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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

UFC 301 is in the books, and while there wasn’t a ton of buzz heading into the UFC pay-per-view event, the card was fun to watch. In the end, the Brazilian fans went home happy after Alexandre Pantoja and Jose Aldo picked up unanimous decision wins in the final two fights.

On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel puts a bow on UFC 301, discussing where Pantoja goes, Aldo’s free agency, and other storylines from this past Saturday’s card. Additionally, topics include the announcement that Cory Sandhagen faces Umar Nurmagomedov in the main event of August’s UFC Abu Dhabi card, this Saturday’s UFC St. Louis event headlined by Derrick Lewis and Rodrigo Nascimento, the boxing match between Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal reportedly getting moved to July, Jon Jones favoring a fight with Alex Pereira over Tom Aspinall, and more.

Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and José Youngs.

Watch the show live at 12:30 p.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. PT in the video above.

If you missed the show live, you can still watch above, or listen to the podcast version, which can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Cory Sandhagen is acutely aware of what he’s up against on Aug. 3 when he faces Umar Nurmagomedov in a five-round bantamweight headliner at UFC Abu Dhabi.

“It’s going to be a pain in the ass of a fight, to be honest with you,” Sandhagen said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “It’s going to be a tough one. I’m ready for whatever.

“No one’s gotten to see my grappling. I know that’s going to be something that people talk about, but that’d be a fun thing for me to be able to show off, because I do work with Ryan Hall and it’s a really unique style, and I think it’s going to be a pain in the ass for him to have to deal with. The amount of space that he leaves is going to be a pain in the ass to deal with, but I’ll figure it out. And yeah, I trained 10 weeks already for him and I’m about to hop into another 12-week training camp, so I’ll have some really good answers for things.”

Sandhagen, 32, was previously scheduled to face Nurmagomedov in August 2023 at UFC Nashville, however Nurmagomedov withdrew just weeks out from the event due to a shoulder injury. Sandhagen instead faced and defeated late-replacement Rob Font, but suffered a nasty tear in his right tricep that ultimately kept him sidelined until only recently.

Nurmagomedov, 28, is widely hailed as one of the top up-and-coming talents at 135 pounds. A cousin of UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov and the older brother of Bellator champion Usman Nurmagomedov, the Dagestan native is a perfect 5-0 thus far in his UFC run and 17-0 in professional MMA since kicking off his career in 2016. Nurmagomedov scored a unanimous decision win over Bekzat Almakhan in his most recent outing in March.

“I thought it was good, I was actually just watching it last night,” Sandhagen said of that bout.

“That other dude doesn’t really know how to approach the certain type of grappler that Umar is, and obviously didn’t spend a lot of time on the feet at all, didn’t do a lot of the things that he typically does on the feet at all, probably because he got dropped real early. And yeah, that other guy honestly just didn’t have the right approach in the grappling, and I think it’s pretty straightforward. You just have to know how to fight those guys in the correct way on the ground and you’ll win. But if you do it wrong, they look really, really dominant.”

Sandhagen has long been one of the top-ranked bantamweights in the world and on a mission to capture a UFC belt. He’s won three straight bouts, defeating the likes of Song Yadong and Marlon Vera in addition to his Font win, and said UFC officials made it clear to him that his elusive first shot at undisputed gold against the winner of an anticipated title fight between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili will likely be on the line when he squares off against Nurmagomedov.

“Hunter [Campbell] was telling me, he was like, ‘Look, I don’t know how it’s not you after this fight, after Merab and O’Malley fight.’ So yeah, when I talked to Hunter, that was relayed to me, that he doesn’t see a way that it’s not me after this one,” Sandhagen said.

Sandhagen added that his time on the sidelines has given him extra motivation to fulfill the vast potential he believes is inside of him. He said he’s had plenty of time to marinate on the realization that he’s reached the second half of his UFC career, and knows he only has “five to seven more years” left to be able to attain his goals. He’s eager to start on Aug. 3.

