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Francis Ngannou enters his MMA comeback fight this October with the heaviest of hearts.

This past April, Ngannou revealed that his 15-month son Kobe died following a medical emergency. The devastating news hit the Ngannou family just a month after his most recent fight, a second-round knockout loss to Anthony Joshua in a boxing match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Ngannou is now set to compete in his first MMA fight in almost three years when he takes on Renan Ferreira at a PFL pay-per-view event on Oct. 19. In an interview with Sky Sports Boxing, Ngannou discussed how a return to training is helping him to work through the tragedy and how his son continues to motivate him.

“I need some activities,” Ngannou said. “I need to stay active, to be in a zone that I belong to. Maybe that also will help or change, I also need to keep it going to fight for my boy. For Kobe.”

“The past three months haven’t been the easiest,” Ngannou continued. “I think it has been by far the hardest shape in life since I lost my son. For some time, I felt like I didn’t even have to do this or questioning about if I should do it or fight again or something, but I know that my son had something good in his memory and I wanted to do something good in his memory. To use this not to be the reason for me to quit, but maybe to be a motivation and also to fight for him.”

Ngannou’s most recent cagefight took place at UFC 270, where he defeated Ciryl Gane by unanimous decision to retain the UFC heavyweight title. What followed was a protracted contract dispute with the promotion, which saw Ngannou eventually secure his release after a year of inactivity, leaving him free to sign with PFL and later land high-profile boxing bouts with Tyson Fury and Joshua.

With Ngannou making major waves in the boxing world, there was some doubt as to whether he would compete in MMA again. And when news of his son’s death broke, it raised the question of whether Ngannou still wanted to fight at all.

“It’s not that I have come close to retiring, it’s just that … you have different thoughts,” Ngannou said. “You see how fragile life is. You feel you’re hurt, you feel powerless, you feel useless. You question your existence, about the importance of all of this, or life in general, but it’s not that I have considered retiring or something. It’s just that you have to deal with something that wasn’t on the landscape before.”

An important part of the Ngannou mythology is his rise from an impoverished upbringing in Cameroon to combat sports star, a journey that culminated in Ngannou becoming UFC heavyweight champion in 2021.

But nothing Ngannou has gone through could prepare him for the loss of Kobe.

“I think it’s easy to overcome hurdles, to overcome life’s challenges when it’s just situations,” Ngannou said. “But this is something different. It’s something that hurts your soul. It’s different. I would not compare this to anything that I knew or that I experienced. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but it’s different.

“All of a sudden you feel like you haven’t been able to do anything in your life, you haven’t been able to overcome anything, you feel the most vulnerable as you have ever been.”

Ready or not, Ngannou has plenty to prove when he fights Ferreira on Oct. 19. Ferreira is coming off of a stunning 2023 campaign that saw him win a PFL heavyweight tournament and become the front-runner in the Ngannou sweepstakes.

Is the Brazilian slugger poised to spoil Ngannou’s comeback fight?

“I just have to find that out by fighting,” Ngannou said. “There’s only one way to find out, but also I think now I have a different motivation in my son. I used to fight for a lot of reasons, but I don’t think I had the biggest reason, the biggest purpose to fight until now.”

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Just weeks removed from his impressive win at UFC 304 in Manchester, newly-top-15 ranked lightweight contender, Paddy Pimblett has shown off a huge move up in weight once more – weighing close to 200lbs following his latest win.

Pimblett, the current number number fifteen ranked lightweight contender, returned to action at UFC 304 at the end of last month, turning in his sixth consecutive victory against perennial contender, King Green with a brutal opening round triangle choke submission win.

The victory came as Paddy Pimblett’s latest following a prior decision win over former interim lightweight titleholder, Tony Ferguson.

Paddy Pimblett shows off huge weight gain after UFC 304

And eyeing a fight with incoming UFC Fight Night Paris headliner, Renato Moicano – who is lined up to take on Nimes native, Benoit Saint Denis next month, Pimblett would currently be suited better to taking on middleweights by the looks of it.

Sharing a video on his official YouTube channel off the back of his win over Green just weeks ago, Pimblett has revealed he currently weighs in the region of 198lbs – having came in below the lightweight limit of 156lbs for his fight with the San Bernardino veteran. 

Reacting to Pimblett’s call out of him following his victory in the ‘Rainy City’, Brazilian fan-favorite, Moicano credited the Liverpool grappler for suggesting a season on The Ultimate Fighter to boot.

“Respect to him because he not only called me out, but he said we need to do ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ and I agree with that,” Moicano said. “It’s going to be the first ‘Ultimate Fighter’ with subtitles, my brother, because I cannot understand this motherf*cker. Maybe his English is worse than mine.”

“Let me talk serious about that, Paddy Pimblett: I’m planning on beating Benoit Saint-Denis in France, and then we talk business,” Moicano said. “Let me tell you something, UFC. Let me tell you something: Show me the money and let’s do it.”

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Michelle Waterson-Gomez has plenty to look forward to after authoring a career any fighter would be proud of.

Over the course of her 17-year pro run, Waterson-Gomez headlined UFC events, won an atomweight championship with Invicta FC, and stepped into the cage with a who’s who of the best female fighters in the world. At UFC 303, she announced her retirement following a loss to Gillian Robertson.

Waterson-Gomez, 38, isn’t sure what’s next for her now that her cagefighting days are over, but she’s happy that they are.

“I don’t know,” Waterson-Gomez recently said on The MMA Hour when asked if she will ever fight again. “At the moment, I’m really content with walking away. I’m content with turning the page and taking a step forward into this new chapter. I’m really excited. I’d love to get into acting, I’d love to get into broadcasting. I’d love to be on the other side of it.

“I’d love to coach some of my teammates to greatness. I’d love to be able to help other female athletes, other female businesswomen, other mothers pursue their dreams and whatever it is. I’d love to be able to be in their corner for that. I’m still a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, I want to get my black belt. Whether or not that involves having to compete, we shall see. But at the moment I’m just pretty content with just being mommy.”

The writing was on the wall for Waterson-Gomez to step away from competition, as her loss to Robertson marked her fifth straight setback, a skid dating back to September 2020. Though “The Karate Hottie” regularly went toe-to-toe with the likes of 2024 Hall of Fame inductee Joanna Jedrzejczyk and two-time UFC strawweight champions Carla Esparza and Rose Namajunas, wins over elite competition were few and far between as her career progressed.

One of Waterson-Gomez’s most notable triumphs occurred early in her career when she defeated Jessica Penne in an instant classic in April 2013 to become Invicta’s 115-pound champion. The then-27-year-old battled back and forth with Penne before scoring a dramatic armbar submission in the fourth round.

To this day, she considers it one of her crowning achievements.

“That was the time where I bit down on my mouthpiece and shut the world out and just believed in myself,” Waterson-Gomez said. “I was a 10-to-1 underdog against Jessica Penne and nobody thought that I could win that belt. She was bigger, she was a brown belt in jiu-jitsu at the time, I was a white belt, just had my daughter. Everything was stacked against me, but I knew — I knew in my heart that I was going to win. It didn’t matter how and I didn’t have a specific way how. I just knew that I was going to win.

“It was a war. It was back and forth, and at one point she was on top of me and she was ground-and-pounding me and raining down punches trying to split me open. I just remember looking over at my husband and he was just telling me, ‘Calm down. You’re fine.’ I was able to reverse that position and come out in the next round and finish her by submission. It all came to a head. I was kind of a little bit numb after the ref pulled us apart and I remember standing up and just dropping right back to my knees, thinking about all the hard work that had built up to that moment. So that was a beautiful moment for me, for sure.”

Waterson-Gomez followed the Penne win with another strong performance against Yasuko Tamada — “I was a savage in that fight,” she said — defeating Yamada by third-round TKO to defend her title.

Two fights later, Waterson-Gomez made her UFC debut with a submission of Angela Magana, which set her up for her first UFC main event against Paige VanZant at a show in Sacramento, Calif., in December 2016. She needed less than a round to choke Paige VanZant out.

“I love my fight against Paige VanZant because I was out for about a year and a half going through — I broke my hand in my UFC debut, but it didn’t matter because I won,” Waterson-Gomez said. “After that, it was a series of hand breaks, so it was like, ‘Gosh, I just got signed to the UFC and I keep breaking my hand!’ Every time I got a fight, it was like two weeks getting ready to fight and then my hand would break again, so it was like that for a year and a half. So it went from me getting signed to the UFC, riding this incredible high, to nobody knowing who I was, my hand was broken, maybe I need to stop fighting, I was paying all these medical bills.

“Then I got slated to fight Paige VanZant and then it was the main event at this incredible new stadium, huge opportunity, and that fight just all seemed to fall in line perfectly. They call it the zen flow. Call it whatever you want to call it, that’s what it was for me. Everything was happening in slow motion. I could see her movement, and everything just fell into place how it needed to. I was able to secure the submission, got Performance of the Night, and was able to bring extra money home, which is what meant the most to me because I was out for a year and a half costing my family money. So that fight was also very meaningful to me as well.”

At this moment, Waterson-Gomez has no plans to make any more memories as a competitor, though she expects to be involved with the fight game in some capacity. She prides herself on always making time for MMA fans and doesn’t see why that has to change now that she’s retired.

“Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to be in the back in a different arena,” Waterson-Gomez said. “I’d love to get into broadcasting.

“I’d love to be able to still touch the magic and be a part of the MMA world because there’s nothing like it, but to be able to compete, to be in the locker room, to feel those nerves, to hear the crowd, to have Bruce Buffer scream my name, and to be interviewed by Joe [Rogan]. All those things we take for granted. To be stopped by fans, to be asked to take pictures and autographs, those moments are priceless, and I was just really grateful to have those moments.”

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Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov have been embroiled in a deep rivalry, and recent footage further proves that.

When the two icons met inside the cage, Khabib was the newly crowned UFC lightweight king after capturing the vacant strap. McGregor was the opposite, coming back from a two year octagon layoff in hopes of recapturing gold that was once his.

It seems with each passing month, Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov’s rivalry worsens. While it’s old footage, UFC released a video from their fight in 2018.

Fans now get to witness what was said during the intense moments in-between rounds. The video shows a tired McGregor being consoled and pushed by his head coach, John Kavanagh. On the other side of the cage, we see Khabib accompanied by long-term friend and training partner Islam Makhachev.

‘The Eagle’ stares down his opponent before muttering the words ‘f***ing b*tch’. The noise in the arena grew but the dejected Irishman sat and listened to his corners advice — instead of being a great showman as he often is.

Check out the brief but thrilling video of Conof McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov below.

Related: UFC releases audio of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor fight

What’s next for Conor McGregor?

Despite promises of his return, Conor McGregor hasn’t competed under the UFC banner in over three years.

‘The Notorious’ last made the walk to the octagon in a trilogy clash against Dustin Poirier. The bout was cut short when the former two-division UFC champion horrifically broke his leg.

Since then, all eyes have been on a potential comeback for the Dublin native. Rumors began heating up and a potential fight date was confirmed for a Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler matchup.

Unfortunately for fans, this still hasn’t come to fruition and doubts continue to surround the fight. At 36, time isn’t on the side of McGregor and it’s unclear whether he’ll step into the octagon in the future.

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With UFC 305 fast approaching, a preview taking a deeper look at the heated rivalry between middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya takes center stage in the UFC 305 Countdown video.

For Adesanya, the fight serves as a chance to reclaim his throne after he was defeated in a stunning upset against Sean Strickland back in September 2023. With Adesanya out, du Plessis stormed his way to gold with a win over Strickland and now he’ll attempt to do the same to Adesanya with his head coach Morne Visser doing everything to get him ready … including the use of a cattle prod during training.

Check out the wild UFC 305 countdown video to see how du Plessis’ coach makes sure he corrects mistakes in brutal fashion.

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