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Conor McGregor may be hinting at a return date from a broken toe, but Dana White doesn’t even want to entertain that idea until he knows the Irish superstar is actually healthy again.

After dropping out of his scheduled return against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 on June 29, McGregor made a public appearance at the Bellator Dublin card Saturday to corner teammate Sinead Kavanagh. Backstage, McGregor — who arrived wearing a pair of slippers rather than shoes — offered a tentative timeline for his return but also mentioned that the treatment for his broken toe actually ended up causing him more pain than expected.

“August, September … I’d love,” McGregor told Severe MMA. “I’m in recovery mode, it’s three weeks to the day, it happened three weeks ago today. I’m still here rocking around in the slippers. They’re not bad slippers, thankfully and they’re cozy enough but I can’t get into a shoe yet. They put stem cells in my foot. They came and took it from the back and put it in my foot, 20 mg of stem cells out of my own back, from the bone marrow in and right into the break.

“My f*cking toe is sore and I don’t know if the stem cells into the break was the right move because you know the way chicks put the filler in their face [and it’s all swollen], my f*cking baby toe looks like that. I don’t think it’s the swelling anymore. I think it’s just the stem cells in my toe.”

Considering it’s already late June, McGregor returning in August or September might be ambitious but regardless, the UFC CEO isn’t even considering that right now.

Immediately after McGregor dropped out of his fight, White declared that he wouldn’t begin discussing a new date for his return until the former two-division UFC champion was healthy again. The same goes for entertaining the idea about adding a new date to the UFC’s calendar just to accommodate McGregor’s ideal time to fight again.

In other words, White is sticking to his guns on that subject.

“I don’t know right now,” White said addressing McGregor at the UFC Saudi Arabia post-fight press conference. “Our schedule is laid out. We’ll see. I’m not doing anything until I know that Conor is healthy. It’s not even worth talking about.

“What about September? What about October? He’s not ready. So why even talk about that?”

White also wasn’t interested in addressing McGregor’s opponent, although all signs seem to point towards Michael Chandler still getting that fight whenever it actually happens.

As much as he wants McGregor back, White doesn’t want to broach the topic of dates, locations, or opponents until he knows the biggest draw in UFC history has a clean bill of health.

With McGregor still limping around on a broken toe, that obviously hasn’t happened yet.

“I’m not thinking about Conor fighting anybody right now,” White said. “I have no time frame, I have nothing. McGregor’s not even healed yet. McGregor’s hurt.”

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Lukas Bukovaz’s girlfriend turned down his in-cage proposal at Clash of the Stars in Czech Republic, claiming the fighter cheated on her. Brutal.

It was a rough night in the cage for Czech fighter Lukas Bukovaz, who lost his fight at local event Clash of the Stars and then had his marriage proposal shot down in front of a crowd of amused onlookers.

Lots of women aren’t fans of public proposals, and it seems Bukovaz’s girlfriend is amongst those who don’t like to be put on the spot … especially when they believe they’ve been cheated on by their significant other.

Jan Michalek won a two-on-one fight against Bukovaz and Patrik Horvath (yes, really), but that didn’t stop “Bukys” from shooting his shot and getting brutally refused. Video from the event showed the pink-haired fighter down on his knee making the proposal, and things immediately didn’t look good as his girlfriend covered her face in embarrassment.

“Based on everything that’s happened, I think probably not,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

The crowd erupted in boos and someone outside the cage went so far as to try and throw water on her. She held up her hand to explain, claiming Bukovaz had cheated on her and even dropped the woman’s name.

“I didn’t cheat on her,” Bukovaz said in a backstage interview afterward, which he posted to his Instagram along with the initial video of her refusal. “Bukys” has over 16,000 followers on the platform, and with this kind of content we can see why. Was it staged for clicks? We can only hope so.

As usual, European MMA is undefeated at delivering some of the strangest moments in combat sports.

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We need to actually appreciate all these MMA fighters. We don't see it but they've all worked so hard to make a living out of this sport, and most of them don't even make enough having to sacrify many things. submitted by /u/Wisithewizard [link] [comments]

MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Johnny Walker appears to be OK after suffering a brutal knockout at the hands of Volkan Oezdemir at UFC Saudi Arabia.

The light heavyweight bout opened the main card of the promotion’s first ever event in Riyadh, and a nasty uppercut from Oezdemir sent Walker to the canvas, which led to the first-round knockout win for the one-time title challenger.

Following the fight, Oezdemir posted a photo with Walker, stating the respect he has for his opponent. Walker would comment on the post expressing how disappointed he was in his performance, even going as far as to apologize to Oezdemir.

“Thanks bro,” Walker said to Oezdemir. “Sorry to [not] give you proper fight. I’m disappointed.”

Oezdemir now has two straight victories for the first time since 2019, while Walker has now been stopped in two straight bouts. Prior to that, Walker was unbeaten in four appearances, including stoppage wins over Ion Cutelaba and Paul Craig.

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A UFC movie directed by Zack Snyder? Why isn’t that already a thing?!

Following the promotion’s successful debut in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night, Turki Alalshikh, Chairman of the country’s General Entertainment Authority, has some pretty big plans for the future. Joining play-by-play man Jon Anik and UFC CEO Dana White, Alalshikh revealed some of his goals, including increasing the stadium capacity to 30,000 and featuring women on the card when the UFC returns to Riyadh in 2025.

Alalshikh also likes the idea of producing a UFC movie, already having the perfect director in mind.

“I want to have a meeting with [White] and the director Zack Snyder, who’s a friend,” Alalshikh said. “We want to talk about doing a big movie about the UFC. Like The Cinderella Man, something like this. I would like to convince Zack Snyder he liked the idea and also convince Dana” (h/t MMA Mania).

Snyder is one of the more polarizing directors in Hollywood. After earning critical acclaim with films like Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300, and Watchmen, Snyder has seen fans slowly turn on him, particularly after his poorly received take on beloved DC Comics characters with movies like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Still, Snyder has a strong fan base with many embracing his dark take on the lighter side of entertainment.

Could Zack Snyder Deliver the next big MMA movie?

In more recent years, Snyder has focused on making original films, such as the recently reassessed Sucker Punch, and a handful of movies for Netflix, including Army of the Dead and his two-part Rebel Moon saga.

One thing is for sure; Hollywood could use a few more quality films with MMA as the focus. In 2011, fight fans were gifted The Warrior, a critically acclaimed film starring Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, and Nick Nolte, who received an Academy Award nomination for his riveting performance.

A year later, we got Here Comes The Boom, a comedy film with Kevin James as a school teacher who takes to fighting to save his friend’s job.

In 2020, avid MMA fan Halle Berry starred in Bruised, a passion project distributed by Netflix. Berry, who also directed the film, stars as Jackie Justice, an ex-MMA fighter who gets back into the cage after being forced to take responsibility for the son she gave up years earlier.

The movie featured former UFC flyweight world champion Valentina Shevchenko, but failed the wow critics, amassing a 50% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a not-much-better 56% audience score.

Is Zack Snyder the man to bring us another good MMA movie?

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Former two-time middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will have the opportunity to become a three-time titleholder when he faces current champion Dricus du Plessis in the UFC 305 main event on Aug. 18.  Another former titleholder wants to be the backup fighter for the title bout in case one of them gets injured, or has to back out.  

Fresh off his UFC Saudi Arabia first-round knockout win over Ikram Aliskerov on Saturday, Robert Whittaker said that he’d be down to serve as the UFC 305 title fight backup fighter.  

“I’m healthy.  I’m hearty.  Let’s go,” Whittaker said in his post-fight octagon interview.  UFC CEO Dana White approved of the idea of Whittaker being the backup fighter for UFC 305 in Perth, Australia.  “We’d love to have him.” White said during the UFC Saudi Arabia post-fight press conference.  

Du Plessis captured the 185-pound championship at UFC 297 in January.  He narrowly defeated Sean Strickland by split decision and the UFC 305 title fight against Adesanya will be du Plessis’ first title defense.  

UFC 305 takes place at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia on Aug. 18.  The middleweight title bout headlines the fight card.  It will be the fight promotion’s third time hosting an event in Perth.  

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Michael Bisping is doubling down on his criticism of former opponent Kelvin Gastelum.

In the featured bout of UFC Saudi Arabia this past Saturday, Gastelum defeated Daniel Rodriguez via unanimous decision in a middleweight bout. The fight was originally set to take place at welterweight, but Gastelum has issues making the cut, and Rodriguez agreed to the fight taking place up a weight class.

During the fight, Bisping served as a color commentator and was firing verbal shots about Gastelum throughout the fight after — once again — having issues on the scale. On the UFC’s post-fight show, Bisping continued to express his disappointment in Gastelum.

“Listen, Dominick Cruz, if you were speaking to him, he would’ve said that people miss weight on purpose, [that] they use it as a strategy because Kelvin Gastelum clearly wasn’t dieting throughout training camp,” Bisping said.

On his Instagram stories following the fight, Rodriguez said the weight difference was a clear factor in the fight — most notably in the third round where Gastelum landed some fight-clinching takedowns. “DRod” also said that he ended up getting a new six-fight deal, a pay raise, and “30 percent” of Gastelum’s purse for competing in an unfair situation.

Bisping praised Rodriguez for his efforts, and even gave Gastelum credit for his ability to keep his gas tank in check. But, that’s were the praise ended.

“[Rodriguez] wanted to weigh in at 170 pounds, whereas Gastelum clearly wasn’t doing that throughout the training camp, so therefore you’re stronger, you’re more athletic, you recover from your training sessions quicker, and you come into the fight stronger and heavier,” Bisping explained. “Both men had a tremendous fight, I thought Daniel Rodriguez should be proud of himself, [he] really, really pushed Gastelum to the limit.

“Gastelum — even though he was heavy — still managed to keep a good pace for 15 minutes. The takedowns in Round 3 were kind of essential because Rodriguez was starting to find the mark in the cage. It was a great fight, it really was, both men should be proud of themselves.

“But Kelvin Gastelum — regarding the weight situation — should be ashamed of himself.”

It was the fourth time Gastelum has had struggles with the scale as he missed weight by nearly two pounds for his June 2014 matchup with Nico Musoke, had a huge miss for his UFC 180 bout with Tyron Woodley that ended up being a 180-pound catchweight, a huge miss that led to his scheduled UFC 205 bout with Donald Cerrone being cancelled the day before the historic card at Madison Square Garden.

UFC CEO Dana White also expressed his disappointment towards Gastelum during the post-fight press conference, citing other fighters on the UFC Saudi Arabia card going through incredible adversity to make weight in much shorter order.

“You got kids taking fights on a week’s notice, jumping on cards, coming over here and making weight and Kelvin doesn’t make weight,” White said. “It’s extremely disappointing.”

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