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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Francis Ngannou could go from one titanic heavyweight matchup to another.

The former UFC champion made a spectacular boxing debut this past October, going 10 rounds with Tyson Fury and narrowly losing a split decision in a bout that saw him score a dramatic third-round knockdown of boxing’s heavyweight king.

Despite the loss, Ngannou’s stock rose after the thrilling performance, and Matchroom Boxing boss Eddie Hearn is keeping an eye on the PFL fighter as a potential opponent for prized client Anthony Joshua.

“So right now we have three fights that we’re in discussions for,” Hearn told iFL TV. “They’re all big and that doesn’t involve Deontay Wilder for March. Our aim, and we’ve expressed this, is to fight the winner of Fury-Usyk. That’s all we want to do. Obviously, there’s the [Filip] Hrgovic fight out there for the world heavyweight title. There’s a Francis Ngannou fight out there, which would be absolutely colossal. There’s other heavyweights as well. The [Zhilei] Zhang fight possibly as well with Queensbury.”

“[Joseph] Parker, yeah, possibly. It’s difficult. We fought Parker, beat him, unified against him, it was five years ago whatever it was, but Joseph’s definitely earned the right for a big fight. He’s just beaten Deontay Wilder, so we don’t rule that out either.”

The top of the heavyweight boxing picture took shape at the Dec. 23 Day of Reckoning event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with Joshua defeating Otto Wallin the main event, Joseph Parker winning a one-sided decision against a listless Wilder, and Filip Hrgovic and Frank Sanchez earning wins against overmatched competition.

Wilder’s loss to Parker threw a wrench in the plans to have Joshua and Wilder face off at the end of the night, but Hearn is fine with putting that matchup on the back burner.

“The fight’s dead for right now,” Hearn said. “You never know what’s going to happen in the future, but we both signed contracts to announce the fight that night, obviously subject to everybody winning. So when Wilder lost, it was like, what the f***? We had to go into the change room with Josh and he was like, ‘He just lost?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah. Look, don’t worry about that, you do your thing’ and he did his thing outstandingly and the fight is dead for now.

“Who knows what else could happen in the future? Literally, since I left the venue that night to about 20 minutes ago I’ve been speaking to His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] non-stop to decide what we’re going to do. Obviously, AJ’s a hot commodity right now, you’ve got Fury and Usyk already locked in, but we’re planning our next move and those conversations have been evolving since that night as we plan a busy 2024.”

Fury and Oleksandr Usyk square off in February for undisputed heavyweight champion status, with Riyadh serving as host. Should Fury defeat Usyk, he may end up in a rematch with Ngannou, though Hearn believes that Joshua has earned the right to take on the winner of that clash.

“With all due respect, we do have a plan,” Hearn said. “These are all great heavyweights. Andy Ruiz, Frank Sanchez, Joseph Parker, but really the only thing that AJ wants to do is be in massive fights, win the world heavyweight title, and fight Tyson Fury or get another crack at Usyk. That’s what [Joshua trainer] Ben [Davison] wants, Ben wants another crack at Usyk.

“For me, obviously, I’d love the Fury fight. When you look at fighting March, fighting in September, maybe two fights against the Fury-Usyk winner, you’re talking four or five fights down the line, that may be it. He looked amazing last week, but five fights is another year and a half, maybe two years, so how much longer are you going to go? Right now, we’re really excited for that 2024.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Brazil continues to export tons of talent into the MMA world, and it looks like the harvest will be another good one in 2024.

As the new year begins, MMA Fighting takes a closer look at Brazilian up-and-comers who may graduate from the regional scene and sign with a major promotion over the next 12 months, joining prospects highlighted in previous years such Alexandre Pantoja, Vitor Petrino, Jailton Almeida, Caio Borralho, and others.

As always, this list only features athletes who are under the age of 30 and haven’t competed for a major promotion in the past.

Icaro Brito is making waves at featherweight. A teammate of rising UFC contender Caio Borralho, the 24-year-old recently flattened Junior Duarte in just three minutes for a perfect LFA debut, the fifth knockout win of his 7-1 career.

Giovanni Garcia won 13 bouts in a row between amateur (6-0) and professional (7-0) MMA in four years, capped off by a submission victory over Carlos Alberto Silva to clinch the Iron Man featherweight belt in November 2022. “Galeto”, 21, displayed heart to rebound from a guillotine scare to secure a finish in the opening round.

Marcos Degli is on a roll in the regional circuit, winning eight straight in a span of 19 months, stopping all but one of his opponents. The 23-year-old flyweight last fought in November, improving to 10-3 as a professional — and 2-0 under the LFA banner — with a decision over Alisson Murilo.

Jefferson Nascimento was victorious in six MMA bouts in the past couple of years, culminating in his second-round knockout victory over previously undefeated Gabriel Costa to capture the vacant LFA interim lightweight title. A teammate of UFC’s Carlston Harris at Renovação Fight Team, “Toddynho” holds a record of 11-0 with seven finishes.

Alexia Thainara, 26, bounced between promotions in Brazil for just over two years, winning eight straight with six finishes. A teammate of UFC contender Amanda Ribas and a veteran of the Jungle Fight cage, “Burguesinha” choked out Thaiane Souza to claim the SFT strawweight belt this past December, improving to 10-1 in MMA.

Tiago Pereira climbed the 135-pound rankings and won the Jungle Fight bantamweight title with a knockout in 2023, then landed a vicious kick to the body to defend it five months later. A 26-year-old Atos representative, Pereira has four finishes to his credit.

Felipe Lima started his career competing for regional promotions in the Amazonas area in Brazil before moving to Sweden to train at Allstars Training Center, capping off a perfect 5-0 run in the European circuit with a unanimous decision victory to dethrone Oktagon welterweight champion Jonas Magard in July. The 25-year-old prospect has now won 12 in a row since losing his MMA debut in 2015.

Michael Oliveira, a paratrooper for the Brazilian army, has won six in a row since making his professional MMA debut in February 2022, and is closing in on fighting for the LFA welterweight title after four first-round knockouts in 2023. The KO Squad talent will turn 26 years old later this month.

Rose Conceição clinched the LFA interim strawweight championship after a five-round war with Elaine Lopes, and was promoted to undisputed queen after Julia Polastri signed with the UFC. The 26-year-old is 7-0 in the sport and has won six in a row since June 2021, when she returned from a five-year hiatus.

Elora Dana claimed the Jungle Fight flyweight gold with a nasty armbar finish before choking out Invicta FC signee Faelly Vitoria with a rear-naked choke, her fourth stoppage victory in six MMA wins. The unbeaten talent had to step away for a while for a right knee surgery, but is now expected to face Brena Cardozo for the undisputed belt in April.

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Dumbfounded
| BJPenn.com

The former PRIDE and UFC champion was tweeting from the 28th floor of a skyscraper as it swayed during a major earthquake event.

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is a legend of Japanese MMA and spent his New Year’s Eve in Tokyo to catch RIZIN 45, the big end-of-year celebration fight card.

He also stuck around to experience the big 7.5 magnitude earthquake that shook the country on New Year’s day. The initial quake struck around 4PM local time followed by over a hundred smaller quakes that have continued into Tuesday. At least 45 people have died, but fortunately there has been no follow-up tsunami to wreak further havoc.

“It’s a big earthquake in Japanese rn and I’m on the 28th floor,” Jackson wrote on X (formerly Twitter) at 4:15 local time. “The building has been moving for 2 minutes now and still shaking. Yo boy scared af NGL happy new year.”

The epicenter of the earthquake was near the Noto Peninsula on the central northern point of Honshu island, with Tokyo eight hours away to the south east.

It sounds like an eventful vacation for Jackson, whose RIZIN 45 experience wasn’t quite what he expected.

“Got some tickets to RIZIN last minute and they’re in the nosebleeds,” he complained. “I need to learn how to read Japanese … My seats so bad these dudes in from of me watch with binoculars. The disrespect!”

In 2019, Jackson headlined a NYE card in Japan, losing to Fedor Emelianenko via 1st round TKO. Now he’s up in the nosebleeds. On the plus side, he wasn’t just turned away from the arena like a certain former UFC champion.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Paddy Pimblett will have to face a Top-15 opponent sooner rather than later if he keeps winning.

The rising lightweight prospect had his momentum slowed by injury for nearly the entirety of 2023. Liverpool’s “Baddy” managed to return just before the calendar flipped to 2024, however, and in doing so, was tasked with the biggest fight of his budding career against Tony Ferguson at UFC 296 last month.

Pimblett, 28, entered the bout with four straight wins inside the octagon and a six-fight stretch of success in total (21-3). Ferguson, on the other hand, was hopeful to snap his losing streak of six, but instead, now finds himself tied with BJ Penn for most consecutive UFC losses at seven. Ferguson’s loss came via unanimous decision, but he was nearly finished by strikes in the opening frame. The fact that Pimblett took “El Cucuy” the distance doesn’t bode well for his immediate future, believes former UFC lightweight contender-turned-commentator Paul Felder.

“Can Paddy beat anyone in the top 15? I will start with this: Of course he can. We know that it’s MMA — anything can happen,” Felder said on Round Up w/ Paul Felder & Michael Chiesa. “But if we were going to sit here and make bets, and if I had to predict, no, I really don’t think so. He struggled to get a Tony out of there who looked the worst he’s ever looked in his career.

“He was able to hurt Tony a little bit, but he really should have been able to put him away. Not taking anything away from him — he knew he was going to be in for a hard one, even if he won this fight. He said it in the media days leading up that we were going to criticize him even if he wins, if he didn’t go out there and maybe get him out of there. So here we are criticizing him.”

Pimbett essentially predicted the treatment of the matchup to a tee when he called it a “lose-lose situation” because of Ferguson’s current status. Several fights before the Pimblett clash, speculation built around whether or not Ferguson should retire and those debates continue. UFC CEO Dana White stated after the event that he’d like to see Ferguson call it a career, but the one-time interim lightweight champion has since alluded to fighting again.

For Felder, the 39-year-old veteran teased a comeback during the tail end of 2023 but hasn’t made any commitment to stepping back in the octagon. Felder vs. Pimblett at UFC 300, anyone?

TOP STORIES

Answers. Monday Mailbag: Predicting new champions, UFC 300, and the future for Jon Jones

Warfare. Chuck Liddell hates personal trash talk like Colby Covington’s comments: ‘It crosses lines’

Intentions. Joe Pyfer plans to catch Jack Hermansson ‘inside of his recklessness’ in first UFC main event

$ $ $ . Derek Brunson praises PFL for ‘biggest payday ever’ in debut fight: ‘A lot more than the UFC’

Predictions. Who will be our 11 UFC champions by the end of 2024?

Last. Belal Muhammad trashes ‘pathetic’ Colby Covington, says ‘game’s over’ on more title shots

Emotions. Rampage Jackson reveals what led to the only time he cried during his career: ‘I’m almost ashamed to say it’

VIDEO STEW

2023 in review.

Free fight.

PVZ’s Invicta debut.

Ngannou’s year in review.

LISTEN UP

On To the Next One. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alex K. Lee provide a 2023 predictions recap.

MORNING MUSIC

SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Strength.

Art.

Oh no.

Elevate.

Strong close to the year.

Walk on.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This to me is the perfect setup for Felder vs. Pimblett at UFC 300.

Thanks for reading!

EXIT POLL

If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @DrakeRiggs_ on Twitter and let him know about it. Also, follow MMAFighting on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

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Former two-time undisputed welterweight champion and symbolic BMF champion, Jorge Masvidal has sent fans into raptures across social media tonight, appearing to call time on his retirement from mixed martial arts competition – claiming tonight he was “unretired” on his social media.

Masvidal, a former two-time welterweight title challenger under the banner of the UFC, has been sidelined from mixed martial arts since he suffered a one-sided unanimous decision loss to former title challenger, Gilbert Burns back in April, suffering a judging loss on the main card of UFC 287 – which came as his fourth consecutive loss.

The defeat came as the Floridian’s fourth consecutively, following a pair of decision and knockout losses to former champion and pound-for-pound number one, Kamaru Usman in the pair’s two-fight rivalry.

In March of 2022, Masvidal suffered a one-sided unanimous decision loss to arch-rival and former three-time title challenger, Colby Covington – in a long-anticipated grudge fight between the duo.

Jorge Masvidal claims he is now “unretired” on his official social media

And since focusing on his bare knuckle fighting promotion, Gamebred FC, Masvidal has sent fans into raptures tonight, with the American Top Team staple posted “unretired” on his official X account. 

Without a victory since November 2019, Masvidal’s most recent win came in the form of an inaugural BMF championship win over promotional alum, Nate Diaz at Madison Square Garden, landing a third round doctor’s stoppage TKO win.

Earlier this year, Masvidal, 39, played up the possibility of rematching Ben Askren at UFC 300 in April of next year, after a record-setting 5-second flying-knee KO win over the veteran wrestling ace in 2019 to boot.

Who would you like to see Jorge Masvidal fight in a potential UFC comeback? 

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts