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On Saturday, the promotion headed to Edmonton for a BKFC Prospect Series event at River Cree Resort & Casino. In a light heavyweight contest, Kayden Giroux earned a 10-second TKO victory over opponent Trevor Bozniak — but that’s not the big story.
Giroux dropped Bozniak with a right hand, but when Bozniak hit the mat, his right ankle looked like it shattered — his foot turned in a different direction. The fight was obviously stopped, but Bozniak somehow snapped it back into place, even began walking on it.
Check out the crazy ending to the fight in the video below.
How did he just snap his foot back like nothing happened #BKFCEDMONTON | STREAMING FREE on BKFC App NOW! pic.twitter.com/szyFJXeDmB
— Bare Knuckle FC (@bareknucklefc) September 1, 2024
Despite Bozniak becoming a self miracle healer, the fight remained over, giving the Canadian Giroux his first BKFC victory. Giroux competed in a modified rules boxing match in May, earning a third-round stoppage.
Bozniak, also a Canadian fighter, was making his BKFC debut in the contest. Luckily for him, the injury wasn’t as bad as it initially looked.
Photo by Amy Kaplan/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
It’s been a tough twelve months for Usman, who was suspended over a drug test failure and then had to withdraw from his comeback fight due to illness.
Usman Nurmagomedov is set to return to action on Saturday September 7th at Bellator Champion Series: San Diego, where he’ll defend his lightweight title against Alexander Shabliy. It’s a re-booking of a fight previously set for Champion Series: Paris in May which was canceled due to an undisclosed Nurmagomedov injury.
Now Usman is revealing the actual cause of his withdrawal: an illness which he suspects could have been COVID-19.
“The last time when we’re preparing for Paris, I was coming fresh out of the month of Ramadan,” Usman told MMA Junkie through a translator in a new interview. “We had to fast, and my body was weak. I don’t know. Maybe it was the coronavirus, but there was something with my lungs so I couldn’t recover properly.”
“I got sick. And I was trying to do my best. I was still trying to fight and get the proper preparation, but I just couldn’t beat it. So unfortunately that fight was off, but now that’s time we prepared.”
Don’t get it twisted: Usman Nurmagomedov is no Umar Nurmagomedov, who has withdrawn from several fights over the past four years. The Paris fight against Shabliy is the first time Usman pulled out of a fight, and he’s looking forward to finally competing again for the first time since November 2023.
“The training is done. The camp is done. Now it’s only weight cut, and you’re gonna see us on September 7th. It’s gonna be in a great fight.”
The delay has been so long because Nurmagomedov failed a California commission drug test following his Bellator 300 win over Brent Primus. For some reason, the substance he popped for has never been disclosed by the commission, leading to a lot of speculation and some criticism.
“We have a deal with California Commission, and I cannot tell to media or someone,” he said. “But it was medication. If it were a steroid, they have to say, ‘This was a steroid.’ And they have to give me more time for suspension. They have to give me like one year, two year, and we have example from other guys. It was medication, and this was like nothing. Everything is good now.”
Bellator was supportive enough to Nurmagomedov through the situation that they let him keep the lightweight belt despite the drug test fail.
“I know who I am, I’d never do something like steroid or something like that,” Usman declared. “People only talk about this because they cannot win against us, and they have to say something. You guys, you can talk whatever you want, but who cares?”
The ONE Championship star and former UFC flyweight champion recently competed as a black belt at the 2024 IBJJF World Masters Jiu Jitsu Championship in Las Vegas, and he shared footage of his grappling exploits on his YouTube channel.
In his third match of the day, “Mighty Mouse” scored a decision win over Takuto Kako. Afterward, he went went out of his way to console his sullen opponent.
Watch a clip of that interaction below.
