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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Luana Pinheiro might be one of the lightest strawweights on the UFC roster as she struggles to stay heavy enough to compete in the 115-pound class.

Pinheiro faces Gillian Robertson at this weekend’s UFC Vegas 100 in Las Vegas, her seventh trip to the octagon as a strawweight — including the sole appearance on Dana White’s Contender Series —, and celebrated the possibility of having the 105-pound division in the UFC in the future. White has mentioned the company “cultivating talent” with lighter talent in South America and Asia.

“I never go over 121 pounds, so [atomweight] would be great,” Pinheiro said in an interview with MMA Fighting. The Brazilian only started cutting weight cut two days before the official UFC Vegas 100 weigh-ins, a smooth and harmful process. “I eat one pound of food every day for lunch, and another pound for dinner. And three açaí bowls a day with coconut water, peanut and coconut water. I just can’t eat more than that, you know?

“My doctor says my metabolism is as fast as a Ferrari. I even did some blood tests at the UFC P.I. once to check my thyroid and it came back normal. I weighed 118 pounds at the time, and no [strawweight] weighs that. It’s hard to stay at 121 pounds. Can I eat like a normal person? [laughs]. I eat 0.250 pounds of rice for lunch during fight week, and again on dinner, and [other fighters] stop eating that a month before the fight. I eat fighters hitting pads on fight week and almost dying, and I don’t suffer that much.”

Pinheiro said the heaviest opponent she’s faced so far in the UFC was Amanda Ribas, who has also competed at flyweight inside the octagon — and once gained a whooping 26 pounds between weigh-ins and fight night. Pinheiro didn’t feel power and strength were an issue against Ribas or any other, but moving down to atomweight could speed her rise towards a UFC belt.

“The girts are fast in this division,” Pinheiro said. “There are a lot of 115 girls that are shorter than me, but I don’t know if they are light. Tecia Torres is small, for example, but can she make 105? I think 105 would be a great addition to the UFC. Some 115 girls weigh 139 pounds, and I was never that heavy in my entire life. I would have to suffer a little bit [to make 105] because I’ve never had to do a two-month diet in MMA before. I was at a churrascaria a week before the fight, so that’s not a problem for me right now.”

Robertson, her opponent Saturday, holds the record for most submission wins amongst women in the UFC, so any weight advantage in the grappling department could play a factor during exchanges on the ground. Yet, the Brazilian judoka said “I believe I can be faster than her for being lighter.”

“Usually, my opponents don’t try to take me down, they tend to trade and strike more, but that’s what she does best,” Pinheiro said. “She has a lot of submissions, that’s her thing, but you have to take me down to grapple with me. I’ve trained takedown defense and every escape there is. I think it’s a good match-up. She has been submitted before, and I believe I have all the tools to beat her by knockout — she doesn’t like to get hit that much — and in scrambles, being lighter and faster. I believe I can submit her, too.”

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For years, Dana White has praised Jon Jones as the greatest fighter of all time. The UFC 309 heavyweight title fight between Jones and Stipe Miocic, held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, has been promoted as the bout that could finally settle who deserves the title of greatest heavyweight fighter ever. UFC CEO Dana White has repeatedly referred to Jones as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the promotion.

However, some fight fans believe Jones doesn’t deserve that top spot due to his inactivity, arguing that fighters like Alex Pereira and Islam Makhachev might be more deserving. For Jones, though, just being mentioned in this conversation is an honor.

“It’s just an honor, that’s all,” Jones told Kevin Iole with a smile. “It’s a huge honor to even be considered, at 37 years old, one of the most well-rounded fighters in the sport. I’m just very grateful that my boss—a man who’s sat front row for all our fights—sees that in me.”

Jones went on to share White’s sentiments: “For [Dana] to say, ‘Hey, listen guys, trust me. I know what I’m watching. I know what I’m looking at, and in my opinion, if Jon was the same size as a lot of these other guys, Jon would be in the mix,’ is just incredible.”

Jones recognizes that with many new fans entering the sport, there’s a “what-have-you-done-lately” mentality. He appreciates that White acknowledges his full body of work, not just his recent performances.

“I’m grateful that he’s not letting the naysayers or some fans push me to the side. I’ve done a tremendous amount of work for this company—at a very young age, at middle age, and now even at an older age. I’m just grateful to be recognized.”

Continue Reading Jon Jones: I’m ‘Grateful’ For Dana White’s Strong Support Of No. 1 P4P Status at MMA News.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Bo Nickal loves a challenge.

The highly touted UFC prospect and three-time NCAA wrestling champion was a few months away from challenging for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team but rather than just sit around and wait, he decided to challenge the best grappler on the planet to a match. At the time, Nickal had already decided on a future move to MMA so he reached out to Gordon Ryan about potentially training together so he could start adding new weapons to his arsenal.

“The match the way it came about, I had talked to Gordon a few times about training together because I was like this guy’s the best in the world,” Nickal revealed on Demetrious Johnson’s MightyCast. “For me, that’s the type of people I want to surround myself with and want to learn from. So knowing I was going to transition over to MMA I was like that’s a guy I would like to train with.

“He was competing at an event and he had a big fight and then it fell out and then another guy came in and it fell out. It was like two or three guys had pulled out of the fight for whatever reason I just DM’d him like ‘hey bro, I don’t know what the issue is why nobody will go against you but count me in, I’ll do it. Tell the promoter to hit me up.’ I just wanted to challenge myself and feel it out.”

While Nickal was already an incredibly accomplished wrestler, he had no real knowledge about Brazilian jiu-jitsu much less what it would be like going against an all-time great like Ryan.

So to ensure he was prepared for the grappling match, Nickal decided he should learn a few things.

“So [Gordon] got me in touch with the promoter and they’re like ‘yeah, this would be great, let’s do it,’” Nickal said. “I was like well I better start practicing jiu-jitsu. So I did three jiu-jitsu practices.

“I had never even done any MMA training, just wrestling. I knew some guys in Pittsburgh that had a [Brazilian jiu-jitsu] gym, pretty high level, some pretty high level guys so I was like hey, try to show me some stuff and we’ll get after it.”

Despite a whopping total of three lessons before setting foot on the mat against the consensus best grappler in the world, Nickal still managed to hold his own.

Thanks to his wrestling skills, Nickal was able to fend off many of Ryan’s biggest offensive moves and he even surprised “The King” with a huge suplex that brought him crashing down to the canvas in a dramatic moment during the match.

Unfortunately, Nickal’s inexperience eventually caught up to him after Ryan latched onto a triangle choke that finished the match that nearly went the full 15 minute time limit.

As much as he wanted to win, Nickal admits he still walked away with a valuable lesson learned when it came to what he needed to know for his future in MMA.

“It was bittersweet,” Nickal said. “I wanted to go in there and shock the world and win and just [represent] wrestling and be like ‘see, jiu-jitsu doesn’t work.’ But it also taught me I do need to work on that part of my game and how important it is because it’s very helpful in a fight to be able to decide where the fight goes but for me, I’ve always been a finisher. With wrestling it was always go for the pin, get the pin and so I realized in MMA if I’m going to take a guy down, you can TKO a guy of course but guys are pretty tough. They’re durable and they’re good at not getting hit too much. So you’ve got to figure out ways to pass, to get position, to get the mount, take the back and submit guys. If you’re really good, I think the path of least resistance to get a lot of wins and honestly just to save yourself some effort and some energy and save yourself some brain damage.

“For me, I can throw everybody on the ground and if I found out how to get my jiu-jitsu as good as my wrestling, taking guys’ backs and submitting them, it’s no danger for me and easy wins. So that’s the way I look at it now. My wrestling is world class. I think my jiu-jitsu can become world class very quickly and then as I continue on this journey in martial arts, I’ll develop the striking as well.”

Nickal, who sports a perfect 6-0 record in his MMA career with a fight scheduled against Paul Craig at UFC 309, has continued to learn and evolve in his grappling ever since that match against Ryan.

Perhaps one day, he hopes they might even meet again.

“Maybe in the future we’ll get a rematch,” Nickal said. “I have a blue belt now so I have a little bit more experience.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Neil Magny has been a part of nearly every UFC era, and with the benefit of hindsight, the UFC Vegas 100 headliner would like to see an interim welterweight title fight while Belal Muhammad recovers from his injury.

Magny faces surging contender Carlos Prates in the main event of Saturday’s card at the APEX. After a bone infection scratched Muhammad from the UFC 310 main event against Shavkat Rakhmonov, the scheduled challenger called to stay on the Dec. 7 card and fight for interim gold. Magny likes the idea, and with the depth of the 170-pound division at the moment, he feels it’s the best move for welterweight.

“I think the interim title shot just kind of one of the things that keeps the division moving,” Magny told MMA Fighting. “It keeps everything flowing. With as much talent that we have in in the UFC, in this division, it’s almost unfair to keep it tied up for so long. I get that it’s very unfortunate that Belal got injured. It wasn’t anything that he did in particular to lead himself in that position. So for him, it sucks that he’s injured, but for the rest of the division to keep it going, I feel like the interim shot is necessary.”

Magny has faced Rakhmonov in the past, with Rakhmonov submitting Magny in the second round in June 2022. The 33-fight veteran has faced—or trained with—most of the top contenders in the division.

If the 37-year-old had the UFC welterweight matchmaking pencil, he would schedule an interim title fight while Ian Machado Garry and Joaquin Buckley take care of their business at UFC Tampa.

“At this point, if you don’t have the interim title shot in his absence,, it becomes a logjam at the top of the division where it’s like, ‘All right, well, who’s next in line for a title?” Magny said. “Then you have, arguably, anyone from one through five should or could be in a fight for that title right now. I mean, you have Usman, you have Leon Edwards, you have Sean Brady, you have Jack Della Maddalena, you have all these guys that are actually able to make a case to be a legit No. 1 contender fight for the title at this point.

“But at the end of it, doing the interim title, I think that’s the right call to make just kind of keep things moving along and allow the UFC to have a few more contenders.”

For Magny, he knows he’s far away from title contention—and that’s OK. In his eyes, it’s all about being the best fighter, mentor, parent, business owner, and overall person he can be.

Whether he was offered Prates—3-0 with three finishes since debuting earlier this year—or anybody else, it didn’t matter. Magny agreed to headline on this card, and on this date specifically, and did so before he had a dance partner on the books.

“It feels great to be here,” Magny explained. I was just talking to someone the other day about just the different eras of of UFC that I’ve been in — from the SPIKE TV days to Fox Sports days, to this deal with ESPN. Then you have the COVID era, and now we’re moving on to the next era of of UFC. I’m just very grateful to be a part of it all. I’m very fortunate to be a part of it all, but getting to the fight this weekend, it’s great.

“It’s a great opportunity. I get to headline in Las Vegas, UFC [Vegas 100], and it’s Veteran’s Day weekend, and being one of the, like, three actual U.S. war veterans on the UFC roster currently, being able to headline this card this weekend, it’s like, man, the stars are lining for me. Like it’s a great opportunity to out there and represent, to go out there and just do my thing. I’m very grateful for it.”

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Big Plans
| BJPenn.com

Undefeated boxing prospect Austin DeAnda captured a key unanimous decision win over DeAundre Pettus last night (Fri., Nov. 8, 2024) at “Davis vs. Lemos” from inside Scope Arena in Norfolk, Va., but he had to chop a lump of his hair off to get it done.

Friday’s card was a pretty good one so it was a great chance for DeAnda to extend his unbeaten streak to 16-0 and gain more fans in the process. DeAnda was the betting favorite to take care of business in front of a hometown crowd, but not everything went according to plan for the 21-year-old fighter.

Midway through the fight, DeAnda was in his corner getting advice from his coaches. There seemed to be a brief discussion and then all of a sudden someone started cutting DeAnda’s hair off. It was getting in the way during some of the exchanges, but it’s very rare to see a boxer get a haircut while on the stool in the middle of a fight. The chopped off hair was tossed into the ringside water bucket and the bout went on.

Check out the weird moment in the above video player.

Luckily, DeAnda’s mid-fight haircut paid off. The undefeated prospect went eight full rounds against Pettus and ended up walking away with the unanimous decision win. It was the third victory of 2024 for DeAnda while ending a two-fight win streak for Pettus. The only negative for DeAnda is the fact that he has to grow his hair back out after losing more than half of it on Friday night.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts