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Glover Teixeira turns 45 at the end of the month.

That won’t stop the former UFC light heavyweight champion from making his return to competition, despite his retirement in the wake of UFC 283. When and where remains to be seen, but it sounds like the Brazilian bruiser is willing to entertain any and all options.

Even a return to UFC.

“There’s nothing [booked], but I’ll definitely go back to competition,” Teixeira said in an interview with MMA Fighting. “I keep going after challenges. It’s hard to stay [training] with no reason why, so I’ll definitely do something. I want to compete. I’ll do some jiu-jitsu, I wanna do … I don’t know, maybe boxing. Or even go back for some fights in the UFC.”

Blame his top student and current UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.

“I’m feeling great, fighting hard with the guys in the gym,” Teixeira continued. “I’ve rolled with some wrestlers, training with Sean Strickland and ‘Poatan.’ I was doing some light sparring with ‘Poatan’ the other day, and he’s like, ‘F*ck, Glover, you have to come back!’ I’m training well, I’m feeling well. I love this. I’m not saying I want to fight, but I want to compete. If it’s jiu-jitsu, Lovato, guys like that. I wanna do some matches, that’s for sure.”

This ongoing series would make a great landing spot.

Teixeira (33-9) hung up the gloves after suffering back-to-back losses to Jiri Prochazka and Jamahal Hill, the latter of which was a particularly bloody beatdown. The best case scenario has Teixeira returning to the brain-friendly jiu-jitsu mats, where he’s defeated the likes of Dean Lister and Renato Ferreira, among others.

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Conor McGregor has some marquee matchups in mind for his return.

Earlier this year, McGregor was supposed to make his long-awaited return to the octagon in a welterweight fight against Michael Chandler at UFC 303. Unfortunately, a few weeks before the event, McGregor suffered a toe injury which forced him to withdraw from the fight and fans were once again left wondering when and if the boisterous superstar would ever return.

Fortunately for fans, McGregor remains undeterred. Since withdrawing from UFC 303, the former two-division UFC champion has maintained that he will be back soon, on Tuesday McGregor spoke with The Schmo about how things are progressing on that front.

“We’re looking for the date,” McGregor said. “Hopefully, I’d like to square it away with Michael Chandler. I’d like to get Chandler in. We’ve had our beef, it’s not settled. He has a match scheduled. I’d like to fight, maybe before that or before he’s recovered so there’s a few names in the line at the minute. There’s a few names being discussed.”

Chandler does in fact have a booking. After spending nearly two years on the shelf waiting for a fight with McGregor, following the UFC 303 incident, Chandler finally opted to accept another fight, a rematch with Charles Oliveira at UFC 309.

Given that, and the fact that UFC CEO Dana White appears to be targeting an early 2025 return for McGregor, Chandler’s availability is very much up in the air at the moment. Fortunately for McGregor, there are no shortage of big names who would be more than willing to welcome him back to the cage, but “Notorious” has his sights set on two in particular: old foes Dustin Poirier and Nate Diaz.

“Both of them. Both,” McGregor said. “It’s a must, for sure. The Dustin one is not settled, it’s 1-1-1. And the Diaz one is also 1-1. Two big blockbuster matches and I’m excited to get them locked in.”

Poirier and McGregor have shared a trilogy of bouts over a seven year period. McGregor first defeated Poirier by knockout at UFC 178 down at featherweight, but Poirier avenged his loss with a knockout of his own at UFC 257 up at 155 pounds. Poirier then won their third bout at UFC 264 when McGregor shattered his leg, though “Notorious” disputes this result because of the injury.

Diaz is possibly McGregor’s biggest rival, the man who first defeated the Irish superstar in the UFC, stepping in on 10 days’ notice to score the upset at UFC 196. The two rematched five months later at UFC 202 with McGregor winning a majority decision in one of the best fights of the year. Diaz left the UFC in 2022 to pursue interests in boxing, though he’s recently been rumored to possibly be coming back to the promotion.

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Alex Pereira did it again, as he knocked out a game Khalil Rountree in the main event of UFC 307 to retain the UFC light heavyweight title. “Poatan” now has options galore, so is sticking around at 205 the way to go, or should he move up to heavyweight to entice Jon Jones or Stipe Miocic to stick around?

On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses the fallout of this past Saturday’s pay-per-view event, comparing Pereria’s run to any other we’ve seen in the UFC, Julianna Pena regaining the women’s bantamweight title, whether or not Raquel Pennington was robbed, and other storylines from the card. Additionally, topics include this Saturday’s UFC Vegas 98 event headlined by Brandon Royval vs. Tatsuro Taira, PFL’s pay-per-view price, Donn Davis continuing to frustrate the MMA community with his comments, and much more.

Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and UFC analyst Din Thomas.

Watch the show live at 12:30 p.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. PT in the video above.

If you missed the show live, you can still watch above, or listen to the podcast version, which can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods.

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Jake Paul has lived in the public since he was a teenager but with all that fame also came a lot of hate and it led him to a very dark period in his life.

Following stints acting on the Disney channel and building an online brand through social media, Paul actually found himself as public enemy No. 2 after his brother Logan Paul invited a storm of controversy when he posted a video to his YouTube channel of a suicide victim while visiting Japan’s “suicide forest” back in 2018.

The decision to film and post the video was Logan’s choice but Jake was unable to avoid the fallout.

“I got lumped into all my brother’s hate,” Paul told The Hollywood Reporter. “It was like, ‘F*ck the Pauls. F*ck both of those people.’ It was bad. The suicide forest thing basically ruined my career and income. I lost probably $ 30 million in deals.

“There was one $ 15 million deal for retail products that fell apart. They were able to get out of it because of a morality clause.”

The downward spiral from that incident left Paul in a very poor mental head space and he began partying in Los Angeles as a way to cope with his struggles.

“Basically, life hit me in the face, and it was like, ‘Who are you? What have you been doing the past couple of years?’” Paul recounted. “It led to drinking and drugs and Los Angeles and going to parties and just that whole entire world. I got sucked up into it really quickly.

“And so there I am: No money, kind of hating myself, the whole world hates me. I’m drinking. I’m depressed and not having a good relationship with either of my parents or Logan. And I was just like, ‘F*ck this shit.’ I just felt wrong in life and by all the cards I had been dealt. It was f*cked up. I just tried to do good my whole life and here I am with what felt like nothing.”

After initially finding notoriety from viral videos posted online, Paul decided take that fame and use it for an elaborate stunt that would actually conclude in his own death.

“I had a plan,” Paul revealed. “I mean, it’s f*cking crazy. I was going to put a bunch of gas cans in my Lamborghini and get really drunk and drive off the top of this cliff in Calabasas. It’s called Stunt Road.”

In the end, Paul obviously didn’t follow through with those plans but it was from that terrifying time in his life that he actually decided to become a professional fighter.

“I was not going to let them win,” Paul said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to fight. This is what every social media hater wants is to wake up and see Jake Paul killed himself.’”

It was boxing that finally gave Paul the structure and discipline he needed to course correct from all the bad decisions he was making.

He credits the sport for saving his life.

“It’s purpose, routine, health, community — all the things I needed,” Paul said. “Since 2020, it’s been boxing’s No. 1 and everything else comes after that. I never really liked YouTube. I was just good at it.”

Paul has parlayed his passion for boxing into a very successful career where he’s put together a 10-1 professional record with a massive fight booked against heavyweight legend Mike Tyson on Nov. 15 with an event that airs live on Netflix.

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Uncalled for
| BJPenn.com

Holloway was prepared for all of Topuria’s attacks during a new ESPN interview leading into their Abu Dhabi featherweight title fight.

Ilia Topuria has been making a lot of claims about Max Holloway in the lead-up to their UFC 308 fight in Abu Dhabi. Those comments may have earned him headlines when made to the press, but they didn’t work so well when said directly to Holloway’s face.

Topuria and Holloway were recently featured on an ESPN ‘Face to Face’ where a bored Holloway reacted scathingly to “El Matador’s” greatest verbal hits.

“You were forced to fight me, you didn’t want to fight me,” Topuria claimed once again. “You asked to fight with Conor McChicken. You asked to fight with too many fighters because you were trying to avoid me.”

“Who told you this?” Holloway asked. “Exactly. Shut up, you’re lying! This guy’s a liar. I asked for you … You were the first guy I asked for. I want Ilia, I want the easiest fight. That’s Ilia Topuria. That’s what I said.”

“I already opened a home for old people,” Topuria said. “Volk already has his room. I have another one for you. So I’m gonna put you right there after October 26th. All for free, don’t worry. No expenses … Bring your pillow.”

“Oh my gosh,” Holloway replied. “Come up with something new. Say something new. You’ve been saying this the whole time you’ve been talking.”

In the end, none of this banter generates points on the judges’ scorecards. Ilia Topuria talked a big game leading into his fight with Alexander Volkanovski as well, with many wondering if he was going to look foolish after the bout. Instead he crushed Volk and took home the belt.

His trash talk looked pretty different after he walked the walk. Will things be similar after UFC 308 on October 26th?

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