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Demetrious Johnson isn’t officially done with his MMA career, but he might be close.

One of the most accomplished fighters in MMA history, Johnson holds a number of UFC records, including most consecutive title defenses (11), amassed when he ruled the flyweight division from 2012 to 2018. After losing the title to Henry Cejudo at UFC 227, Johnson then got traded to ONE Championship, where he’s spent the past six years and is the current flyweight champion. However, Johnson has not competed since winning his trilogy fight against Adriano Moraes back in May of 2023, and apparently “Mighty Mouse” isn’t focused on returning any time soon either.

“I always like to leave that door open,” Johnson told the JAXXON podcast. “… You’re always going to have that love for mixed martial arts… I’m not officially retired. I’m just saying mixed martial arts is not on my mind right now.”

Johnson has been open over the past few years about wanting to pursue other opportunities outside of just MMA, including other combat sports disciplines and special one-offs. But Johnson says that doesn’t mean he’s done with MMA. For the ONE flyweight champion, it’s a matter of the right fight.

“It doesn’t mean if something came through, ‘Hey man, you want to do this fight?’ Sure, why not?” Johnson said. “I still train every day. My weight is still good…

“I don’t train MMA. I train martial arts. It’s jiu-jitsu. I haven’t hit pads in, what – (yesterday) was the second time I hit pads in a year and a half. I can still move. I still have it. I feel like people think when you don’t train mixed martial arts you can’t do it. It might not be to the highest level, but I can get back to the highest level. So for me, I think when the time does come and I do officially retire, then I’ll be more open about, these are the reasons why, I set goals for myself.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Robert Whittaker has some words of caution for Alex Pereira.

At UFC 305, Dricus du Plessis made the first successful defense of his middleweight title by stopping former two-time champion Israel Adesanya. It was an impressive win that caught the attention of former middleweight champion and current light heavyweight champion Pereira, who suggested post-fight that he might make a return to 185 pounds to square off with du Plessis. But Whittaker says Pereira shouldn’t view du Plessis as an easy mark.

“Well, I hope not,” Whittaker said on Submission Radio when asked if he believes Pereira will go back down to middleweight. “Honestly, I don’t think that’s a good fight for him. I don’t think that’s a good fight for him. But also, when you move up to light heavyweight, moving back down is tricky. And it’s not like you move up for one fight. He stayed up there. He’s been fighting up there for a while now. So it’s it would be it would take a lot out of him to get down, and Dricus is so strong there.”

Pereira began his UFC career as a middleweight and won the title over Adesanya at UFC 281. After losing the belt in their UFC 287 rematch, “Poatan” moved up to light heavyweight, where he won the title and has defended it twice.

But despite those recent successes, Whittaker still questions how a depleted Pereira would do against the power and aggression of du Plessis.

“Alex gets hit,” Whittaker said. “OK? And Dricus likes getting hit.

“It’s hard to see someone with the amount of power to stop Dricus from walking forward into you, and Dricus hits hard. You saw that in the fight against Adesanya. Adesanya has got a really good chin, and Dricus was still hurting him enough to, you know, to to make him uncomfortable. So yeah.”

Whittaker, of course, knows plenty about du Plessis. The former middleweight champion faced off with “Stillknocks” back at UFC 290, where he was stopped in the second round. And like he believes Pereira might be doing now, Whittaker says he didn’t give du Plessis the credit he deserved heading into that fight.

“I’d like to think that I never underestimate my opponents, but I probably did [with] him,” Whittaker said. “Maybe, it’s hard to say. The prep wasn’t ideal. Everybody says it. You look at him fight, and the guy looks like a pub fighter, right? But he just keeps smashing people.

“Like I said, in that first fight with him, I saw the punches coming. I moved out of the way. I felt good in there. I was like, ‘I got this.’ And then I got punched in the face. It’s not a pretty style, but it’s effective. Super effective. And I think the biggest thing is the mentality behind his shots. If you’re not at that level, if you’re not on the same plane of offering as he is, then he’s going to run away with it.”

If Pereira does make good on his warning and return to 185 pounds, it won’t be for awhile. The UFC light heavyweight champ is currently scheduled to defend his belt against Khalil Rountree Jr. in the main event of UFC 307 on Oct. 5 in Salt Lake City.

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Still Dangerous
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UFC 306, scheduled for Sept. 13 inside The Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada, is fast-approaching.

