CombatSports.org

Fighter picks
| BJPenn.com

The leader of the Diaz army is back (hopefully).

Multiple sources confirmed to MMAmania.com today (Weds., Sept. 25, 2024), that Nick Diaz vs. Vicente Luque has been rescheduled for the final Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) pay-per-view (PPV) event of 2024, UFC 310, which goes down inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The pair of veteran welterweights were originally scheduled to throw down last month at UFC Abu Dhabi; however, Diaz pulled out of the fight due to travel issues, which made sense because Diaz and the Middle East would have probably never happened.

Diaz, 41, was last in action against Robbie Lawler at UFC 266, where he was stopped via TKO. The older brother of Nate Diaz has not won a fight since UFC 137 in 2011, where he beat down B.J. Penn. Diaz was also put on the shelf for years because of a dumb marijuana suspension.

Luque, 32, has not competed since Joaquin Buckley bludgeoned him in the co-main event of UFC Atlantic City (watch highlights). “The Silent Assassin” has lost three of his last five fights, two via finish.

UFC 310 does not currently have a main event and there are only two other announced matchups: Anthony Smith vs. Dominick Reyes and Virna Janiroba vs. Tatiana Suarez.

To checkout UFC’s upcoming schedule of events click here.

MMAmania.com – All Posts

submitted by /u/EmmatheFisher [link] [comments]

MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Aljamain Sterling started his MMA journey with Jon Jones, and was blown away — for multiple reasons — with the success of the now-UFC heavyweight champion.

Sterling and Jones went to college together early on before the former bantamweight champ transferred to a different school. After going through old school social media, “Funkmaster” saw Jones training in mixed martial arts and wondered how he could be a part of it. Sterling not only trained with Jones, but he also said that he would go out on the town with him, and was stunned to see Jones partying close to his fights in the octagon — and still winning convincingly.

“Suspect No. 1, and I got to see this first hand, was Jon Jones,” Sterling told Demetrious Johnson. “When we were in college together, and he was in the UFC, and I was still at school at Courtland… some way, some how, I messaged him on MySpace, and he’s training right down the f*cking block from my college. I hit him up like, ‘Yo, I see you doing the grappling stuff and the fighting, and I always thought it was cool. I think I could be good at this. Can I check it out? How do I check it out?’ He was like, ‘I’m training here,’ I was like, ‘Bro, I go to school right here.’ He was like, ‘Come down,’ so I came down and he was like… ‘Man, you’re not going to show up.’ I was like, alright, bet. I showed up the next day, and I haven’t stopped training since then.

“But I would see this man, a week before his fight, him at the bar… going nuts. In my head, I was like, no sex, no drinking, no smoking, and I just thought the way of [Mike] Tyson and [Muhammad] Ali and those guys. That’s what they said, don’t do it if you want to be a champion. I’m like, OK. And then I would see him and was like, I don’t get it — and then that weekend he would just murder a guy on International TV. I was like, ‘He’s doing something right.’”

Sterling recently moved up to featherweight after dropping the 135-pound title to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 in August 2023. In his first appearance in a new weight class, Sterling dominated Calvin Kattar for a unanimous decision at UFC 300 in April. He was slated to face Movsar Evloev at UFC 307 next weekend, but an injury forced Sterling to withdraw.

After seeing Jones’ success, plus learning his body and himself over the many years of fighting at a high level, Sterling has found a system to enjoy training camp a little bit more than the absolute grind it can be at the gym on the road to a UFC fight.

“I went from cold turkey, to like six weeks — nothing changed in my fights,” Sterling said. “[Then it was] four weeks, and then I got to two weeks and it was like, ‘It’s all mental, baby.’ Just put the damn work in, and you’re good.”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

UFC

submitted by /u/EmmatheFisher [link] [comments]

MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Former ONE two-division champion Reinier de Ridder didn’t wait long to book his octagon debut as he clashes with Gerald Meerschaert in a battle of submission specialists at the UFC Fight Night card scheduled on Nov. 9 with the event taking place at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas.

Multiple people with knowledge of the promotion’s plans confirmed the news to MMA Fighting on Wednesday following an initial report from Eurosport.

The fight booking comes following news that de Ridder signed with the UFC after spending the past five years competing in ONE Championships. During his time with the Singapore based promotion, de Ridder claimed both the light heavyweight and middleweight titles before actually losing both belts to current ONE three-division champion Anatoly Malykhin.

Following the conclusion of his contract with ONE, de Ridder picked up a quick TKO win in UAE Warriors before signing with the UFC.

With 11 of his 17 wins coming by submission, de Ridder is best known for his ground game and he’ll test that against Meerschaert, who holds the record for the most submission wins in UFC history with 11.

Meerschaert comes into the fight off two straight wins — both by submission — including his latest victory against Edmen Shahbazyan back in August, which earned him a Performance of the Night bonus.

The fight between de Ridder and Meerschaert joins a growing lineup on Nov. 9 with a main event still to be determined.

Mike Heck contributed to this report.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

submitted by /u/EmmatheFisher [link] [comments]

MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Daniel Dubois vs. Anthony Joshua was one of the hottest events of the year, and a ticket request led to a heated confrontation between Eddie Hearn and Devin Haney.

The Matchroom Boxing promoter was already upset with Haney after the boxing champion went public with a request for tickets this past Saturday, blasting Hearn for allegedly not hooking him up on fight day. Hearn responded accordingly, telling Haney to “ask someone else and drop the arrogance.”

Cooler heads did not prevail when Haney eventually made it into London’s Wembley Stadium as he and Hearn were caught on camera arguing in the arena. Hearn told Boxing News that the conversation was not friendly as he felt that Haney’s behavior needed to be addressed.

“It was heated,” Hearn said. “I just couldn’t believe—bear in mind the relationship that I’ve got with Devin, bear in mind everything that we’ve been through—I could not believe he would put that out on social media. Because he was moaning and this is what he was trying to say to me, I said, ‘No, no.’

“I received a message from him at 6 a.m. on the day of the fight saying, ‘I need tickets for Joshua.’ He messaged me about 24 hours before saying, ‘Yo.’ And I had so much going on, I didn’t reply. Then when I replied Friday night, he messaged me back Saturday at 6:00 in the morning, 7:00 in the morning, ‘I need tickets for tonight.’”

Hearn claims he made it clear that the majority of the ringside tickets were handled by Saudi Arabian boxing promoter Turki Alalshikh, whose Riyadh Season helped bankroll the Dubois-Joshua fight, and that several seats were occupied by associates of the fighters competing on Saturday night.

When Hearn told Haney he may have to ask Riyadh Season representatives for a ticket instead, he didn’t receive a reply. Not in private, anyway.

“So then I’m sitting there at the show and it’s like, ‘Wow, Eddie Hearn didn’t get me tickets. He’s so two-faced.’ So I just replied, ‘You’re an arrogant f*cking prick, to be honest with you.’ And I pulled him at the show and I said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ He said, ‘Hey, hey.’

“I said, ‘What are you doing? 1) You couldn’t be more arrogant. 2) Why are you just not messaging me after I’ve messaged you to say, ‘Come on, Eddie, you sure you can’t help?’ Like, whatever, you put a tweet out? I said, ‘You’re like a little kid. You used to be a good kid, you did. Now, I don’t like this arrogance that I’m seeing from you. Don’t ever do that again.’ Then he’s like, ‘You said something about me in the media.’ I said, ‘No, I’m just answering questions. I don’t represent you. So if I get asked about Devin Haney, I’m going to tell you what I think about the situation. I’ve never said anything disrespectful, but you have.’

“I said, ‘Don’t ever disrespect me again.’”

Hearn and Haney have recent history, with Hearn serving as Haney’s promoter for his fight with Ryan Garcia this past April. Garcia defeated Haney by majority decision in a bout that was shrouded in controversy.

Prior to fight day, Garcia missed weight by three pounds, making him ineligible to win Haney’s WBC super lightweight title; on June 20, Garcia later tested positive for ostarine and the bout was overturned to a no-contest, restoring Haney’s undefeated record (Garcia was also fined $ 1.1 million and received a one-year suspension from competition).

Following the news of Garcia’s positive drug test, Hearn heavily criticized Garcia for his behavior while standing by Haney.

It’s unclear what kind of relationship Hearn and Haney will have egoing forward, but Hearn mentioned that an upcoming documentary on the Wembley Stadium show will be released sometime in the first half of 2025, and that he expects their confrontation to be featured for all to see.

“Anyway, you’ll be able to watch it all on Netflix very soon,” Hearn said.

Watch video of Hearn and Haney’s confrontation below.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

The bad guy
| BJPenn.com