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Paul says the UFC is slow-playing McGregor’s contract in order to improve their position during upcoming media rights negotiations.

Jake Paul is shining a light on what he thinks has kept Conor McGregor out of the cage for so long despite the UFC superstar being healthy and ready to go since mid-2023.

We’re still waiting for UFC to announce a new date for Conor McGregor’s return fight. Currently, it’s been penciled in for UFC 310 on December 7th. But the promotion continues to be extremely shifty about locking McGregor in. UFC CEO Dana White regularly shoots down Mac return dates and even suggests Conor may never fight again.

So what’s going on? Why would the UFC continue to delay the return of their biggest superstar? In a new episode of Jake Paul’s BS podcast with special guest Francis Ngannou, “The Problem Child” shared his theory on the situation.

“For the people at home who don’t understand it, they’re like, ‘Why is Conor not fighting?’” Paul said. “So Conor has two fights left on his fight deal, but the UFC is trying to renew their [broadcast] rights deal because they license their content, which are the fights, to platforms. So they’re trying to renew their deal — they’re negotiating to let multiple people, but let’s say they’re gonna go with ESPN. They’re trying to renew the deal and get the most amount of money.”

“A part of that negotiation is, ‘Hey, we have Conor McGregor for two more fights.’ But if you were to fight now, that wouldn’t be a part of the negotiation. The company would be like, ‘Oh, well, you only have Conor for one fight.’ So that’s why Conor is not fighting right now.”

The UFC is set to start negotiating new broadcast deals at the start of 2025 in anticipation of their ESPN deal ending later in the year. Those deals will be worth billions with or without McGregor, but we don’t doubt he could sway the value of a package by hundreds of millions of dollars.

But this could be a much simpler story we’ve seen many times before. In general, the UFC likes re-signing fighters before their contracts expire. And if you’re a big star like Francis Ngannou that has turned down a new contract, they’ll slow-play the remaining fights on your contract as much as possible.

“I feel like they were applying this financial pressure on me [by not booking me] because they know that I need to fight to make money to live,” Ngannou told Paul. “And then by not getting those fights, giving me excuses all the time, I will probably crawl back and say, ‘Okay, I take the contract and I take the money,’ or something like that.”

“I fought once for 20 seconds in the last 16 months,” Ngannou wrote on X (formerly Twitter) back in October 2020. Things wouldn’t get much better. He’d fight just once in 2021, and once in 2022.

Are there similar cut-throat business practices at play with Conor McGregor? “The Notorious” has definitely vented his frustration at return delays multiple times, and the promotion definitely could have gotten him back in the cage earlier if they really wanted to. Back during the pandemic lockdowns they admitted to shelving him because they’d lose too much money without a gate. So financial concerns have already resulted in us getting less Mac fights.

We’ll have to wait and see if his expected December return booking materializes. If it doesn’t, it certainly adds to the evidence that some behind-the-scenes business chicanery is at play.

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The ‘UFC 306 Countdown’ video features the two title fights at the top of the anticipated fight card next Saturday night at the Sphere in Las Vegas, Nev.

In the main event, UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley puts his belt on the line against Merab Dvavlishvili. UFC flyweight champion Alexa Grasso meets Valentina Shevchenko in the co-main event.

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Demetrious Johnson has long cemented his place in the minds of MMA fans as one of the greatest of all time and the greatest flyweight the sport has ever seen. Many in the MMA community are celebrating and reflecting on Johnson’s performances and accomplishments in the sport after he announced his retirement at ONE Championship’s […]

Continue Reading Dana White Reacts To Demetrious Johnson’s MMA Retirement: ‘I Was Defending Him From The Fans! at MMA News.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Radley Da Silva closed the show at the latest Battlefield Fight League event in memorable fashion.

The Canadian featherweight put his title on the line in the main event of Friday’s BFL 81 event in Vancouver. Da Silva faced undefeated fighter Drake Randall, and in the second round, Da Silva delivered one of the most brutal spinning heel kick knockouts that you will ever see, leaving Randall out like a light on the mat.

Check out the crazy finish in the video below.

Da Silva has now won six fights in a row. “Snake Eyes” has picked up five victories in the Battlefield Fight League cage, and is becoming a standout up and comer at 145 pounds in Canada. Friday night’s performance also served as Da Silva’s third win of 2024.

Randall entered the fight 6-0, with six first-round finishes. He now goes back to the drawing board after losing the first fight of his career.

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The BKFC 65 main event didn’t live up to expectations after Christine Ferea successfully defended her flyweight title in a lackluster outing against Jade Masson-Wong.

The main event ended in a split decision with Ferea retaining her belt but the crowd in Salt Lake City let the fighters hear it after the five-round battle failed to produce much action. Following the event, BKFC president David Feldman erupted when he addressed the main event and how both fighters failed to deliver during the five-round headliner.

“I thought it was f*cking awful honestly,” Feldman said at the BKFC 65 post-fight press conference. “Awful. One of the worst main events we’ve ever had in history. One of the worst women’s fights we’ve ever had.”

While the bare-knuckle promotion was built around viral brawls and brutal knockouts, Ferea vs. Masson-Wong didn’t deliver either one with the flyweights not engaging all that much during the 10-minute fight.

Feldman specifically got frustrated with Masson-Wong as she attempted to dethrone Ferea and become champion but ultimately didn’t leave it all in the ring.

He wasn’t much happier with Ferea, who has been a mainstay in BKFC since the promotion’s third event back in 2018 with Friday’s card serving as her fourth straight title defense — a new record for the organization.

“If you’re fighting for the championship — I mean I think everyone will agree with me — if you’re fighting for a championship, you’ve got to go in there, you’ve got to be willing to go out on your shield,” Feldman said. “It didn’t look like either woman really wanted to get hit tonight.

“I was disappointed and the comments online are telling me that they were very disappointed, too. I’m sorry to say that but it is what it is.”

BKFC has promoted a couple of cards in Salt Lake City thus far with Feldman announcing plans for four more shows there over the next year but he promised better for the fans in attendance and those watching at home than what unfolded in Friday’s main event.

“It was a very lackluster main event,” Feldman said. “I was very disappointed as were the fans as you heard by the boos as were the comments. Unfortunate.”

During the press conference, Feldman did tease plans for a BKFC card to cap off the year with Mike Perry expected to make his return in a “megafight” that he anticipates announcing sometime next week.

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