The Riyadh Season Noche UFC event — quite a mouthful — is headlined by a Bantamweight title clash between champion Sean O’Malley and veteran contender Merab Dvalishvili. In addition to being a stellar clash of styles and elite 135-pounders, the fight has plenty of history. O’Malley knocked out Dvalishvili’s team mate and best buddy, Aljamain Sterling, to win the Bantamweight crown (watch here), while Dvalishvili has been calling for a clash with “Suga” for literal years now.

The feud has only grown harsher over the years. Dvalishvili is ready to swing on O’Malley’s head coach, Tim Welch, in addition to the champion, while O’Malley has been adding fuel to the fire by getting nationalistic with the trash talk. Perhaps all that bad blood has O’Malley feeling particularly violent, because his prediction for the bout is getting downright nasty.

“Left hand to the chopper,” O’Malley responded when asked how the fight would go. “Brutally. I know I’m going to hurt him at one point, but then it could turn into a brutal KO. Just an absolute, not a good weight cut, not a good camp, and he just gets slept bad. Like that [Li Jingliang] where it’s just five or six punches just add up and the last one puts him into the canvas snoring, nose crooked, cat screaming MEOW!”

Nobody is surprised that O’Malley expects to win on the feet, but it remains to be seen if he can handle the wrestling of Dvalishvili. “The Machine” has won a ridiculous 10 fights in a row, taking down just about everyone in the process, including Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo.

There’s also the recent element of a cut above the eye Dvalishvili suffered in training. The Georgian talent made the “next-level stupid” decision of posting himself getting stitches, revealing the target to O’Malley. If his eye is busted open early, that could make for a very difficult night of trying to close the distance against the rangy kickboxer.

We’ll find out in just a few weeks whether O’Malley’s prediction is accurate.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Gable Steveson, a 2020 Olympic gold medal wrestler and former WWE prospect, is set to be released from the Buffalo Bills roster after he attempted to make a career switch to play in the NFL.

NFL Network first reported the news as teams prepare to cut down to the 53-man roster required by 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Without a single down of football experience prior to 2024, Steveson decided to try his hand at football as he followed in the footsteps of fellow University of Minnesota wrestling standout Brock Lesnar after he attempted a similar move during his career. Lesnar left WWE and worked out with the Minnesota Vikings during the preseason but ultimately he suffered the same fate with his release before eventually becoming one of the biggest stars in the UFC.

Steveson making the final roster was always a longshot considering his lack of experience but as a developmental prospect there’s a chance he could still get signed to a different roster or a practice squad as the NFL season gets underway in less than two weeks.

Prior to his attempt to play professional football, Steveson was widely considered one of the best wrestlers on the planet after he delivered a thrilling performance to capture gold with a last second takedown at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Following that win, Steveson returned to college where he crushed his competition before winning a second NCAA championship.

Even before his Olympic run, Steveson had expressed interest in potentially pursuing fighting or professional wrestling but he ultimately decided to sign with WWE after winning his gold medal. Unfortunately, Steveson never quite developed the way WWE had hoped and he was released from the roster in May.

That led to Steveson’s decision to switch to professional football where he played defensive tackle for the Buffalo Bills and recorded three tackles during limited action on the field during the preseason.

Now Steveson, who is still only 24 years old, has been released from the Bills roster and it remains to be seen what he plans to do next in his career.

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Going to bat for his compatriot, former two-division UFC champion, Conor McGregor has urged promotional boss, Dana White to ink Roscommon veteran, Danni McCormack to a deal with the organization off the back of her impressive unanimous decision in on ‘Road to UFC’ over the course of the weekend.

McGregor, a former two-weight champion at the lightweight and featherweight limits under the banner of the organization, has been sidelined from action since he headlined UFC 264 back in 2021, fracturing his left tibia and fibula in an opening round doctor’s stoppage TKO loss against Dustin Poirier.

And ruled from a slated comeback at UFC 303 back in June during International Fight Week, just weeks ahead of a welterweight matchup with veteran contender, Michael Chandler, McGregor fractured a toe on the same leg as his prior injury.

Conor McGregor backs Danni McCormack to land UFC contract

However, going to bat for his fellow Straight Blast Gym staple this week on social media, McGregor uged UFC head-honcho, White to pen the former Invicta FC strawweight champion, McCormack to a multi fight deal — off the back of her decision win over Yan Qihui last weekend on the ‘Road to’ format.

“THIS IS A PROMO!,” Conor McGregor posted on his official X account in reference to Danni McCormack’s post-fight interview. “In at the drop of a hat to beat and maul the much bigger girl. Finishing with a call out from the UFC’s current strawweight champion who is from the same region as her just beating opponent. Magic! IRISH GOER WAR CRY! @danawhite announce signing brother this is…”

“We’ll f*cking mow them down, @danawhite! EIRE!!!!” Conor McGregor posted.

A former Invicta FC strawweight champion, McCormack landed a unanimous decision win over Valesca Machado back in March of last year, before successfully defending her crown with a third round rear-naked choke win over Karolina Wojcik under the banner of the Shannon Knapp-led organization.

LowKickMMA.com

Francis Ngannou found himself in the news without doing anything the week before the press conference for his PFL debut.

“The Predator” may be gearing up for his long awaited MMA return where he will face Renan Ferreira on October 19 but the legacy he left behind in the UFC will never be forgotten.

The MMA leader found themselves receiving some criticism during fight week for UFC 305, after claims that they had tried to erase Ngannou from the promotion’s history books due to his name being edited out during the Countdown episode preview.

Though Dana White did apologise for this and put it down to a miscommunication, it certainly wasn’t the first time that the UFC have tailored things to better suit the promotion.

Dan Hardy Says Francis Ngannou’s UFC Erasure Was Sad But Not Surprising Based On Track Record

During a recent interview with Sportskeeda MMA, PFL commentator Dan Hardy gave his thoughts on the discourse regarding the UFC’s conduct around the career of their former heavyweight champion, who left the promotion on less than stellar terms.

“The Outlaw” spoke about the comparisons between Ngannou’s treatment and that of Randy Couture, who also left to sign with another promotion and wasn’t remembered fondly by the UFC as a result.

“It was sad to see and it didn’t surprise me unfortunately and I did see what Dana’s reply was about the fact that the editors had assumed that’s what he would have chosen and what he would have wanted and look, they were probably right because it’s happened so many times in history. Ngannou and Randy, they’re two fantastically credible names in the sport.”

Hardy was also able to draw from his own experiences, even if his was on a smaller scale.

The current Head of Fighter Operations for PFL Europe left the promotion in 2021 after some disagreements with the UFC, both publicly and privately.

He recalled how he was seemingly wiped from the history of UK MMA during an event in London where his wife, Veronica, was in action.

Despite being the first Brit to challenge for a UFC title when he faced Georges St-Pierre for the welterweight belt, “The Outlaw” was nowhere to be seen across the celebrations of the sport in this region.

“My history in the UFC is far more mediocre in comparison but even so, at UFC London when Veronica was on the card, there’s posters of all the UK fighters on all of the underground tubes and everything and of course, I’m not there. It does happen, they do it a lot.

“It makes no difference to me, I can dye my hair red and walk down the street and people will remember my fights. It’s just kind of a weird thing to see and for people like Randy and Ngannou, they need to be celebrated because they’ve inspired so many people, myself included. They shouldn’t be omitted, they’re part of the fabric of the sport and I think the fans will always remember that.”  

Read also: PFL CEO Contradicts President’s Rejection Of Muhammad Mokaev: ‘He Could Absolutely Be The Future Face Of Flyweights Within PFL’

Continue Reading Dan Hardy Reacts To UFC Erasing Francis Ngannou, Compares With Own Experience at MMA News.

MMA News

Things got incredibly personal between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor leading into their fight at UFC 229.

The pair had already been traded shots on social media for years before their eventual matchup six years ago. Though he did well to avoid showing it, ‘The Eagle’ was pushed to the brink by the Irishman’s mental warfare.

Years after the dust settled on the affair, Khabib Nurmagomedov has revealed how he felt toward Conor McGregor in the build-up to their clash.

“It was a very emotional time, but at the same time, it was my feelings,” Khabib said regarding his feud with McGregor. “I really wanted to bite somebody’s heart.”

“I just try to bite his heart, you know. I don’t know maybe you can feel this or not. I am ‘The Eagle’, you know.”

“When Eagle is hungry, it’s not good. He has to hunt… When the promotion promoted this fight, they have to expect something [to happen].”

“When they know all my team and when they know we don’t play. We compete, we don’t play. You cannot play MMA.”

“You can play soccer, you can play American football, you can play hockey, but you cannot play MMA. You have to fight, this is [the] fighting game.”

Related: Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov intense video footage surfaces

Khabib later spoke of his current relationship with McGregor.

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I just don’t think about this…”

“A lot of people, all the time, they remind me of this situation [with McGregor], but my mind is different in other ways.”

Khabib Nurmagomedov dealt with Conor McGregor and pushed ahead with two more title defenses before calling an end to his career.

While many were sad to see one of the greatest to ever compete hang up the gloves, the Dagestani was just fulfilling the promise of retirement that he made to his mother.

Check out Khabib’s appearance on the Inspire Me Podcast below.

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