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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Colby Covington’s last submission win in the UFC came with a rear-naked choke against Jonathan Meunier back in 2016 but he dusted off that move for a new video he made with rapper Lil Pump.

For some reason, a great number of athletes and influencers who are not trained mixed martial artists love to feel what it’s like to get choked out by a professional fighter. So Covington obviously granted Lil Pump’s wish when he applied a submission to put the 24-year-old rapper to sleep.

In the video, the three-time UFC title challenger applies the choke and initially uses a Gable grip to lock up the submission but Lil Pump ends up tapping his own chest rather than Covington’s arm to signify he’s done.

So Covington then switches to the more traditional rear-naked choke with his arms wrapped around Lil Pump’s head and neck to secure the submission. A moment later, the rapper falls unconscious from the choke and Covington finally releases the hold when he’s told Lil Pump is out.

“Look at his eyes,” Covington said in the video. “He’s out.”

Lil Pump is soon revived with a look of confusion on his face that eventually gives way to a smile when he realizes what happened. He also posted the video on his social media with a comment about getting choked out by Covington.

“Don’t miss my next kick stream It’s getting crazier by the day,” the rapper wrote on his Instagram account. “Don’t try this at home. I got put to sleep.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Damir Ismagulov might not be far off from a UFC return.

The veteran lightweight closed the show in style on Saturday at Alash Pride 100 in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, delivering a spinning kick knockout that left opponent Oberdan Tenorio frighteningly still on the canvas.

Watch the highlight-reel KO below.

Tenorio appeared to bite hard on a fake before Ismagulov spun his hips and unleashed the powerful KO strike.

This was Ismagulov’s second win since parting ways with the UFC in 2023. Ismagulov (26-3) ended his UFC run with back-to-back losses to Grant Dawson and Arman Tsarukyan, which dropped his record with the promotion to 5-2.

He began his UFC career with five consecutive victories, including decision nods over Guram Kutateladze, Thiago Moises, and Joel Alvarez. The 33-year-old scored the 13th knockout win of his career and his first since June 2018.

Tenorio (36-16-1) suffered his third loss in his past four fights. The Brazilian veteran stepped in on short notice for former UFC fighter Adriano Martins, who withdrew for undisclosed reasons.

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“Weak”
| BJPenn.com

The biggest heavyweight superfight out there can still possibly happen, as Saudi money man Turki Alalshikh has said he intends to make it happen despite Saturday’s result.

Is Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury a dead fight after “AJ” was knocked out by Daniel Dubois in the 5th round of their championship fight this weekend? Not according to Fury’s manager Spencer Brown, who said there’s still big desire from Saudi boxing power broker Turki Alalshikh to make the fight happen.

“Maybe we see Tyson against Anthony Joshua,” Brown told FightHubTV’s Marcos Villegas. “They’ve always said they’re going to fight each other and His Excellency also said that win, lose, or draw he wants them to fight each other.”

The heavyweight division is certainly getting more cluttered as Fury and Joshua struggle with opponents like Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois. A fight between the two would still be huge, but not as huge as if they’d faced each other years ago when they were both undefeated. And now Joshua’s loss is pulling Fury towards a Dubois fight instead.

“When I fight Usyk in December, I’ll take all the belts that I never should have lost,” he told FightHubTV. “And then I’ll fight Dubois and take that [belt] off him as well. That’s my plan.”

It could be that those wanting to see Fury vs. Joshua now have to hope that Fury loses to Usyk in December. For his part, “The Gypsy King” didn’t kick “AJ” while he was down.

“It’s heavyweight boxing, boys,” he said of Joshua’s loss. “It happens. S— happens. You get knocked spark out. It could have been me, it could have been you, it could have been anybody. In the heavyweight division, it’s what happens. One punch away from being smashed, knocked out. What went wrong is what always goes wrong in heavyweight boxing: a good right hand to the chin, and that was it.”

Following the defeat, there was a lot of talk that Joshua should retire. But the 34-year-old pushed back on that during the post-fight press conference.

“You’re probably asking, do I still want to continue fighting?” he said. “Of course I want to continue fighting. We took a shot at success and we came up short. What does that mean now, are we going to run away? We’re going to live to fight another day. That’s what I am: a warrior.”

“We rolled the dice for the third time. That’s thirteen world title fights, and not every one has been successful, but every one has been fine and entertaining. We’re trying to create history for British boxing, and I think we’re doing that.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

There’s a long list of great color commentators who have called boxing matches and MMA fights but Dana White believes there’s one person who stands heads and shoulders above the crowd.

Ever since he first debuted with the UFC as a backstage interviewer all the way back in 1997, Joe Rogan has been a mainstay with the promotion. These days he’s the lead color commentator for most of the major pay-per-view broadcasts and the UFC CEO offered him high praise when addressing Rogan’s contributions to combat sports.

“I consider him the greatest to ever do it,” White told the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast. “F*ck all these guys that have ever done any type of commentating on combat sports before this. Rogan is by far [the best].”

While there’s obviously subjectivity when calling anybody the greatest of all-time, White explained one of the many reasons why he believes Rogan has cemented himself at the top — at least where MMA is involved.

When Rogan first started calling fights for the UFC after Zuffa purchased the organization back in 2001, MMA was barely a blip on the overall sports radar. Fans tuning into watch a UFC broadcast didn’t really understand all the nuances of the sport but especially when it came to the ground game that blended wrestling, striking and grappling.

White credits Rogan with finding a way to explain those positions to a general audience that didn’t know the first thing about what was actually happening when a fight landed on the ground.

“To go in and call fights is not easy to do. It’s very hard to do,” White said. “Rogan came and right off the bat started doing it. What was brilliant about Joe and why he was so instrumental in helping us build this sport, nobody was ever going to f*cking understand the ground game.

“Rogan would walk you through in detail while it was happening, he would be one step ahead of the fighter actually as it was taking place, walking you through … and Rogan would f*cking lay it out. We couldn’t have hired anybody else that would have done it.”

White also considers Rogan a true fan of the sport, which comes across during the broadcasts and that makes a real difference with both the audience and the fighters competing in the octagon.

“Every time you would see him on camera and he would be talking about the fights that night, you knew — you felt it in your f*cking soul this guy was not a paid talking head,” White said. “This motherf*cker loves this shit. It came through at every event that we did.”

There have been times in the past where Rogan has openly contemplated stepping away from the UFC, especially when rigorous travel got to be too much for him.

As a result, Rogan now only calls domestic pay-per-view events but he doesn’t travel outside the United States and he only works those major cards that take place 12 to 13 times per year.

Judging by White’s comments, he’s going to do everything possible to ensure that Rogan continues calling fights as long as he’s involved with the UFC.

“It was meant to be,” White said about working with Rogan. “This relationship with me and Rogan and all the other things that have come together in my life and his life and other people’s lives, it’s f*cking crazy when you think about it.

“Rogan is the best to ever do it. The best to ever do it.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

It seems almost like a lifetime ago when Jorge Masvidal got involved in a backstage fight with Leon Edwards that resulted a catchphrase that just became part of the MMA vernacular afterwards.

“I gave him the three-piece with the soda”

That was Masvidal’s way of telling the story about popping Edwards with a couple of punches after the fighters came face-to-face following a UFC event in London back in 2019. Given the bad blood between them, it seemed like Masvidal and Edwards would eventually settle their grievances in the octagon but somehow the UFC never pulled the trigger on the matchup.

Despite that incident happening over five years ago, Masvidal and Edwards still get asked about it to this day because the rivalry between them born that day never got settled.

For his part, Masvidal claims he accepted a fight against Edwards, but the future UFC champion declined so the matchup never came together.

“I know he wouldn’t fight me,” Masvidal told MMA Fighting. “He got offered and turned it down. He don’t want this.”

“I tried [to fight him]. Leon Edwards don’t want this. He had other options, he went for other things except fight me, basically. I’ll tell you that much.”

Could that potentially change now that Masvidal is planning a comeback to the UFC and Edwards needs an opponent after losing the welterweight title to Belal Muhammad in July?

Masvidal isn’t opposed to the idea because he knows there’s still some unfinished business there and the disdain shared between them didn’t just disappear.

While nothing has been decided yet about his comeback fight, Masvidal welcomed the chance to face Edwards, and he’s throwing down the gauntlet to meet sooner rather than later.

“I’ll tell you right now, Leon, I will whoop your f*cking ass,” Masvidal said. “Let’s f*cking go. I don’t know maybe Dec. 7 in Vegas, maybe next year at the Super Bowl. I don’t know but I’ll beat the f*ck out of your little skinny ass.”

Of course, Edwards hasn’t fought since falling to Muhammad in July, although he’s hinted at a potential return before the end of the year.

While he didn’t have any skin in the game during that welterweight title fight, Masvidal confessed that he was incredibly impressed by Muhammad, who effectively shut down Edwards for the majority of the five-round fight.

Muhammad has now gone undefeated in 11 consecutive fights and Masvidal had nothing but praise for the new UFC welterweight champion.

“For starters, Belal has [improved] so much since I first saw him,” Masvidal said. “I saw him fight live before in the UFC and it’s like he’s not the best athlete, he doesn’t have the craziest skill set. But slowly but surely, this guy just got better and better and better. There’s a lot of times where I was like he’s not beating that guy. Wrong! He beat the f*ck out of that guy. He did that multiple times.

“Now to see him as the champion, I think he’s one of the guys that’s improved drastically the most. Truly amazing. Great journey.”

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