship program for the professional wrestling outfit, will be moving to Netflix starting in 2025 in a deal reportedly worth $ 5 billion over 10 years.

The new deal shifts Raw off linear television for the first time since the program launched 31 years ago. According to several reports, the deal is worth $ 500 million per year, with Netflix maintaining the right to exit the contract after five years or extend for another 10 years if the partnership is successful.

The previous deal with WWE and NBCUniversal for Raw to air on the USA Network was worth around $ 250 million per year. The new broadcast rights deal, which officially kicks off in January 2025, will double that value per year.

TKO stock jumped 15 percent in trading after news about the deal between WWE and Netflix first broke.

The current deal for Raw runs through October 2024 so it’s unknown where the program will air between then and January 2025 when the new deal begins. Netflix will also gain control of all WWE programming outside of the United States, which includes shows like Smackdown and NXT, as well as major events like WrestleMania and the Royal Rumble.

“This deal is transformative,” TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro said in a statement. “It marries the can’t-miss WWE product with Netflix’s extraordinary global reach and locks in significant and predictable economics for many years. Our partnership fundamentally alters and strengthens the media landscape, dramatically expands the reach of WWE, and brings weekly live appointment viewing to Netflix.”

Over the past few months, TKO completed negotiations on several broadcast deals for WWE including Smackdown moving to the USA Network in a deal reportedly worth $ 1.4 billion over five years and shifting NXT to the CW for five years at approximately $ 20 to $ 25 million per year.

Nothing comes close to the move to Netflix, however, especially as the streaming wars continue to heat up with more and more networks shifting programming to outlets such as Amazon, Apple TV, and Hulu. Netflix has largely avoided getting into live programming outside of a few random programs, such as a comedy special hosted by Chris Rock and the recent Screen Actors Guild Awards.

So what exactly does all this have to do with the UFC?

Well, first and foremost, the UFC now takes center stage for TKO for a new broadcast rights deal, with the promotion’s current deal with ESPN running through 2025. Negotiations on that deal are expected to begin over the next few months, with TKO executives likely sitting down with ESPN before potentially fielding offers from other potential suitors.

The UFC broadcast rights have been a huge part of the growth for ESPN+ — the premium streaming service connected to the sports outlet — with subscriber numbers hitting 26 million this past November. As part of an extended deal with the UFC, ESPN also controls the rights to pay-per-view broadcasts, which is another massive driver of revenue to the network.

In other words, the UFC remains a very valuable asset to ESPN, but will the owners at Disney put up enough capital to keep the promotion beyond 2025?

Disney CEO Bob Iger has spoken often about the future of ESPN, which includes plans to take on partners for the network. Reports surfaced recently that the NFL was in talks with Disney on a deal that would include the football league taking on a small ownership role with ESPN.

It’s entirely possible Endeavor, the parent company to TKO, could seek something similar in order to stay with ESPN.

But this deal to move WWE Raw to Netflix gives some indication of what could possibly happen over the next year.

The UFC’s last broadcast rights deal with ESPN was reportedly worth around $ 1.5 billion over seven years. It’s expected that the next deal will dwarf that number. At least one Wall Street analyst has predicted a new UFC deal will likely double in value to around $ 3 billion.

Netflix isn’t just testing the waters with the WWE deal. The publicly traded company is investing a huge sum of money on a proven ratings draw with Monday Night Raw under at least a five-year deal, or potentially extending that out to 20 years if everything goes well.

Amazon locked up the NFL’s Thursday Night Football package for 10 years at a whopping $ 1 billion per season.

Apple TV has also gotten into the live sports business after inking a 10-year, $ 2.5 billion deal with Major League Soccer, among other additions to the growing streaming service.

Netflix currently touts more than 247 million paying subscribers, but despite past hesitance to get involved in broadcast rights deals for live sports, the contract inked with WWE obviously changes those plans. There’s a chance that now that a deal between Netflix and WWE has been brokered, TKO executives may revisit that idea again for the UFC.

That said, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos claimed during an earnings call on Tuesday that the deal with WWE won’t necessarily change the company’s strategy moving forward, at least where major sports rights deals are concerned.

“WWE is sports entertainment, so it’s really as close to our core as you can get of that sport storytelling, and in terms of the deal itself, it has options and it has the protections that we seek in our general licensing deals and with economics that we’re super happy with globally,” Sarandos said. “I would not look at this as a signal of any other change or any change to our sports strategy.”

Of course, the UFC being owned by the same company as WWE could still initiate a conversation with Netflix, especially as the streaming service hinted at a potential price increase for subscribers in the near future. A UFC deal — as big as it could be — still won’t equal the price leagues like the NFL or NBA command so that’s also a possible factor.

Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV, and other streamers have thrown around huge sums of money to land deals like this, and there’s a chance the bidding could even shut out a network as large as ESPN. If Netflix is willing to put down $ 500 million per year for WWE Raw, how much would it pay to get the UFC, another proven draw with year-round programming?

TKO executives have also hinted that a split package similar to the NFL or NBA could be in the works for the UFC. That means ESPN could maintain some of the broadcast rights but the UFC could also strike a deal to move some programming to Netflix, Amazon, or another streaming network.

With every major WWE program moving to a new network in 2025, it’s tough to know for certain if the UFC will just stay with the status quo at ESPN, especially with other interested bidders. The WWE-Netflix deal definitely sets the stage for some incredibly important negotiations kicking off for the UFC later this year.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Multiple time PFL (Professional Fighters League) lightweight tournament victor, Kayla Harrison has signed a multi-fight deal to make a spectacular move to the Octagon in April – making a promotional debut against former bantamweight champion, Holly Holm at UFC 300 – in her first walk at the 135 pound limit to boot.

Harrison, a two-time PFL lightweight tournament winner, most recently featured at PFL 10 back in November of last year in Washington, landing a unanimous decision win over former UFC bantamweight contender, Aspen Ladd.

Returning to the winner’s enclosure, Harrison, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in Judo, had dropped her first professional loss in the form of a judging defeat to Brazilian champion and another Octagon alum, Larissa Pacheco the November prior.

As for Holm, the Albuquerque striking expert has been sidelined since her initial ninja choke submission loss to recent UFC 297 co-headliner, Mayra Bueno Silva, was overtuned to an official ‘No Contest’ following their July clash.

Kayla Harrison signs with UFC, set for debut against Holly Holm

UFC CEO, Dana White announced the shocking signing of Kayla Harrison tonight on his official social media, before revealing the 33-year-old Ohio native will make her Octagon debut as part of an ever-growing UFC 300 card in April against ex-champion, Holly Holm.

“Breaking News:” Dana White posted on his official X account. “UFC has signed Kayla Harrison! #UFC300 Holly Holm vs. Kayla Harrison.”

16-1 as a professional, Harrison has been lauded as one of the most dominant forces in woman’s mixed martial arts recent history since her transition from Judo to the sport back in 2018, and has racked up PFL lightweight tournament victories back in 2019 and 2021.

Amongst her list of triumphs, Harrison has beaten the likes of the above-mentioned, Pacheco, as well as Mariana Morais, Kaitlin Young, as well as the above-mentioned Folsom native, Ladd. 

Who wins at UFC 300 in a massive clash: Holly Holm or Kayla Harrison?

LowKickMMA.com

UFC

submitted by /u/rmma
[link] [comments]
MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Kayla Harrison is finally a UFC fighter.

On Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White announced that the two-time Olympic gold medalist judoka and two-time PFL champion has signed an exclusive deal to join the UFC roster, where she will compete as a bantamweight.

Her first assignment will come against former bantamweight champion Holly Holm at UFC 300, which takes place on April 13 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

It’s a stunning turn of events for Harrison, who spent her entire MMA career with the PFL but recently hit free agency at the end of her contract. PFL made attempts to keep Harrison on the roster but ultimately the 33-year-old Ohio native decided to move to the UFC.

During her career, Harrison has posted an impressive 16-1 record with her only loss coming in a decision to Larissa Pacheco in 2022. Outside of that lone setback, Harrison has been perfect, including two prior wins over Pacheco as well as a recent victory over UFC veteran Aspen Ladd.

Now she’ll make the move down to bantamweight after spending her entire career competing at either lightweight or featherweight. Harrison previously discussed the potential move with MMA Fighting when contemplated her future in the sport.

“I mean, 135 will challenge me in ways, like I’m going to have to lose a piece of me to be able to fight at 135 pounds,” Harrison said this past November. “I think just structurally, I carry a lot of muscle. I’m already kind of lean, so I’m going to have to lose muscle. I’m going to have to change my entire lifestyle. I mean, I have already done that to fight at 145.

“It’s crazy what happens when you take care of your body and eat properly and sleep and recover. I was a knucklehead when I was younger. But I have faith whatever is meant to be, will be.”

In her bantamweight debut, Harrison clashes with Holm, a former 135-pound champion and stalwart near the top of the rankings in the UFC. Holm has gone 3-1 with one no contest in her past five outings, including wins over Irene Aldana, Yana Santos, and new UFC bantamweight champion Raquel Pennington.

Harrison vs. Holm is the latest addition to the growing UFC 300 card, which remains without a main event at this time.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

UFC

submitted by /u/crazybartur [link] [comments]

MMA: Mixed Martial Arts