“I’m definitely not in a place where I want fights to go the distance,” Sandhagen said. “That’s one big thing that I’ve been working in this time off, is adding some power into [my strikes] and then adding some power into a couple of the submissions, that I can rip people apart. And I’m really getting that down really well. So I always go into a fight feeling really confident, but now I feel really confident and I feel like I can actually really cause a lot of hurt to someone, so that’s going to be fun for me to show everyone that new stuff.”

“I’m really, really motivated and inspired right now,” he added. “My entire goal in this sport has definitely been to be a world champion. But even on top of that, I want to be something unbelievable that no one’s ever seen in the fighting world. Like, I want to have unbelievable kickboxing paired with unbelievable wrestling paired with unbelievable jiu-jitsu, and I want to make it a better circle and more perfect than anyone has ever done it in the world, dare I say in history. But that’s always been my main goal. And I figure now that I have five years left, it definitely feels like, ‘Hey man, if you’re going to make this push [it starts now].’

“But really, man, my main word that I’ve been really using to motivate myself is, if you’re going to be unbelievable — like, I want to be unbelievable — if you’re going to be that, you don’t get to f*ck around for the next five years. And so it was nice to sit with that, understand, recalibrate my goals in a certain way, and really sit and understand what this back half of my UFC career is going to look like. And like I said, I’m really driven to be that unbelievable fighter that no one’s seen before. So I’m really motivated, man.”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Revenge?
| BJPenn.com

But won’t rule out a jump to NFL.

Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson has been released from WWE.

According to longtime wrestling reporter, Dave Meltzer, Steveson was unable to make the transition from amateur wrestler to professional showman while competing in the promotion’s developmental program and was sent packing earlier this week.

“Gable Steveson is very grateful for the opportunities he had with WWE and would like to thank everybody in the organization who helped him get there,” manager Dave Martin wrote in a statement provided to The MMA Hour.

“He would also like to thank all the fans who have supported him on his professional wrestling journey. Now, Gable is ready to resume competing against elite-level competition and looks forward to sharing big news with you all very soon.”

Steveson, 23, has been training with Henry Hooft and Robbie Lawler at MMA gym Kill Cliff FC in South Florida, according to Martin, and multiple NFL teams have also expressed interest in meeting with the Minnesota Gopher. An announcement on his athletic future is expected in the coming days.

Keep an eye on Twitter.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Chael Sonnen doesn’t think he’s a true UFC Hall of Famer.

At UFC 300, Sonnen received a pleasant surprise when during the main card broadcast, the promotion announced that his fight with Anderson Silva at UFC 117 will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer in the Fight Wing. But for as touched as he was by the moment, “The American Gangster” doesn’t believe he’s a true Hall of Famer. At least not yet.

“Would I consider [myself a Hall of Famer]? No, I wouldn’t,” Sonnen said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “You either are or you aren’t. But no, I don’t think so. I think you have to go in. I don’t think a fight can go in [for you]. I don’t think that makes me a Hall of Famer, I think it makes a Hall of Fame fight. That’s always been my interpretation of it. The guys that go in separately, I feel like are in a different class.”

Silva is already in the Hall — inducted to the Pioneer Wing in 2023 — and whether he considers himself one or not, Sonnen now joins his old rival for their epic battle, which won Fight of the Year honors in 2010.

As has been custom for these sorts of announcements, the UFC made sure Sonnen was in attendance at the event, working as an analyst and personality. Sonnen says the actual reveal came as a complete shock to him.

“I never knew,” Sonnen said when recounting the scene. “Hindsight, everything is so obvious. I was there when they brought Wanderlei [Silva] in [for his Hall of Fame announcement]. They put him in the same chair, they brought him up at the same point in the show. But no, I didn’t know.

“What I was told, even the day before, is, ‘We’re going to come and get you and after the second fight, right before the BMF, you and Megan [Olivi] are going to go do a live thing on the importance of the BMF.’ … Then sure enough, Megan came up — and Megan even had a script. And she said, ‘Hey, is there anything you don’t want me to ask you?’ And then she made notes as I responded to her.

“But the tell was when we went down to the seat, the seat said ‘Chael’ on it. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, for this little tiny spot in the show, their producers are so good that they’ve even got a chair marked for me with my name on it.’ That should have been the tell, but it wasn’t. I didn’t know and I’m really glad. It was a very nice surprise. Very fun moment.”

All in all, it was a wonderful moment for Sonnen, who was arguably the biggest star in the sport during the peak of his career. After the video package rolled, Sonnen appeared to be a little emotional at what just happened, but ever in character, “The Bad Guy” put that down to shock and awe.

“Not that I know of,” Sonnen said when asked if he got emotional. “I couldn’t hear! When you’re so close, you can’t hear the acoustics. Apparently Jon Anik made the announcement — and I heard Anik say something about August 2010 and the time in California, and I remember thinking, ‘I know where I was in August in [2010], I know the time I was in Oakland.’ I remember thinking this, but I never heard them say, ‘You’re in.’ So they were playing the montage and I got up and I whispered to Megan, ‘What’s happening right now?’ She said, ‘You’re in the Hall of Fame!’ My goodness! It was a wonderful moment. You don’t get surprised very many times in life, particularly as an adult … it was awesome. It was a very fun surprise.”

Silva and Sonnen join UFC champions Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Frankie Edgar, and former Pride champion Wanderlei Silva as 2024 Hall of Fame inductees, and will be inducted during the 2024 UFC Hall of Fame ceremony on June 27 at T-Mobile Arena, in Las Vegas.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Urijah Faber recently spoke with us here at Lowkick MMA and gave his thoughts on how the current bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, would fare against what many consider to be his toughest challenger yet: Merab Dvalishvili.

It seems almost fated that O’Malley and Dvalishvili will fight for the title. ‘Suga’ keeps icing everybody the UFC puts in his way, and Dvalishvili has been a seemingly unstoppable force in the 135lbs division for a long time now. ‘The Machine’ is currently riding an astonishing 10-fight win streak inside the UFC, and it’s getting virtually impossible to deny him a title shot now.

The debate of Sean O’Malley vs Merab Dvalishvili is an intriguing one. Some don’t see how O’Malley will be able to contain the near nonstop pressure of ‘The Machine’, while others believe ‘Suga’ will rise to the occasion. Urijah Faber was kind enough to weigh in on this matter and provide his opinion as a UFC hall-of-famer and elite MMA coach.

Urijah Faber weighs in on the matchup between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili

“I think it’s going to be hard to say,” Urijah Faber told LowKick MMA reporter Makoa Goble when asked how O’Malley might handle the offensive wrestling pressure that ‘The Machine’ can bring to the table. “You would think so, but nobody else has been able to (stop the wrestling), even Henry Cejudo.”

Merab Dvalishvili’s smothering wrestling pressure has been unstoppable so far. Many have accurately described ‘The Machine’ as a ‘grinder’, and it is true. For the most part, he simply gives his opponents no quarter and no room to breathe.

“Honestly, that’s a bad matchup for O’Malley,” Faber continued. “Because Merab is so durable. That dude is durable. He’s gone against some killers, and just kind of walked through their best offense. The only time he’s really been hurt is when he knocked himself out, slamming himself, ya know.”

“But, O’Malley has got that It factor. He’s got a finesse about him, he’s got like a matador type of style. Merab is definitely a bull, and If O’Malley can have his perfect fight, he’ll just be tagging him with clean shots and staying on the outside. O’Malley’s grappling is really good. I’ve trained with some of his training partners, and they are really high-level training partners… It could go either way.”

Who do you think will win between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili?

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts