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MMA Fighting has Beterbiev vs. Smith results for the Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Smith event on Saturday night from the Videotron Centre in Quebec City, Quebec.

When the main event begins around 11 p.m. ET, check out our Beterbiev vs. Smith live round-by-round updates for our live blog of the main event.

Artur Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs) is the WBC, IBF, and WBO light heavyweight champion. With a win, he is poised to meet Dmitry Bivol in a battle for undisputed supremacy later this year.

Callum Smith (29-1, 21 KOs) hunts for his third straight victory after rebounding from a title loss to Canleo Alvarez with knockouts of Lenin Castillo and Mathieu Bauderlique.

Check out Beterbiev vs. Smith results below.

Main Card (ESPN/ESPN+ at 10 p.m. ET)

Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Smith

Christian Mbilli vs. Rohan Murdock

Preliminary Card (ESPN+ at 5:30 p.m. ET)

Jason Moloney vs. Saul Sanchez

Imam Khataev vs. Michal Ludwiczak

Leila Beaudoin vs. Elizabeth Espinoza

Wilkens Mathieu vs. Jose Arias Alvarez

Mehmet Unal vs. Dragan Lepei

Christopher Guerrero vs. Sergio Herrera

Moreno Fendero vs. Victor Hugo Flores

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War
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UFC

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

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

There is no love lost between top-ranked Middleweight contenders Dricus Du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev. The two have been competing over the same title shot for quite some time, even prior to Sean Strickland’s upset win over Israel Adesanya at UFC 293. After some claims to the contrary, the dust has settled, and it will be Du Plessis fighting Strickland next weekend at UFC 297.

As for what’s next at 185-pounds, however? It’s widely assumed that Chimaev will receive the next opportunity at the belt once a winner is decided between Strickland and Du Plessis. If “Stillknocks” is the champion, however, he doesn’t intend on granting the Chechen talent a shot at his new belt.

According to Du Plessis, Chimaev hasn’t earned the shot. In fact, his resume barely qualifies him as a Middleweight at all! Chimaev’s only recent win at 185 lbs. is Kamaru Usman, the longtime Welterweight champion who accepted the bout on very short notice.

“As far as I know Khamzat’s a welterweight,” Du Plessis told MMA Junkie. “What middleweight did he fight? He fought at middleweight, but he fought a welterweight (in Usman). Gerald Meerschaert? When was that? Was he even ranked? No, he wasn’t ranked. So, that makes absolutely no sense.

“The UFC promised him a title fight? Where in the world does that happen? And he says he’s fighting Strickland. No, you’re not. If there’s a champion, if you get a title shot, I’m the champion. You’re not going to get a title shot. And Israel Adesanya? That makes sense.”

It remains to be seen how the Middleweight division shakes out in the next couple weeks, but expect some chaos!

Insomnia

I would pay genuine, real American dollars for Mike Perry’s narration and/or full interpretation of The Art Of War.

I managed to figure it out after a couple watches, but just a second longer and it would’ve been really obvious …

Matheus Nicolau is one of the most skilled men at Flyweight.

So many excellent fighters who primarily train at different gyms run into one another at Tiger Muay Thai.

Ali Abdelaziz continually proving that the bar to be an MMA manager is so, so low.

Patchy Mix makes his claim as the best Bantamweight on the planet:

Slips, rips, and KO clips

This triangle was surely aided by the elbows on the way down, and the angle prior to the rollout was super funky! A unique finish, certainly.

Good luck predicting which side the knee/kick is coming from.

A press conference that doesn’t result in immediate violence? Shocking.

Random Land

I don’t know the backstory, but I am curious …

Midnight Music: Experimental, 2023

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

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Matheus Nicolau is not here for Manel Kape’s excuses.

The veteran UFC flyweight released a lengthy statement on Friday lambasting would-be opponent Manel Kape after Kape badly missed weight by 3.5 pounds for UFC Vegas 84.

Kape tipped the scales at 129.5 pounds on Friday morning in Las Vegas for his scheduled bout against Nicolau, which was supposed to serve as the co-main event of UFC Vegas 84. Initial expectations were for the fight to proceed as a catchweight, with Kape forfeiting 25 percent of his purse to Nicolau, however the matchup was ultimately cancelled.

Kape subsequently stated on social media that he was sick two weeks prior to the fight and claimed that Nicolau refused to accept a catchweight bout.

In his response, Nicolau labeled Kape as “irresponsible, reckless and disrespectful” and stated that Kape “tried to gain an unfair advantage by cheating the system.”

Nicolau’s full comments can be read below (translated by MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz).

Unfortunately for the MMA fan, for my fans and, of course, for me and my entire team, the Manel Kape fight was cancelled. And the only person responsible for this is Manel Kape himself. It is the duty of the martial artist to fulfill this obligation of making weight the day before the fight.

I went through that entire war. I’ve been cutting weight for 5 weeks now with a restrictive diet. I focused (and didn’t regret it) on Christmas, New Year and my birthday on a diet, training and spending time away from my family. Today, I woke up at 5am to finish the process and weigh in at the 126 pounds, what was needed for the fight to happen.

Kape didn’t. He showed up for the weigh-in with 30 minutes left so there was no time for the UFC to ask him to cut more weight. He showed up 3.5 pounds over, knowing that if he weighed 0.5 pounds more, the fight would be automatically suspended by the athletic commission.

In other words, in my opinion, he tried to gain an unfair advantage by cheating the system.

Kape was irresponsible, reckless and disrespectful. He disrespected me as a colleague, opponent and martial artist. Disrespected MMA. Disrespected the UFC. Disrespected companies that support the sport. But, above all, he disrespected you, UFC fan, MMA fan, Matheus Nicolau fan, Manel Kape fan.

UFC Vegas 84 now moves forward as an 11-fight card at the UFC APEX headlined by a light heavyweight rematch between Magomed Ankalaev and Johnny Walker.

With Nicolau vs. Kape off the card, a lightweight bout between Jim Miller vs. Gabriel Benitez has been elevated into the new co-main event.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Luke Thomas doesn’t see any possible way for the PFL to compete with the UFC.

2023 was a fairly big year for the Professional Fighters League. The promotion made headlines when they announced their blockbuster signing of former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. In addition, the PFL inked a deal with social media star Jake Paul and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund acquired a minority stake in the promotion.

Of course, the biggest bit of PFL news came when founder Donn Davis revealed that they had acquired Bellator MMA and all the talent signed to the Scott Coker-led fight company.

Speaking with Mike Owens in a LowKick MMA exclusive interview, Morning Kombat’s Luke Thomas suggested that all of these big-money moves could translate to success in the new year, but believes the PFL’s biggest obstacle will be getting eyes on their product and fans in the arena, particularly stateside.

“I think there’s a lot of potential. We don’t really know if Francis is gonna fight in MMA in 2024,” Thomas said. “I tend to think he probably doesn’t, but even if he ends up fighting a nobody, that’s still better than what the PFL has. Obviously, it’d be better if they had a second name. It takes two names to promote a pay-per-view and they don’t have that right now, but something that could potentially be great for them is Jake Paul fighting on that card against somebody that people care about like Dillon Danis. That could be potentially big for them.

“Putting together some kind of event where they could pull 10,000 or 20,000 people. They pulled 20,000 when they went to France. They’ve pulled good cards when they went to the 3Arena [in Dublin], but in the United States, I went to one in my hometown, Washington D.C. and they had less than 3,000. And they were pretty happy with that. It’s tough to draw here.

“If they can solve that problem, that would be great. If they can get their numbers solidly above 400,000 viewers… They typically hover at 300,000 or below and sometimes below 200,000. That has to categorically change.”

Luke Thomas Believes ‘Pure Luck’ is the only thing that will help the PFL

Following the announcement of PFL’s purchase of Bellator, Donn Davis suggested that his promotion will eventually be a co-leader in the world of MMA, sharing the throne that the UFC currently occupies all by its lonesome.

Aside from a few extenuating circumstances, Thomas doesn’t see any future where the PFL can stand side-by-side with the UFC, let alone compete with the Las Vegas-based juggernaut.

“It is not possible for the PFL to compete with the UFC,” Thomas continued. “It is actually in the real world, not possible. It cannot be done. There is nothing that they can do to bridge that gap. So when we’re talking about a successful 2024 for them, I think getting a little bit of luck. Somebody defecting inside the ranks of the UFC. That would be just pure luck. That would be good.

“The court case, the antitrust case [against the UFC], if that ends up having an effect, and of course, there could be challenges to any kind of verdict that goes against the UFC, but nevertheless, opening up that possibility of what that could mean. There’s just a lot of ways that… Here’s the reality, folks. Unless the United States Congress gets involved by passing the Muhammad Ali Act to MMA, or this antitrust case really railroads the UFC, or there is some kind of internal scandal that just makes the UFC collapse overnight, there is nothing that PFL, Bellator, ONE, or any other competitor out there can do to actually compete with the UFC.”

Thomas hopes that the PFL can continue to grow and show signs of further success in 2024, even it if means only being a distant second to the empire that Dana White has helped build.

“I hope PFL has a great 2024. They could have a much better 2024 than 2023 and 2023 was a good year for them, all things being what they were, but ultimately, I am telling you how this movie ends,” he concluded.

Watch the full exclusive interview with Luke Thomas:

LowKickMMA.com

One month after the incident which saw Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis get involved in a heated altercation, more news has surfaced on the situation.

Although they’ve never been the best of friends, the relationship between the two middleweights grew sour after the UFC 2024 seasonal press conference. The pair went back and forth until a comment made about the champion’s well-documented childhood trauma understandably hit a nerve.

During a recent interview with MMA Junkie, Dricus Du Plessis recalled his brawl with Sean Strickland. While it shouldn’t have ever reached that point, the South African detailed why the two did come to blows.

“I took on his manliness, you know. I was in his face and I told him, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ And he stood up for himself. That’s what a real man does. I’m happy for him, I’m glad that he has that in him.”

“The way he hit, there were no cuts going to happen. I can feel that, tell you that, the way those shots landed… If you’re starting to really throw down and somebody thinks it’s fake punches, that sucks.”

‘Stillknocks’ then spoke on the immediate aftermath of their aforementioned fight at UFC 296. According to the title challenger, Strickland could have been in trouble with the authorities for assault.

“Dana came to me and said, ‘Listen, this is the case. Like, we’re really sorry about this.’ But obviously, the police had him [Strickland], and like charges can be pressed because that’s assault.”

Related: Sean Strickland’s attack on Dricus Du Plessis was pre-planned, claims UFC veteran

“They didn’t try to convince me otherwise, at all. They literally said, ‘Listen, if you feel like that was uncalled for, we completely understand if you want to press charges, take this further.’ And I said no, no, no. Please no. We are two fighters, I mean, it was a good old scrap like we did before we became professionals.”

“I just asked him, I would love to make sure, I would even take the blame if that’s possible, just to make sure that nothing happens to him… I just wanted to make sure that nothing happens that the fight’s in jeopardy.”

If all goes to plan, Dricus Du Plessis will be entering the octagon to compete for his first shot at UFC gold on January 20. Sean Strickland will be hoping to cement his reign as middleweight king by defending his throne when they collide as the headliner for UFC 297.

Check out what Du Plessis had to say about pressing charges on Strickland and more in the video below.

MMAWeekly.com | UFC and MMA News, Results, Rumors, and Videos

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts