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Khalil Rountree may not have picked up the win to win his first-ever ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) world title against Alex Pereira at UFC 307 a few weeks ago, but “War Horse’s” stock way up in defeat.

Rountree went toe-to-toe against “Poatan” in Salt Lake City, Utah in one of the most entertaining title fights of 2024. While he did enough to hand around for the first three rounds, Pereira eventually started to find his groove, ultimately putting away the tough-as-nails contender in the fourth frame (see it again here).

Despite coming up short and looking worse for the wear, Rountree says he feels good about his performance, especially knowing that fight fans around the world, and the UFC higher-ups, were please with his performance.

“I’ve spoken personally with Dana (White) and Hunter (Campbell) and I feel like I got the steak dinner already because they were entertained,” Rountree told MMA Junkie Radio (via MMA Junkie). “I think for me as a partner with the UFC it’s one of my biggest goals to make sure the guys at the top are pleased with what they see. After speaking with them and them being excited about the performance, they’re definitely pleased,” he added before saying he isn’t too sure what’s next for him inside the cage.

“That felt like a treat in itself. As far as what’s next on the fight end, I think there would be a little bit more room for me to say what I want. But that vision right now is not so clear, he added before confirming that he want’s a Top 5 opponent.

“I think right now any name in the top five or within title contention to me, makes sense,” There’s not one name specifically. There’s not one person who I’m emotionally attached to or a fight I think I deserve next. But I would like to continue to fight people within the top five so I can get another shot at the title. It seems like the majority of the guys are booked or injured, but while I’m healing up there will be a good number of matchups to happen and I would love anybody that sets me up for another title fight.”

A fight between he and Jamahal Hill — who was also last seen on the wrong end of Pereira’s ungodly punches — was floating around in “War Horse’s” mind as a potential comeback fight. And it’s not a bad idea seeing as how both men would love nothing more than to get one back on “Poatan.”

For now, Rountree is sitting back and letting his face heal from all of the damage he took from the Light Heavyweight champion of the world. If a fight against Hill doesn’t come to pass, perhaps this man would be willing to step in.

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Charles Oliveira hopes that UFC matchmakers change their approach when it comes to booking Tony Ferguson fights if the veteran decides to enter the octagon in the future.

Oliveira, who handled Ferguson the second loss of his current eight-fight skid back in 2020, and has a good relationship with “El Cucuy”, said in an interview with MMA Fighting that it was hard to watch Ferguson suffer another setback this past August in Abu Dhabi, a first-round submission defeat to Michael Chiesa.

Ferguson, a former interim lightweight champion, appeared to indicate his retirement immediately after the bout, but changed the tone at the post-fight press conference, saying “no, I still wanna fight.”

“He deserves all the respect in the world just to be fighting still, he deserves a standing ovation for everything he’s done in the UFC,” Oliveira said. “But I think the UFC should also give him some help and put him against someone [around his age] so they can put on a show and we applaud them.”

Ferguson was stopped in five of those eight losses, also finished by Justin Gaethje, Michael Chandler, Nate Diaz, Bobby Green, with additional decision defeats to “do Bronx”, Beneil Dariush and Paddy Pimblett.

The last time Ferguson fought someone who was older than him was June of 2019, when he scored a win over Donald Cerrone. For Oliveira, who earned a shot at the UFC belt with his victory over Ferguson, the UFC should book “El Cucuy” against veterans on the tail end of their career instead of up and comers like Pimblett.

“The guy doesn’t want to retire, he’s there, so why not get someone with the same vibe to put on a big fight? That would be great,” Oliveira said. “But to put these young kids, kids coming in hungry for attention over a big name like him, that’s a bit complicated. It sucks. The guy has a certain age, and you put him against young kids to fight him? That hurts him a little bit.”

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We don’t have to tell lies, it was an underwhelming week of MMA as UFC Vegas 98 was not exactly a banner event. Nevertheless, the main event between Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira delivered, and we got some pretty big news about UFC 310. On top of that, we’re now on the road to PFL: Ngannou vs. Ferreira a.k.a “Battle of the Giants” in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

So, with a smattering of topics to discuss this week, let’s touch on them all.

