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Paddy Pimblett will look to go undefeated in six Octagon appearances when he returns at UFC 304 on July 27.

His fight with King Green is sure to draw lots of attention, like all of Pimblett’s fights have since the former Cage Warriors champion signed to the promotion and debuted back in 2021.

“The Baddy” quickly became a big name on the UFC roster, but he has recently hinted at the idea of taking his huge profile elsewhere in order to cash in on a big payday.

Pimblett revealed that his clash with Green in Manchester will be the last on his UFC contract, suggesting that he could be tempted to step inside a boxing ring if someone was to offer him a lot of money to do so.

Paddy Pimblett Open To Boxing Jake Paul Once His UFC Contract Expires

During a recent interview with BestOnlinePokerSites, Pimblett once again referenced how he could be tempted to step through the ropes if he gets the right offer.

The Scouse fighter was giving his opinion on Jake Paul’s return to the ring this Saturday night against Mike Perry. He gave props to “The Problem Child” before stating that he also wouldn’t mind stepping in there with him, referencing his mindset when it comes to the fight game.

“Give Jake Paul his dues for that one. I didn’t think he’d fight someone like Mike Perry. He’s fought a load of f****** clowns. Anderson Silva and Tyron Woodley when they were both over 40, Anderson’s a Thai boxer and Woodley’s a wrestler – but Mike Perry is a boxer, he’s a striker, he’s got hands. So I’ll be honest, Jake Paul has gained a little bit of respect from me.

“If Jake Paul sends a contract over for a couple of million dollars and wants to fight me, let’s do it. We’re prize fighters at the end of the day. That’s what people forget. We do this to get paid. It’s all about money.”

In the same interview, Pimblett also gave his reaction to Conor McGregor downplaying the card for UFC 304, which will see the Octagon return to the North of England.

The lightweight contender responded and again referenced wanting to compete in a boxing match if he receives an offer after this next contest.

“That’s a mad one, and I really like Conor – but if anyone ever put his name on a contract and sent it to me, I’d be like, cha-ching! You never know. We’ll see what happens. I’ll be negotiating after this fight. One of these f*****g stupid influencers might get on and want to have me a boxing match for a couple of million. And I’ll be in!”

• Read More: Muhammad Mokaev Believes UFC Didn’t Want Him To Take ‘American Star’ Jon Jones’ Youngest Champ Record

Continue Reading Paddy Pimblett Explains Willingness To Box Jake Paul As Current UFC Contract Nears Its End: ‘It’s All About Money…’ at MMA News.

MMA News

Amid his push to be reinstated as the United States President, Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt. The bullet that hit Trump was just fractions away from ending his life, and UFC veteran Tim Kennedy has pinned the blame on the Secret Service.

News of Trump’s shooting shook the nation and support has been pouring in for the presidential candidate ever since. With the election just four months away, the 78-year-old’s chances are thought to be higher now after July 13.

Tim Kennedy believes Donald Trump needs to make changes to his security detail or he will remain in danger.  According to the former UFC star, Trump’s life was in danger because of the lack of protection that he is being offered.

“Look at the actions on Saturday,” Kennedy said while interview by Chris Williamson. “Which clearly had inept, negligent, incompetent, stupid people, that did an abhorrent, dangerous job of doing the one thing, which is keeping their principle alive.”

“They did nothing. The only reason that man is not dead — that the former president Trump is not dead — is because his head at the very last second changed a few degrees and the bullet went past his ear instead of hitting his temple and taking out the back portion of his brain, which is not survivable.”

Tim Kennedy highlights who’s investigating Trump assassination attempt pic.twitter.com/87774LnB59

— MMAWeekly (@MMAWeeklycom) July 17, 2024

Kennedy then gave insight on why US presidential security needs to be improved.

“What’s supposed to be is this is the most premier security detail on the planet. This is the standard that everybody looks to. The competence, the selection, the training, the personnel…”

“If they were so undermanned, and they were so ill-prepared, and they were so untrained, and the people that were there were following or were hiring with DEI practices, and they were too overweight to be able to get their own weapon in their holster.”

“They’re the ones that are cowering behind the stage or cowering behind the president, while other people that are not even part of that organization are running up the staircase with their guns at the high-ready, looking out into the audience and towards the direction of the gunfire.”

“Completely opposite reactions. It starts becoming very evident about how dangerous this situation not just was but currently is, because it’s not fixed. The same Homeland Security Director is in place, the same Secret Service Director is in place, every single one of those people who have been hired and trained in the past three years are still part of that organization. The group that investigated January 6th and then raided the President’s own home- they’re the ones that are doing the investigation around the assassination. Think about that for a second and the people that are doing that are of the opposing party that’s running for president in November. This is wild.”

Related: Donald Trump gets shot at rally, UFC fighters react

“I’m not disparaging the people that were on the ground on Saturday… I bet you if we lined them up right here and I started interrogating them, they’re like, ‘I did my best.’ And I believe that.”

“They truly are public servants. They’re trying their hardest with the resources they have, with the training that they have, with their god-given gifts and the current physical condition that they’re in, and they were doing the best that they could with what they had. Which just wasn’t enough.”

Tim went on to give props to Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail. “I was just in France with President Biden’s Secret Service detail a month ago. They are so good. They are the A Team to put it mildly. All of those men, all of those guys where the best and the brightest.”

Tim Kennedy later shared an opinion that may be hard to hear for some, but may be needed to keep Donald Trump safe.

“I think for President Trump to survive the next four months to the election and the next six months to the inauguration, he has to bring in private security.”

Watch Kennedy discuss the Trump assassination attempt below.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones entered a plea of not guilty on a pair of misdemeanor charges against him during a virtual hearing in a New Mexico court on Wednesday.

Judge Brittany Maldonado Malott oversaw the proceedings with Jones present on the virtual hearing alongside his attorney Christopher Dodd. Jones plead not guilty to a petty misdemeanor for assault and a misdemeanor for interference with communications following an alleged altercation with drug testing agents who visited his home back in March.

As conditions for his continued release pending a bench trial — with a date still to be determined — Jones was ordered by the court to not violate any laws, he’s not to possess any firearms or dangerous weapons, he’s not allowed to possess or consume any alcohol or illegal drugs, he has to notify the court if his address changes, he has to maintain contact with his attorney and he has to “avoid all contact” with the alleged victims in the case.

Jones’ attorney also explained why a warrant was originally issued in the case after the veteran UFC fighter missed a prior hearing and that was due to his name and address being recorded incorrectly by the court. Once Jones learned what happened, he reached out to his attorney and they immediately contacted the court to ensure all the proper information was provided.

The charges against Jones stem from an alleged incident with a pair of agents representing Drug Free Sport, who arrived at his house on March 30 to collect a sample as part of the UFC’s anti-doping agency.

One of the agents involved identified in the police report as Crystal Martinez claimed that Jones “appeared agitated” after he was unable to provide a urine sample and was offered the opportunity for a blood test instead.

Martinez then claimed Jones then began asking them questions including “if they had money” because he was going to sue them. She also claimed that Jones allegedly grabbed her phone and “started recording them.”

Martinez told police she was “terrified” with Jones standing less than a foot away from her during the alleged incident and she was “afraid Jones might hit her” after she contemplated terminating the drug test and leaving his property.

In response to the initial allegations, Jones vehemently denied the account from his interaction with the drug testing agents.

“I was recently visited by testers while I was celebrating a birthday and taking a nap,” Jones said in April. “Upon waking up, I was caught off guard by the unprofessionalism and protocol by one of the testers, which caused frustration leading me to use some profanity I regret. However, I want to emphasize that at no point did I threaten, get in anyone’s face, raise my voice to anyone, or engage in any form of assault.

“It’s unfortunate that false news has been spread without proper fact-checking. I want to assure you that I will vigorously defend myself against these baseless accusations. The truth is, the incident simply did not occur.”

If Jones is convicted on both charges, he could face less than a year total in jail and fines totaling $ 1,500.

Jones is currently in early preparations for his expected return to the UFC after a torn pectoral muscle knocked him out of his previously scheduled bout in 2023. The reigning UFC heavyweight champion is currently expected to face Stipe Miocic in a title fight with all signs pointing at a date in November at Madison Square Garden in New York.

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Like it or not, Ronda Rousey really may have struggled to evolve as a fighter thanks to the tiring schedule she kept as one of the faces of the UFC during her peak.

That’s according to recently retired UFC legend Matt Brown, who has been both a fierce advocate as well as a critic of Rousey in the past.

Recently, UFC CEO Dana White claimed that Rousey’s inability to keep up with her competition at the end of her career was largely due to her commitment to building the sport, which allowed her opposition to spend all their time preparing for her. Rousey effectively agreed with White, stating that during her UFC career she had to be “everything to everyone,” and as a result, “I had to promote as hard as I trained.”

While he never reached her same level of star status, Brown headlined more than a few events in his day, and he knows the commitments put upon a main event fighter can’t even compare to the workload Rousey carried at the peak of her career.

“He’s not wrong in saying that,” Brown said of White’s comments on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I do have some sympathy for that. She put a heavy load on her shoulders. It came out of nowhere that she wasn’t necessarily asking for, wasn’t necessarily expecting. I do have some sympathy for that personally, or at least empathy. I don’t necessarily feel bad for her for that. I think a lot of that is truthful.

“That started getting to her head. She’s out promoting all the time. Look, when I would a do a media tour or do a lot of interviews leading up to a fight, I would use that as a mental reinforcement. They’d ask questions, and I would say positive things over and over, because you get a lot of the same questions. You use that as a reinforcement. I believe she was probably doing that. But she was saying things that were beyond truthful, which is fine to say it, but she actually started to believe it. She’s doing so much media, repeating that over and over again in her head, then she started to believe it.”

Perhaps the biggest burden that fell on Rousey came closer to her fights when she really ramped up her UFC commitments, which usually included interviews, appearances, and other promotional obligations.

As much as that may have prevented Rousey from training at the same pace as her opposition, Brown also points out that UFC’s push helped transform her into a superstar.

“UFC was probably making her do about double, if not triple the media her opponents were doing,” Brown said. “So leading up to the fight, she’s bearing all the responsibility of the media and her opponents are training. Maybe that’s problematic. But that’s also their job.

“That’s the UFC. They’re a promoter. That’s what they do — promote you. That’s literally their job. They made her a lot of f*cking money. They made her a superstar.”

Brown says the reality of Rousey’s situation isn’t just a right or wrong answer, because both things can be true when it comes to her rapid rise and fall in the sport.

If not for the way she promoted herself and UFC, Rousey may have never become the biggest draw in the sport alongside Conor McGregor. On the flip side, Rousey’s time spent shouting from the rooftops may have stopped from her really grinding in the gym, where she had the chance to become a better fighter.

That’s why Brown backs the argument that Rousey probably suffered as much as she gained from her superstardom, but White bringing it up now isn’t doing her any favors.

“Every reason turns into an excuse when you’re a fighter,” Brown said. “You don’t need to bring it up. I could give you a million excuses for every loss I got. You don’t need to bring it up. It’s valid. It’s legit. It might be an actual reason, but again, when she says it, it turns into an excuse. It’s a valid reason. I’m not going to lie.”

Still, Brown watched enough Rousey fights to know that as dominant as she was at her best, she still had some fundamental flaws in her game that were eventually going to be exposed.

Whether she was doing non-stop media to promote the fight or spending every waking minute in the gym, Brown believes Rousey was still destined to lose to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes in her final two UFC appearances.

“I think even if she got to train fully, I think her losses — like, Holly Holm is still beating her,” Brown said. “I called it before the fight. I was one of the few people that won money on that fight. She’s still not beating Amanda Nunes. You’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. Again, it’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s also an easy out.

“Ronda was the Royce Gracie of women’s MMA. Royce came back, got his ass kicked by Matt Hughes. The sport wasn’t even very evolved at that time, just like women’s MMA. She came back and fought Amanda Nunes. This women’s sport is still evolving. It is what it is.”

Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio

MMA Fighting – All Posts

A welterweight title bout between champion Leon Edwards and second-ranked contender Belal Muhammad headlines the UFC 304 fight card on July 27.  It will be Edwards’ third title defense and Muhammad’s first championship bout.  

The event takes place at Co-op Live in Manchester, England and who is better equipped to give a prediction on the fight’s outcome than arguably the greatest welterweight of all time, Georges St-Pierre?  

“I think Leon is better.  I think Leon is champion for a reason because he’s better,” St-Pierre said on the Anik and Florian Podcast.  

St-Pierre quickly pointed out that the best fighter doesn’t always win.  “It’s not always be best fighter that wins the fight.  It’s the fighter that fights the best the night of the fight,” St-Pierre said.  “There is no certainty in this sport.  You can make the fight ten times and ten different outcomes will happen.”

Edwards captured the 170-pound championship by knocking out Kamaru Usman at UFC 278 in August, 2022 by a head kick in the final round.  In the rematch, Edwards defeated Usman via unanimous decision.  In December, Edwards defended the belt a second time against Colby Covington.   

“Rush” admitted that he may be a little ‘biased’ because he knows Edwards well and has hung out with him on occasion.  But his prediction wasn’t based on who he personally likes more.  

“I know Leon a little bit and I’m a little bit biased because I’ve hung out with him a few times, and he’s an extremely nice person, and I had a great time,” St-Pierre said.  

St-Pierre retired from mixed martial arts after becoming a two-division champion by defeating Michael Bisping at UFC 217 in November 2017.  A month later, St-Pierre announced that he was vacating his UFC middleweight title after 34 days of holding the belt.

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A brave shout
| BJPenn.com

Former UFC featherweight champion, Max Holloway, is expected to challenge reigning 145-pound titleholder, Ilia Topuria, for the 145-pound strap at one of the promotion’s upcoming pay-per-view (PPV) cards. While there have been rumors of a potential clash at Noche UFC inside The Sphere, the more likely destination is UFC 307 in Salt Lake City.

Sorry, Jean.

Holloway opened as the +150 betting underdog against Topuria, according to BetOnline.ag, with Topuria coming out of the gate as the -175 favorite. Expect that line to fluctuate (in both directions) as we get closer to fight night. As of this writing, the promotion has yet to make the contest official — though “Blessed” (26-7) faces little competition.

Especially after this mind-bending performance.

This marks the first title defense for the undefeated Topuria (15-0), who captured the crown with a second-round finish over Alex Volkanovski at UFC 298 back in February. “El Matador” has been criticized for dragging his feet in the months following his crowning achievement but can put those complaints to bed with a Holloway booking at UFC 307.

Stay tuned.

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