Demetrious Johnson consoles his opponent after beating him in a Jiu Jitsu tournament:
“There’s next year man. This is for fun, your life’s not gonna change. You’re gonna go home, keep on training, have a beautiful wife, kids, go back to work. This is for fun, there’s more to… pic.twitter.com/xe2EemMjSh
— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) August 30, 2024
“It’s still good,” Johnson said. “There’s next year. This is for fun. Your life’s not going to change. You’re going to go home, keep on training, have a beautiful wife, kids, go back to work. This is for fun. There’s more to life than winning, I promise.”
Johnson knows a thing or two about the highs and lows of combat sports. During his six-year reign as UFC flyweight champion, he defended his title 11 consecutive times before dropping it in a rematch with Henry Cejudo at UFC 227, and then went on to star for ONE Championship.
In his first bid at winning ONE’s flyweight title, he was knocked out by Adriano Moraes — who also competed at the IBJJF World Masters Jiu Jitsu Championship — but rebounded with back-to-back victories over his Brazilian rival.
As for how his grappling tournament ended, Johnson made it to the quarterfinals before being submitted by Tomoya Yanagisawa.
Watch Johnson’s video chronicle of his jiu-jitsu competition experience below.
Shavkat Rakhmonov hasn’t put a foot wrong during his ascent up the welterweight ladder towards a title shot.
With a undefeated record and all of his wins coming via finish, the 170-pound contender appears to be set up to challenge Belal Muhammad for the belt next time out. unless something unexpected occurs.
The UFC has been known to temporarily swerve the rankings if it means putting something big together and when you’re talking big in MMA, there’s no one larger than Conor McGregor.
Despite there being no rescheduled date for his welterweight return against Michael Chandler, “The Notorious” returning with a win could completely change the top of the weight class.
Rakhmonov spoke in a recent interview with MMA Fighting about how he believes the promotion will do right by him even in the instance that “The Mac” is back in the mix.
“He’s been getting ready to fight a long time but wasn’t able to do that yet so in my head, I don’t even think about him winning this one fight in three years is going to do something. I understand he’s a big star but in my head, I don’t see it being possible. I believe UFC is the best and the most fair organization so I believe they’re gonna do everything right.”
Shavkat Rakhmonov Reveals That Belal Muhammad Turned Down UFC 307 Title Fight
Though there has been some debate over whether Rakhmonov will definitely be the next title challenger for Muhammad, the contender answered this question all by himself.
He revealed during the same interview that he has already been offered the title shot but it didn’t come to fruition due to the champion not being able to make a 70-day turnaround to fight at elevation in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Alex Pereira will be headlining UFC 307 instead, which always seemed to be an optimistic target for Muhammad after he won the belt at the end of July.
“Yeah, actually I had already been offered to fight Belal and I accepted the fight against Belal but unfortunately, he declined to fight me due to the timing issues, he wasn’t ready to defend his belt on that time. So, we’ll see what’s gonna happen and when he’s gonna be ready so I will be able to fight him. Before he became a champion and after he won the belt, he said he’s gonna be an active champion and he will defend his belt more often but at the moment, he isn’t backing up what he said so let’s see what’s going to happen, when he’s going to be ready to fight me.”
Read also: Khalil Rountree Says He Would Fire His Coaches If They Insisted He Grapple Alex Pereira
Continue Reading Shavkat Rakhmonov Trusts UFC’s Meritocracy To Prevent Conor McGregor Title Shot Hijack, Reveals Belal Muhammad Turned Down UFC 307 Date at MMA News.
Shavkat Rakhmonov | Photo by Brooke Sutton/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Shavkat Rakhmonov and Belal Muhammad continue their war of words.
At UFC 304, Muhammad claimed the UFC welterweight title with a five-round domination of rival Leon Edwards. Following his win, many assumed Rakhmonov would be first in line to face the newly crowned champion, and Rakhmonov recently revealed he was in fact offered a title shot in October that Muhammad declined, with Rakhmonov then suggesting Muhammad wasn’t living up to his declaration that he’d be an active champion.
In response, on Saturday, Muhammad fired back at Rakhmonov, saying that the undefeated Kazakh fighter has not fought in 2024 and so should have to fight former champion Kamaru Usman in a No. 1 contender matchup. And as you can imagine, Rakmonov doesn’t think much of that idea.
On Sunday, Rakhmonov responded to Muhammad, pointing out that “Remember the Name” seems to have forgotten that he himself earned a crack at the belt despite a 14-month layoff.
Do you have a case of selective memory, or did you just forget that you didn’t fight for 14 months before challenging for the belt? https://t.co/BKLdRzZvhy
— Shavkat “Nomad” Rakhmonov (@Rakhmonov1994) September 1, 2024
“Do you have a case of selective memory, or did you just forget that you didn’t fight for 14 months before challenging for the belt?”
Ultimately, it seems like these two will eventually settle their differences inside the cage, as Muhammad himself recently joked that the UFC only seems interested in that matchup next. Nonetheless, the welterweight champion isn’t going to let Rakhmonov have the last laugh in this, and so promptly fired back by suggesting he’s not even been engaging with the real Rakhmonov.
Selective memory ? Who’s tweeting for you bro there’s no translation for that in Kazakh https://t.co/cdgcXvNDYk pic.twitter.com/aKJOTnI4jq
— Belal Muhammad (@bullyb170) September 1, 2024
“Selective memory ? Who’s tweeting for you bro there’s no translation for that in Kazakh.”
If these two are going to end up fighting each other though, it may not be this year. With the UFC schedule nearly complete for the rest of 2024, the only remaining opportunities for the matchup would be at UFC 309 on Nov. 16 in Madison Square Garden in New York City, or UFC 310 on Dec. 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. UFC 309 is widely believed to be headlined by the long-awaited matchup between Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic, while UFC 310 still lacks a main event.
Jessica Andrade fought Joanna Jedrzejczyk for the UFC title in 2017. | Esther Lin, MMA Fighting
Jessica Andrade looks to stop Natalia Silva’s rise in the flyweight division when they meet in the co-main event of UFC Vegas 97 on Sept. 7, and she wants gold next.
The former UFC strawweight champion told MMA Fighting that she plans to call for a shot at a belt if victorious next week in Las Vegas regardless of weight class, and made her case for the creation of a women’s BMF title.
“I’ve been talking to Joanna [Jedrzejczyk] and she said she’d come back. If it’s for this [BMF] belt, she would come back,” Andrade said. “I think that would be a good fight. Joanna, or maybe Angela Hill, who never walks away from a fight and is always there fighting everyone. Or Valentina [Shevchenko]. Any of those girls would be great, but I think it would be special if it’s Joanna. It would be better.”
No female UFC athlete has more wins (17) and finishes (9) in the octagon than Andrade. Her long list of victims includes Rose Namajunas, Mackenzie Dern, Amanda Lemos, and Karolina Kowalkiewicz.
Andrade fought Jedrzejczyk in her first shot at the strawweight title in 2017, losing via decision, but came back to win the belt two years later by stopping Namajunas. Andrade also challenged Shevchenko for the 125-pound title in 2021, losing via second-round knockout.
Jedrzejczyk’s win over Andrade was her final title defense before losing back-to-back fights against Namajunas. The Polish star then returned to the win column with a 2018 decision over Tecia Pennington, and moved up in weight to challenge Shevchenko for the vacant flyweight title but lost by unanimous decision.
Jedrzejczyk’s final shot at UFC gold came in 2020, when she dropped a legendary split decision to 115-pound champion Zhang Weili in one of the greatest fights in MMA history. Jedrzejczyk retired from MMA in 2022 following a knockout loss to Zhang in the rematch.
“[Jedrzejczyk] said she would fight at 125, not at 115, and that would be even better for me because I feel great in this division as well,” Andrade said. “I wouldn’t be too affected by the weight loss or any of that. I think we would put on a show and do an incredible fight, and I would get that one back.”
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