Tatsuro Taira

“How do you think a fight between Taira and Mokaev would have played out?”

If you missed it, Brandon Royval took a hard-fought decision over Tatsuro Taira in the main event of UFC Vegas 98 this past Saturday. The fight was one of the best of the year but now that Taira has suffered his first career loss, there’s already been some questioning of how good he is. But that’s a bit crazy.

Taira is only 24 years old and he just went hammer and tongs with the No. 1-ranked guy in the world. In just about any other scenario, people would be praising the pants off him. But because he was a sizable betting favorite heading into the fight, instead there are now questions about how good he is. That’s a bit silly. Is he as good as Brandon Royval? Not quite. But basically no one else is either.

That’s not to say that Taira’s performance was above reproach. He certainly showed a number of enormous holes. Royval pieced Taira up on the feet and the Japanese fighter also maybe showed a lack of cardio for five round fights. But those are things we’d expect from a young fighter who has basically never had to develop a B game. I fully expect this to be one of those losses that is hugely beneficial for Taira.

Now on to the question: I think Taira beats Mokaev but I’m in no way certain of that. That is a matchup of two very similar fighters. Both are exceptional grapplers, Mokaev is the better wrestler but Taira is the more dangerous finisher with a few more tricks. Ultimately, I think it comes down to the striking and while Taira is not very good on the feet, he’s shown more than Mokaev has at this point so I’ll favor him.

PFL’s big night

“I think we can all agree in saying Ngannou vs Ferreira doesn’t go the distance, but what’s the most preferable outcome for the PFL? Is it Ngannou knocking out Ferreira or would it be their homegrown guy knocking out the lineal UFC champion, who never lost his belt in the cage?”

Francis Ngannou takes on Renan Ferreira in the main event of PFL’s latest PPV offering this Saturday and I think it’s safe to say this is the most important event of PFL’s existence.

Almost two years ago the PFL backed up the Brinks truck for Ngannou and now he is finally going to compete for them. Is that going to matter? Are people going to tune in because Francis Ngannou is fighting, because that was basically the calculus when PFL signed him: that Ngannou brings both cache and eyeballs. A year ago when Ngannou arguably should have beaten Tyson Fury, that might have been true. Now that Anthony Joshua put him on a stretcher? Unsure.

Aside from needing Ngannou to be a star, the PFL also really needs him to win. I’m not sure if Ngannou is a PPV draw in general, but I am certain he’s not the kind of star that can springboard others to stardom off of beating him. If Ferreira comes out and sleeps Ngannou, the only thing that happens is that the MMA world collectively says, “Well, Francis was gone for almost three years and just got savagely KOed. Guess Tom Aspinall really is the top guy right now.” Sure, Renan Ferreira would be the lineal champion, but that will be all but meaningless at that point in time. No one will care.

So yeah, the PFL needs Francis to come through and uppercut Ferreira out of the cage, remind people why they were so excited to get him in the first place and, hopefully, generate enough interest to have a successful PPV outing.

Big pressure on Big Francis this weekend.

Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco

“What does the future hold for cyborg and Pacheco after this weekend? Kayla will have no real threats for a long time once she takes the belt from Pena.”

Genuinely I have no idea. Pacheco vs. Cyborg is a quality fight that has two enormous issues with it. First is that Cyborg is ancient in fight years. Cyborg has had a wonderful career but frankly the only reason it’s continued this long is because women’s featherweight isn’t a real division, so she’s feasted on overmatched and/or underweight opposition. Pacheco is the first woman Cyborg will have fought since Julia Budd who is actually capable and physically comparable. She’s probably going to get her ass kicked.

Which is all well and good for Pacheco, who is a great fighter, but that leads to problem two: there is nothing else for Pacheco to do after this. I’m honestly a bit surprised that Cyborg didn’t just retire from MMA instead of take this fight but it’s great for Pacheco she didn’t. At least Pacheco gets this one fight for the resume, but after this Pacheco then just moves into the same place Cyborg spent most of her career: having no one to fight.

My best guess is that if/when Pacheco wins, they just run back another tournament next year and she competes in it because she makes a bundle of money and it’s not like the promotion has real “superfights” to offer her. And as for Cyborg, I suspect this is it for her MMA career and she can move back on to pursuing boxing.

UFC 310

“Now that they announced Shavkat vs. Belal I can think of several exciting matchups at the top of the 170 lb division. Is this the best the division has looked in the last decade? Can you rate the divisions by talent?”

If you missed it, the big fights for UFC 310 got announced this week and the event will be headlined by a welterweight title fight between Belal Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov. Reason won out and it’s going to rule. Either Belal pulls off the upset and truly proves himself to be one of the best fighters in the world right now, or Shavkat finally receives his crown and welterweight has a no-doubt-about-it exciting champion for the first time since Robbie Lawler. Win-win.

As for the state of the welterweight division, maybe? It’s true that for the past couple of years the welterweight division has fallen off some, particularly in comparison with weight classes like 155 of 135; and now we do have this crop of new names coming through and making things interesting, which is exciting, but a decade is a long time.

The golden age of welterweight (thus far) was probably Georges St-Pierre’s initial years as champion when the entire top-10 were some of the best fighters alive. But if you look back to 2016, that’s a pretty good crop of fighters as well. Tyron Woodley is champion, Stephen Thompson is at the peak of his powers, Demian Maia is still hanging around, Usman and Colby Covington are on the come-up, along with Leon Edwards and Gilbert Burns. It’s only the past few years where things have felt stagnant because the old guard keeps hanging around. So no, I don’t think it’s the best of the past decade but it’s trending in an excellent direction.

And for rankings:

1. Lightweight
2. Bantamweight
3. Featherweight
4. Flyweight
5. Middleweight
6. Welterweight
7. Womens’ Flyweight
8. Women’s Strawweight
9. Light Heavyweight
10. Heavyweight
11. Women’s bantamweight

And truly the bottom three are interchangeably terrible.

Nick Diaz returns

“What should we expect out of Nick Diaz? Another sad performance? Or do you think he’s going to take this one serious?”

Also lined up for UFC 310 is the return of Nick Diaz, who will take on Vicente Luque. It’s a fight that was originally scheduled for UFC Abu Dhabi this year until “travel issues” popped up for Diaz (a.k.a. somebody finally remembered the very strict rules the UAE has surrounding marijuana). And I gotta tell you, it’s going to be terrible.

The issue is not “whether Nick takes this fight seriously,” it’s that Nick Diaz doesn’t have it anymore. To paraphrase the poet and scholar Cutty Wise, the game ain’t in him no more.

Nick is 41 years old. That alone is nearly disqualifying. On top of that, he’s only fought twice this decade: once in a farce of a bout with Anderson Silva and the other in a hard to watch beatdown against Robbie Lawler. The last time Nick Diaz won a fight, Barack Obama was barely into his first term as president. This isn’t a matter of want, it’s a matter of capability.

I do not know why Nick Diaz is coming back. I hope it’s not because he has to but mostly I hope he gets out of this fight as unscathed as possible. The fact that Luque also looks to be on the well-done side of cooked makes this at least more tolerable than the Lawler matchup, but barely.

Maybe I’m wrong and Nick comes back and looks incredible, but I’m anticipating this to be one of the worst parts of MMA this year. I guess we’ll see.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.

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Francis Ngannou and Renan Ferreira will battle for a brand new championship belt this Saturday.

The massive heavyweights headline this weekend’s PFL pay-per-view event, and battle for the PFL Superfight heavyweight title in Saudi Arabia. The bout will be Ngannou’s first for the promotion since vacating the UFC heavyweight title to sign with PFL.

On Monday, PFL revealed the new Superfight titles that Ngannou and Ferreira — along with Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco — will be fighting for. Check out the new belts below.

Ngannou competes in an MMA fight for the first time since defeating Ciryl Gane in a UFC heavyweight title defense at UFC 270 in January 2022. Since then, “The Predator” has competed in the boxing ring, losing a pair of bouts to top-ranked heavyweights Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.

Ferreira has stopped his past four opponents, including Bellator heavyweight champion Ryan Bader in 21 seconds at PFL vs. Bellator in February.

Cyborg makes her promotional debut, and first MMA appearance in over a year. The Bellator women’s featherweight champ picked up two boxing knockouts in her two combat appearances in 2024.

Pacheco enters the matchup coming off of back-to-back $ 1 million PFL championships, including a victory over now-UFC fighter Kayla Harrison at the PFL World Championships 2022 event.

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DDP is ready
| BJPenn.com

There’s surprising news in the grappling scene, as ADCC will be replacing Mo Jassim, the public face of its company.

Soon after the 2024 ADCC World Championships — and its public feud with the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) — the prestigious grappling promotion will now be replacing its head organizer. Indeed, Mo Jassim — who has been the promoter and public face of the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) these last several years — is no longer with the company.

ADCC to replace head organizer Mo Jassim

Jassim announced the surprising news on his private Instagram page, stating that he and ADCC have parted ways.

“l would like to announce that I have decided to step down as the head organizer of ADCC,” Jassim wrote. “I would to like thank Sheikh Tahnoon for giving me the opportunity to be the only person to organize 3 ADCC worlds. Thank you to Guy Neivens for allowing me to move up from wristband boy to head organizer. Thank you to Seth Daniels and Shawn Fowler, we gave every event we organized everything we had and I am very proud of the work we accomplished. Thank you to FloGrappling for supporting me and ADCC, they were great to deal with.

“Thank you to all of the athletes that I have worked with the past 20 years. Also thank you to all of the media who supported us and helped promote ADCC and the sport.

“The sport has never been in a better place to break through mainstream, which has always been the end goal. My loyalty will always be to ADCC but any organizer or event that will grow the sport has my full support if needed. I look forward to being just a fan again.”

ADCC was always highly regarded in the grappling scene, but Jassim truly deserves a lot of credit for significantly growing its events and helping the sport reach a much wider audience during his tenure.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) shows used to only appeal to fellow practitioners of the sport, but the professional grappling scene has since grown exponentially. ADCC’s biennial world championships was at the forefront of that, with Jassim playing a big role not just in keeping elite talent, but also in significantly improving production value to appeal to more casual audiences.

It’s after that growth was achieved, where concerns about lack of improvement in athlete pay were raised. This sparked the ADCC and CJI rivalry, with Jones eventually starting his own promotion to disrupt the sport and highlight these issues. He hosted CJI on the same city and same weekend as ADCC 2024, then poached several BJJ stars by offering show money that matched ADCC’s tournament prize, plus $ 1 million to its winners.

The situation was tense.

Nevertheless, the rivalry ended up helping many athletes get paid significantly better that weekend. CJI gave out record purses in BJJ, and because of the competition, ADCC also increased pay for women and offered show money for the first time to retain key stars.

Perhaps it is also in part due to these events that led to ADCC restructuring?

Fired? Craig Jones and Mo Jassim continue to trade barbs

Jassim recently stated he’d want to do things differently “if” he gets a chance to host another ADCC World Championships, so perhaps the writing was already on the wall.

As expected, though, Jones continued to jab at Jassim online, stating it wasn’t his choice to “step down” from ADCC.

“You can’t fire me, I quit,” Jones wrote on Instagram.

After seeing this, Jassim decided to challenge Jones to a fist fight as he responded in the comments section.

Jones went on to write a comment and film a whole skit in response, taking another jab at ADCC athlete pay and making people compete for exposure and “prestige.”

There’s still no word on Jassim’s replacement, but Jones didn’t stop his trolling there. The CJI promoter says he’s willing to take over Jassim’s role himself.

“I’ve decided to take over ADCC and restore it to its former glory,” Jones wrote in a series of jokes and jabs at Jassim. “I will even allow Mo Jassim (to) be the wristband boy again. I don’t hold a grudge.”

ADCC’s next world championships is targeted for 2026. Trials and qualifications will happen the year before that though, so it might not take very long for their backers in Abu Dhabi to make a decision on their next head organizer. It’ll also be very interesting to see if there will be major changes to how the promotion is run under different leadership.

For the latest Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and grappling-related news click here.

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