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Canelo Alvarez’s latest fight booking has drawn the ire of some of combat sports’ most influential names.

The superstar boxer recently ruffled the feathers of UFC CEO Dana White and Conor McGregor recently, with White criticizing MGM for booking Alvarez’s upcoming Sept. 14 fight with Edgar Berlanga in Las Vegas on the same night as UFC 306 at the nearby Sphere, and McGregor targeting Alvarez himself, calling him “a cornflake.”

Saudi Arabian adviser and fight promoter Turki Alalshikh also appears to have beef with Alvarez as he recently announced that he is not pursuing a dream fight between Alvarez and Terence Crawford.

On Wednesday, Alalshikh elaborated on his reason for not wanting to work with Alvarez or his team via a social media post.

“I heard what Canelo said that he respects me but doesn’t like the way we do business. As for him respecting me, it doesn’t matter to me if he does or not.

“As for the way I do business, I know why he doesn’t like it, because I only target big fights at fair prices, so of course anyone who likes easy fights won’t like that. And I know how he feels after losing to Bivol, so he’s been looking for easier fights ever since. Also, I’m not the one who’s afraid of fighting [David] Benavidez or Crawford.

“Therefore, I knew he was wasting our time and making excuses with big amounts of money that can’t be paid. So I’m continuing my way to make big fights that serve the boxing world, and he’s on his way to making easy show-only fights.”

The gist of Alalshikh’s criticism is that he believes Alvarez is intentionally pricing himself out of marquee matchups to avoid difficult opponents. Alalshikh points specifically to Alvarez’s most recent loss, which came against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol in May 2022. Alvarez has rebounded with four consecutive victories, knocking off the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Jermell Charlo, and most recently, Jaime Munguia.

Up next for Alvarez is another defense of his super middleweight titles against Berlanga on Sept. 14. In Alvarez’s 65-fight career, he has lost just twice and also has two draws on his record.

Alalshikh has been aggressive in promoting big-name boxing bouts over the past few years. This past weekend, his Riyadh Season promotion held an event at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, headlined by Crawford fighting Israil Madrimov. He was also a driving force behind former UFC champion and current PFL star Francis Ngannou’s fights with Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, and Fury’s recent championship bout with Oleksandr Usyk.

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Canelo Alvarez will put his WBA, WBC and WBO super middleweight on the line on Sept. 14 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas against the undefeated Edgar Berlanga.  On that same night, in the same city, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will be putting on UFC 306 at the Sphere.  

Alvarez recently stated that he wants $ 200 million too face David Benavidez in a future match.  Former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor took issue with Alvarez’ asking price.  He also questioned the Mexican superstar’s ability to sell pay-per-views.  

“Canelo is a cornflake. He has about 300k buys in him,” McGregor wrote on social media.  “He does not generate nothing near what he seeks to be paid.”

McGregor believes going head-to-head with the UFC in Las Vegas wasn’t a good idea.  He went as far as to say the UFC will run Canelo off the Vegas strip.  

“UFC NOCHE is going to run them from the strip. Sheik Turki was right moving on. CANELO DOESN’T SELL,” McGregor wrote on X.    

McGregor last fought at UFC 264 in July 2021 in a trilogy bout against Dustin Poirier.  McGregor suffered a broken leg in the final seconds of the opening round.  He was expected to return against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 in June, but was forced out of the fight due to a broken toe.  The fight with Chandler is expected to be rebooked but no date has been officially announced.  

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The feud continues
| BJPenn.com

This weekend (Sat., Aug. 10, 2024), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) returns home to UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada for UFC Vegas 95. What happens when an already bad card loses its co-main event? Not much, as it turns out, since the co-main event wasn’t much better than the rest of the card. Losing a second good fight the week of the event didn’t help either, but again, it’s hard to be too downtrodden when nobody was that excited in the first place.

Despite my general inclination to dunk on bad Heavyweight main events — and this one is quite bad! — I do actually believe these fights will be fun. There are genuinely interesting prospects on the card, just ones who should probably still be cutting their teeth on the undercard. Take it for what it is: UFC Vegas 95 will probably be a reasonably entertaining night of fights that don’t matter.

Let’s dig into all the main card fights leading up to the main event:

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Bantamweight: Chris Gutierrez vs. Quang Le

Best Win for Gutierrez? Frankie Edgar For Le? Cody Peterson
Current Streak: Gutierrez lost his last bout, while Le debuts undefeated at 8-0
X-Factor: Le accepted this fight on fight week
How these two match up: Le is replacing Javid Basharat, and it probably won’t go well.

I understand Gutierrez just got mopped up by Song Yadong, but like, Song Yadong is really good! It wasn’t all that long ago that Gutierrez put together an eight-fight unbeaten streak to advance into the rankings, routinely kicking the crap out of his opponents. Le, conversely, has earned his stripes competing for LFA, which is as good as it gets in regards to regional promotions. He’s a solid kickboxer with good jiu-jitsu, but he’s facing a massive step up in competition.

This feels like one of those cost-of-entry debuts. Le wants to be on the UFC roster, so he’s basically agreeing to get his lead leg kicked to pieces on extremely short-notice against a far more experienced opponent. The odds aren’t released yet, but Le will be a huge underdog in need of a miracle.

Hopefully it pays off for “Bang” in the long run, but this Saturday night is probably going to be unpleasant.

Prediction: Gutierrez via knockout

Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Featherweight: Damon Jackson (+180) vs. Chepe Mariscal (-218)

Best Win for Jackson? Pat Sabatini For Mariscal? Jack Jenkins
Current Streak: Jackson won his last bout, while Mariscal is 3-0 in the UFC
X-Factor: Jackson is a crafty veteran good at playing spoiler
How these two match up: See, this is a fun fight regardless of the overall card.

I very much enjoy watching “The Leech” fight. He’s not the most athletic man on the roster, but Jackson knows how to use his range well, and he’s quite excellent on the mat. 30 fights into his professional career, Jackson appears to still be at his best at 35 years of age, which is an impressive accomplishment in its own right.

Mariscal has shown a strong mix of skills as well. He was lucky to escape with the split-decision nod in his last bout versus Morgan Charriere, but even in that difficult scrap, Mariscal showed his grit and smarts to up the pressure, wrestle, and find success when the bout started out strongly in his opponent’s favor.

I’m expecting a close and competitive fight here. Both can compete everywhere, so it’s not as simple as one man taking down the other and easily winning. Jackson has small advantages in height and reach, as well as a large edge in overall high-level experience. Mariscal, however, is the younger and faster man, two attributes that could make a huge difference as well.

Ultimately, what has me leaning towards Mariscal is simple volume. He throws more strikes and does so in combination, whereas we’ve seen Jackson’s output fade late (against Billy Quarantillo, for example). In a close fight where neither man can outright dominate on the floor, volume is very often the deciding factor.

Prediction: Mariscal via decision

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Women’s Bantamweight: Yana Santos (-135) vs. Chelsea Chandler (+114)

Best Win for Santos? Ketlen Vieira For Chandler? Josiane Nunes
Current Streak: Santos has lost three straight, while Chandler won her last bout
X-Factor: Chandler has difficulty making the 135-pound limit
How these two match up: Alright, this fight is probably going to be less good,

Santos is frustrating. She’s shown the ability to play spoiler well (Vieira) or fall apart completely after getting hit (Aldana). She’s a kicks-and-clinch fighter, one who avoids the pocket like her life depends on it … because it often does.

Chandler is now three fights into her UFC career, and all I can really remember is her face-first sprint into the cage opposite Norma Dumont. That’s not fair, seeing as she won her other two fights, but it’s how I feel. When she isn’t meeting obstacles head-on, the Southpaw is actually a reasonably well-rounded prospect with good power and solid grappling.

This is a match up of a fighter trying to halt a skid while the other aims to pick up momentum. Santos hasn’t won a fight since 2021, and she’s looked offensively inept in large portions of her losses. Chandler, conversely, is just eight fights into her pro career and hasn’t even really figured out the cut to Bantamweight yet.

Despite the uncertainty of it all, I like the (minor) upset here. At this stage of her career, Santos mostly wins fights by muscling her opponents to the floor from the clinch. Chandler is strong enough to prevent that from happening easily, and she just has a lot more confidence in the pocket.

When in doubt, size and youth win the day.

Prediction: Chandler via decision

Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Welterweight: Danny Barlow (-375) vs. Nikolay Veretennikov (+295)

Best Win for Barlow? Josh Quinlan For Veretennikov? Ashley Reece
Current Streak: Barlow recently won his UFC debut, while Veretennikov has won three straight on the regional scene
X-Factor: Veretennikov accepted this fight just days ago
How these two match up: A short-notice replacement debuts against a quality prospect.

Barlow is a great example of what works well in MMA. The 29-year-old has just eight pro fights to his name, but he’s athletic, big for the division, and has a great Southpaw cross. What else could a young talent need?!?

Veretennikov is a slugger himself. He actually gave rising contender Michael Morales a solid scrap in his Contenders Series appearance back in 2021, which was his only loss in the last eight years. He’s stopped nine of his 12 victories via knockout and should be able to hold his own in a firefight.

There’s the recipe for an upset here: Veretennikov is more experienced and has significant power himself. Barlow doesn’t do anything overly complicated in the cage, so perhaps the Kazakh athlete can outmaneuver him.

That feels like an unreasonable tall ask on just a few day’s notice, however. Barlow is a quality prospect with great natural instincts. He appears to have a high ceiling, which is enough of a reason to pick “Left Hand 2 God” against an unproven and short-notice opponent.

Prediction: Barlow via decision

‘X-Factor’ Picks for 2024: 30-20 (3)

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

The Mixed Martial Arts Hour is back in your life! Below is a rundown of Wednesday’s show, which begins at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. UK time.

With Ariel Helwani in Paris, Eric Jackman and Conner Burks host the episode and look ahead at this weekend in combat sports including UFC Vegas 95, which goes down from the UFC APEX in Las Vegas on Saturday, as well as looking ahead to next weekend’s UFC 305 card where Dricus du Plessis defends his middleweight title against Israel Adesanya in the main event plus answer your questions in a special On the Nose segment and much more!

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Former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland questioned why people show compassion for the homeless.

Strickland has been known to voice his opinion, whether it is controversial or not. In his latest questionable comments, Strickland wondered why people show compassion to homeless people as he says they are just drug addicts who did it to themselves.

“I just don’t understand the love and compassion for homeless people. These people are drugged out zombies.. They’re not down on there luck trying to get better, they’re drug zombies They bring drugs and crime around your children. Yall need to man up and sack up,” Strickland wrote on X.

After Strickland’s comments, MMA journalist Helen Yee responded by saying she used to volunteer at a homeless shelter and what the former champ said it was not true.

“There is a difference between the guy at a shelter looking for a job and a guy doing the crack zombie walk past a park,” Strickland responded. “Big difference…”

It was a comment that not many fans agreed by Sean Strickland, but the former champ often makes comments that people don’t agree with.

Sean Strickland holding out for a title shot

Sean Strickland returned to the win column back in June with a decision win over Paulo Costa. It was his first fight after dropping his middleweight title by split decision to Dricus Du Plessis.

After the win over Costa, Sean Strickland made it clear that he would be holding out for a title shot.

“I’m going to wait,” Strickland said at the evening’s post-fight press conference (via MMAFighting). “I f*cking paid my f*cking dues. I paid my dues. I got f*cking robbed [at UFC 297] … we all know I got f*cking robbed, at least Dricus doesn’t back up. So I’m going to sit my f*cking ass in the gym and I’m going to be a team player and I’m going to f*cking wait, and I’m going to f*cking wait until they say, ‘Sean, go beat this man.’”

Sean Strickland is 29-6 as a pro and coming off the win over Costa.

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