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The rivalry continues
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UFC

White denied the UFC was competing with Canelo Alvarez over Mexican Independence Day weekend, instead pointing to a business dispute with MGM over use of the T-Mobile Arena.

The UFC is going head to head with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in Las Vegas on Mexican Independence Day weekend, but the real battle isn’t taking place in the ring or cage, it’s in backrooms between White and MGM executives that manage the T-Mobile Arena.

UFC CEO Dana White spoke on the situation following a Contender Series event on Tuesday (watch highlights from the event here), cooling down rising temperatures between his promotion and Al Haymon, who is promoting Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga on September 14th at T-Mobile. That’s the same night the UFC holds Riyadh Season Noche UFC at the Sphere featuring Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili.

“I don’t think it’s a battle,” White said. “Listen. I said props to Al Heyman, he slid right in there before we were even done with the weekend and took the date from us without MGM telling us. So [MGM Resorts president] Bill Hornbuckle is trying to trying to fix this whole thing. That’s why he gave me the Sphere this year. And I’m sure we’ll get it figured out.”

White made sure to make a distinction between the MGM execs he liked and the MGM execs who are ‘douchebags.’

“When I say MGM, it’s the guys who run [T-Mobile Arena] who have been literally disrespecting us since day one of the relationship. So now Bill Hornbuckle, the guy who runs MGM, had to get in the middle of this thing and try to fix it. That’s how I ended up at the Sphere. It’s a one and done. We’ll be back with MGM, and hopefully Bill can figure this thing out between us and the f—ing guys that run the arena.”

Asked who would have the bigger gate between Noche UFC and the Canelo fight, White shrugged.

“MGM’s guaranteeing the gate for that [Canelo] fight,” he said. “Yeah, they’re guaranteeing the gate. So why would they not go on that date if MGM is gonna put up all the money?”

“Extra kick in the balls? Yeah. That’s what they do. This is what these guys have done for the last however many years. It’s f—ing crazy. There’s a documentary coming out. I lay this s— all out in the documentary. You’ll hear every little detail of what has happened with us in the MGM over the last 23 years. It’s f—ing crazy. You’ll be like, what?”

“I just think that the guy who runs the the arena has been a complete douchebag to us for 23 years. That’s what I think.”

“Hayman and Canelo are just doing their thing,” White concluded. “Props to them. Good for them that you guys could actually slide in and steal the date from us that easily without a phone call, without anything. Good for you. I would too if that’s what I could do. Right? But that’s just a sliver of the disrespect that these guys at the arena have shown us over the last however many years. It’s crazy.”

The whole situation calls into question the UFC’s continued use of the T-Mobile Arena, which is the venue they’ve used for almost every major Las Vegas event since 2017.

“You know, our our deal will be up eventually and we’ll have to figure that out,” White said. “But that’s what I keep telling you, Bill Hornbuckle is in the middle of this thing trying to figure it out and make it better.”

Well Godspeed to you, Bill Hornbuckle. Can’t wait to see the documentary.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Sean Strickland fully acknowledges that he’s probably going to rub some people the wrong way and you can definitely add musician Machine Gun Kelly to that list.

Back in February, the former UFC middleweight champion met the rapper and rock star, whose real name is Colson Baker, at a Power Slap event when they were introduced by mutual friend and Monster Energy ambassador, Luke “The Dingo” Trembath. The encounter almost immediately turned volatile with Strickland later claiming that he “almost hit a vampire,” while calling the Cleveland native a “goth South Park character.”

The incident didn’t sit well with UFC CEO Dana White, who later said that the altercation wasn’t Kelly’s fault but rather “you can’t bring Sean Strickland around any other human beings.”

While Strickland has addressed the incident numerous times, Kelly finally gave his side of the story about the run-in with the former UFC champion when appearing on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast.

“I don’t know this guy from a crumb of bread, right?” Kelly said. “I didn’t know who he was when I met him. I got hip afterwards that he’s like insanely racist and homophobic and just not my type of guy. So I would have never even wanted to shake hands with him in the first place.

“But he is also just a representative of every person who’s too scared to just be themselves. Because if you’re comfortable as yourself, you don’t care who anybody else is and how they are.”

Prior to Kelly’s comments, Strickland gave his latest version of the encounter while speaking to Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick on his podcast, Verse Us.

“He’s wearing like a f*cking vampire trenchcoat, has a f*cking purse, painted nails and ‘Dingo,’ you know me, dude. Why would you do this?” Strickland said. “Why would you set me up? I just look at him, like my brain I’m trying to process. I’m looking into the void and I think I just said ‘what the f*ck?’ Are you a f*cking gay vampire?

“Then the way he looked at me, it wasn’t funny. Like if you would have said something funny like ‘oh yeah, you look like a white trash hillbilly,’ I would have been like [yeah], I drive a Tesla, that’s gay. He looked at me with such f*cking disgust, there’s this little voice in my head said ‘we’re fighting.’ Then my girl got involved and broke us up.”

There was no physical altercation but clearly Strickland still harbors ill will towards Kelly after the incident went viral.

For his part, the 34-year-old musician isn’t losing any sleep over the incident but he did offer Strickland some friendly advice about how to handle himself moving forward.

“He’s so dumb that I’m going to tell him right now you should not keep saying stuff because it just makes me look better but you’re going to keep saying stuff,” Kelly said to Strickland. “So I know that you’ll react and say more things but you just shouldn’t as a person who’s just giving you big bro advice.

“Learn this — shut the f*ck up and don’t speak on me anymore and live your life. But you won’t and I’m going to continue laughing at you because you’re a f*cking idiot.”

Of course it didn’t take Strickland long to respond just like Kelly expected would happen.

“Getting lectured by a guy who drinks blood and wears a purse,” Strickland wrote. “Dawg you had a mid life crisis and tattooed your entire body. The “the x community of intolerance.” Ya’ll I’d hang out with you toxic trolls any day over this c*nt. Go back to cutting yourself you f*cking weirdo.”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

UFC commentator Laura Sanko is responding to fans’ comments on YouTube. A compelling thumbnail has sparked some interesting thoughts from fans, and Sanko is certainly enjoying some of them.

Laura Sanko MMA

Prior to her announcing work in the UFC, ‘Fancy’ Laura Sanko was a professional MMA fighter. She had an extensive amateur career. As a pro, she racked up one win via submission before calling it quits for a career in broadcasting. She competed in Atomweight, which is not a division offered in the UFC. She would have been far too small to compete in any of the UFC’s weight classes.

Laura Sanko Reacts

With experience in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Sanko likes to give instructionals on YouTube. Her bicep sliver video has become highly popular due to its curvaceous thumbnail. Sanko said, “The first few comments are from the “Bicep Slicer” video, which has been by far the most popular on my page, thanks to a compelling thumbnail my team picked out.”

Sanko continued:

“If there’s any way I’d like to go out, this is it. God bless this man.” That comment got 2,800 thumbs up, so it seems a lot of you agree!

In another response, she said:

“I love these little demos, so fascinating. Thanks, guys, your efforts are always appreciated.” That’s very kind, but what I really love is the comment right underneath it that says, “Don’t you mean face-sit-nating?” I see what you did there… we’re just going to skip past that.”

Laura Sanko with Nina Drama

Nina Marie Daniele, or Nina Drama, is an influencer who works closely with the UFC. Laura Sanko and Nina Drama did some work together which sparked a viral reaction. Sanko explained, “Video I did with Nina, who is awesome, and I love her. We shot for about 12 hours—no joke—so there’s a lot of footage … I think Nina has brought a levity to MMA media that was missing for a long time. I love her.”

What made her shut down the conversation was:

“And then… Lance Thrust 9488: “Who wears the strap-on?” Okay, we’re just going to move on.“

Lastly, Laura Sanko’s chair had some thoughts:

““Hi, Laura’s chair here. I love my job.” Okay, guys, y’all are wild.“

LowKickMMA.com

For the first time in his MMA career, Israel Adesanya finds himself coming off the back of consecutive defeats inside the Octagon.

This doesn’t tell the story of both the fights that took place a year apart, because though he didn’t get his hand raised on either occasion, the story of the fights were completely different.

“The Last Stylebender” didn’t look himself at UFC 293 where he was shockingly upset by Sean Strickland before taking a year off to return at UFC 305.

Despite not reclaiming the title against Dricus Du Plessis, Adesanya appeared somewhat back to where he was before and looked to be gaining momentum in the fight until Du Plessis was able to capitalize on a few mistakes to earn a submission win in the fourth round.

Adesanya’s head coach at City Kickboxing, Eugene Bareman, gave his thoughts on the fight during a recent interview with Combat TV.

He came away feeling a lot more positive after this loss compared to the one from last year because they were able to learn from clear and obvious mistakes that will only lead to improvements, unlike UFC 293 which left the team scratching their heads.

“He made some mistakes which you can only, in my opinion, put down to fatigue and the fatigue, you can put down to the work that Dricus was able to do so you can’t do nothing but applaud that. It was a loss but you know, it was a good loss. Me and Israel can walk away from that loss and it’s measurable, it’s tangible. You can put that down, this is why this happened, this is why that happened. The Strickland fight is just a bit unexplainable to us. That’s much harder to get over cuz it’s like well what happened there.”

Eugene Bareman Gives Credit To Dricus Du Plessis For An Aspect Of His Game That They ‘Didn’t Anticipate’

Bareman agrees with the common consensus that heading into the fourth round, it looked like the momentum was swinging towards Adesanya in the later rounds.

However, it was Du Plessis’ finishing ability that ended up deciding the fight after he was able to wobble the former champion on the feet and take his back for the rear-naked choke win.

As he previously stated above, Bareman puts these crucial mistakes down to Adesanya being fatigued and while this is something they worked on during his training camp, the City Kickboxing boss revealed that he was surprised by how effectively the champion is able to weaponize his conditioning.

He said that Du Plessis may not be a perfect fighter but he’s always making his opponents work hard to try and capitalize on his weaknesses.

“It looks like he has some holes in his defense, he also makes you work to take advantage of those holes, you know what I mean. It’s tough work out there. Yeah, the holes are there but it’s tough work to find them and it just fatigued Israel and fatigued Israel and fatigued Israel and it slowly, slowly got to Israel to the point where he was so fatigued, Dricus was able to take advantage of it. That was probably something I didn’t anticipate happening as much as it did and I just had an expectation that Israel would be able to push through that.”

Read also: Sean Strickland Responds To Machine Gun Kelly’s ‘Big Bro Advice’ As Rapper Wanted UFC Star To Not Talk About Him Anymore

Continue Reading Israel Adesanya’s Coach Says Du Plessis Defeat Better Than ‘Unexplainable’ Strickland Upset: ‘It Was A Good Loss…’ at MMA News.

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