Naoya Inoue faces TJ Doheny in the main event of Inoue vs. Doheny on Tuesday in Tokyo, Japan. | Photo by YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty Images
MMA Fighting has Naoya Inoue vs. TJ Doheny live round-by-round updates for Tuesday’s anticipated championship fight from Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.
The main event is expected to begin around 7 a.m. ET on ESPN+. Check out our Inoue vs. Doheny results page to find out what happened on the undercard.
Inoue (27-0, 24 KOs) seeks to once again defend his IBF, WBC, and WBO super bantamweight titles. One of the pound-for-pound kings of boxing, Inoue most recently defeated Luis Nery with a sixth-round knockout this past May.
Doheny (26-4, 20 KOs) is a former IBF super bantamweight champ. He enters the title bout riding a three straight wins over Kazuki Nakajima, Japhethlee Llamido, and Bryl Bayogos.
Brad Tate has been working as a cutman in the UFC for as long as fans can remember. He can be spotted in most events inspecting fighters before they enter the Octagon and working on cuts and other injuries between rounds.
Despite not being a fighter, Tate has gradually become popular in MMA circles as one of the most consistent members of the UFC team like Bruce Buffer. He’s unsurprisingly developed great relationships with several UFC fighters, including Charles Oliveira, Daniel Cormier, Gilbert Burns, Jamahal Hill, and many more.
Tate has been dealing with mixed martial artists for almost a decade, and he’s now revealed a former UFC middleweight champion to be the toughest fighter to work with…
Cutman Tate Jokingly Claims No One Likes Luke Rockhold Except Daniel Cormier
Tate appeared on the Believe You Me podcast hosted by Michael Bisping recently. Right away, “The Count” asked the cutman for some gossip as he’s had countless interactions with the UFC roster.
To Bisping’s happiness, Tate called Luke Rockhold one of the worst fighters he’s had to work with in the UFC. In 2016 at UFC 199, Bisping knocked out Rockhold to win the UFC middleweight championship in what remains one of the biggest upsets in the sport to date.
Without going into much detail, Tate stated that Rockhold caused problems consistently. The cutman appreciated that Bisping took away the UFC middleweight championship from him which is enough to determine how much he dislikes Rockhold.
“I will give you the one person because he’s not in the UFC anymore and you fought him. F*****g Luke Rockhold was a pain in a**. Like, bro, listen to me, I know he was a good fighter. I don’t think anybody except DC like Luke Rockhold.”
Tate isn’t a fan of Rockhold calling out UFC fighters like Sean Strickland either, now that he’s left the promotion. He also added that criticism regarding his demeanor fueled the former UFC middleweight champion to act in the same manner instead of mending his ways.
“I see him now, and like, he was talking sh*t about Sean Strickland. And I’m like, nobody cares bro. Like this whole, Dana call me I’ll go in there and handle this for you. It’s like, dude, he was a problem like and he was just, dude, him losing the belt was like the best thing for him but like I said. I mean he’s not in the UFC anymore but he was the one guy that just, oh my god, even to just be around him, you would just be like, bro, why are you such a d**k? And honestly, you could tell him that he was a d**k and it just, I think that fueled him even more and made him even more like, yeah, let me be that way.”
The UFC cutman claims to have rarely had bad experiences with fighters which is why it is surprising how much he despises the time spent with Rockhold. Luckily, for him, it’s unlikely that the middleweight will ever return to the promotion following his loss to Paulo Costa at UFC 278.
Read also: Coach On Sean O’Malley Not Defending Title Against Umar Nurmagomedov: “If ‘Suga’ Just Faceplants Merab & Drops A ‘Hendo’ Bomb…”
Continue Reading Cutman Tate Reveals Former UFC Middleweight Champion Was The Worst Fighter To Deal With: ‘Pain In A**’ at MMA News.
Naoya Inoue vs. TJ Doheny headlines the Inoue vs. Doheny event on Tuesday from Tokyo | Photo by KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images
The Naoya Inoue vs. TJ Doheny start time, TV schedule, and ring walks are below for the Inoue vs. Doheny fight card on Tuesday at Ariake Arena in Tokyo.
This post will help explain the Inoue vs. Doheny fight card and at which time the headliners are expected to make their ring walks.
The event features a five-bout card headlined by the Naoya Inoue vs. TJ Doheny championship showdown on ESPN+. The Inoue vs. Doheny ring walks are expected to take place approximately around 7 a.m. ET.
The Inoue vs. Doheny fight card broadcast begins at 5:45 a.m. ET and airs on ESPN+.
Inoue, widely considered one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in boxing, defends his IBF, WBC, and WBO super bantamweight titles against former IBF super bantamweight champ Doheny in a 12-round championship match. The 31-year-old Japanese talent most recently defended his belts with a sixth-round knockout of Luis Nery this past May. Doheny has won three straight bouts over Kazuki Nakajima, Japhethlee Llamido, and Bryl Bayogos.
Yoshiki Takei and Daigo Higa collide in a 12-round battle for the WBO bantamweight title in the co-main event.
The main and co-main event are the only two fights airing on ESPN+.
The full fight card for the Inoue vs. Doheny event is below:
Naoya Inoue vs. TJ Doheny — 12 rounds, IBF/WBC/WBO super bantamweight title
Yoshiki Takei vs. Daigo Higa — 12 rounds, WBO bantamweight title
Jin Sasaki vs. Qamil Balla — 12 rounds, welterweight
Ismael Barroso vs. Andy Hiraoka — 12 rounds, junior welterweight
Toshiki Shimomachi vs. Ryuya Tsugawa — 10 rounds, junior featherweight
Discuss your favorite fighters, the upcoming card or whatever's on your mind.
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Sean O’Malley | Photo by Frazer Harrison/WireImage
Chael Sonnen has his thoughts on who the UFC’s main attraction is right now.
And it’s not Conor McGregor.
In August 2023, at a Q&A ahead of the UFC 292 main event featuring Aljamain Sterling defending his bantamweight title against Sean O’Malley, Sonnen praised O’Malley as having the “It Factor” and called him “a star on the rise.” O’Malley went on to defeat Sterling by knockout to become UFC champion and a year later, Sonnen believes that there has officially been a changing of the guard as far as who draws the most eyeballs in MMA.
“O’Malley is the biggest star in our sport right now,” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “And ‘Red Panty Night’ is still real. Conor’s not in the sport, he’s not even licensed. Conor could not walk in and fight tonight if he wanted to. I’m just sharing with you, who’s in the sport, it’s one of those things. Conor has no more of a claim to this sport right now than [Georges] St-Pierre or Khabib [Nurmagomedov]. In fact, St-Pierre and Khabib have attended more UFCs in the last year than Conor.”
McGregor has long been the de facto answer as to who is MMA’s most famous fighter and, in all likelihood, the next time he steps into the cage he will be box office gold for the UFC as usual. However, “The Notorious” has not competed since suffering a broken leg at UFC 264 in July 2021, and a postponed bout with rival Michael Chandler remains in limbo.
Sonnen raised topic of O’Malley’s star power in the context of the bantamweight champion having to deal with increased scrutiny and media responsibilities ahead of his upcoming title defense against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306 on Sept. 14. He wonders if O’Malley could potentially be thrown off his game by Dvalishvili’s unorthodox approach to fight promotion.
“I say that because when you’re O’Malley and you’re out there working double- and triple-time, you’re making sure that you’re in the main event because of things you’re doing outside the octagon,” Sonnen said. “And whoever gets put in that passenger seat with you, regardless of they’ve done, that’s not why they’re there. They’re there because you’re there. They’re in the main event because you drove to the front of the line and there’s an irritation, and I can’t call it a resentment, but there is an irritation when that person is not upholding their end of the deal, which is every interview I do, you do. I do five interviews at 6 a.m., you do five interviews at 6 a.m.
“It doesn’t work that way, that’s not how this goes, I’m just sharing for you as you start to get irritable, as the stress starts coming in, as the fight starts getting closer, as you start getting those pounds off, and this starts to get more real, and you start to realize the risk that you have and the distractions that came along because of the pressure and the expectations put on you. Oh, by the way, you’re not even favored to win this match. That guy is. ‘That guy is favored to win this match and that guy appears to be a little bit more buckled down and focused because he’s not having some of these other distractions and he’s not having them because he’s not good at doing them, I am, and they’re asking me first, and I keep on saying yes.’ And it’s one of these things that can bother you.”
Though O’Malley initially opened as a slight underdog to Dvalishvili, several sportsbooks now have the matchup closer to a pick ‘em.
What’s surprised Sonnen the most is that O’Malley isn’t being given more respect especially after a lopsided decision win over Marlon Vera at UFC 299, a result that Sonnen calls, “The single best performance of any 135-pounder in history.”
Should O’Malley get past Dvalishvili, he likely faces another dangerous bantamweight contender down the road in the undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov. Sonnen wonders if O’Malley’s run is fated to end soon, though he added that “Suga” has made a habit out of silencing his doubters.
“I feel that O’Malley, as the biggest star, who’s the hardest-working guy outside of the cage that division has ever seen, top 5 in the sports history—he might be No. 1—he is a top 5 in history of the hardest working guys outside of the cage,” Sonnen said. “For him to have landed this rocket ship in this position and whoever gets in the passenger seat and now you’re telling me [the oddsmakers] believe that he’s two-and-a-half times more likely to lose than he is to win and even if he wins he draws into a guy with a similar disastrous style?
“That is a lot for a young man to take on, but that seems to be exactly where O’Malley does his best work. That seems to be, when that house is on fire, and he’s right on the edge and people aren’t believing him and he’s got to stay sharp and if he’s not sharp he’s going to fall into a bed of needles, that seems to be where Sean O’Malley performs his finest.”
Anything continues to be possible in 2024, including Heavyweight legend rematches you might not need.
RCC Boxing (h/t Red Corner MMA) has reported that a rematch in boxing between mixed martial arts (MMA) legends, Fedor Emelianenko and Andrei Arlovski, is in the works for a date and location to be determined. The match would happen in the RCC Boxing promotion if it comes to fruition, according to the report.
A rematch in the ring under boxing rules would be a fitting full-circle moment for Emelianenko and Arlovski as they first met inside the Affliction ring in January 2009. In one of Emelianenko’s greatest of many career highlights, he knocked out Arlovski in round one after “Pitbull” went for an ill-advised flying knee in the corner of the ring, catching a fist while airborne.
That loss snapped a strong five-fight winning streak for Arlovski that bled out of his first run with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and into Affliction and Elite XC. Arlovski, 45, lost his three fights after Emelianenko and looked to be headed towards retirement until he strung back together a winning streak and rejoined UFC where he stayed until June 2024. Arlovski lost a split decision to Martin Buday at UFC 303, finishing out his contract.
Emelianenko, 47, on the other hand, retired from MMA after a first round technical knockout loss in his rematch against Ryan Bader at Bellator 290 in February 2023 (watch highlights). Although “The Last Emperor” has maintained his in-cage days are firmly behind him, he’s teased entering the ring to box ever since that night. Meanwhile, Arlovski teased some big possibilities in life outside UFC the week after he fought Buday.
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