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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Brandon Moreno is back in the cage sooner than expected, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t taken time to reflect on his recent struggles.

The two-time flyweight champion had established a routine of fighting once every six to seven months over the past few years, and his return in Saturday’s UFC Edmonton main event comes after a slightly longer break after most recently fighting in February. At UFC Mexico City, Moreno lost a split decision to Brandon Royval and the result prompted Moreno to take a step back from thinking about competing.

“I think it was the break point,” Moreno said at UFC Edmonton media day on Wednesday. “That’s it. I said this before, I don’t want to put any excuse. I think Brandon Royval is doing an amazing job right now. He’s a tough guy with amazing rhythm in the middle of the fight, but I don’t know, I feel like that night was that kind of night when your mind is not there. That’s very frustrating because I did all the training camp, the elevation, I leave my family for two months, really nice sparring sessions, everything, and then in the fight I wasn’t there. My body was there, but my mind—I don’t know, that’s very frustrating for me.”

“No excuses,” he added. “I don’t want to come here and start to put a lot of excuses. I think it’s very normal between fighters, maybe you can ask other fighters, ‘Did you have fights where you feel like your mind wasn’t there?’ They’re going to say yes, and that night was one of mine.”

The loss to Royval put Moreno on a two-fight losing streak, just the second time in his career he’s suffered consecutive losses, with Alexandre Pantoja recently defeating Moreno for the flyweight title at UFC 290. Both of those losses came via split decision in exceedingly close five-round fights.

Moreno planned to take time off after the Royval fight, but his competitive itch kept flaring up. It’s thanks to his team and family that he was able to stay away from the octagon as long as he has.

“I think it’s very easy, I’m a competitor,” Moreno said when asked what made him come back sooner than expected. “When I decide to take a little break of competition, everything was fine in that moment, but after that, three weeks after, I’m starting to think again, ‘Damn, I want to fight. I want to fight. I want to fight.’ Then it’s when my wife, my family helped me a lot with that.

“My wife and my coaches like, ‘Hey, you have to take a break. You have to take it serious. You have to rest, be with your family, with your daughters. Make more nice moments with them first.’ So I had to calm myself. I had this fight with myself in my mind to take this break serious.”

On Saturday, Moreno fights the streaking Albazi, a contender coming off a lengthy layoff of his own that is yet to lose in five UFC appearances. Though the fighters appear to be heading in opposite directions, Moreno isn’t discouraged by his past two outings; rather, he felt his competitive performances were evidence that his best is still to come.

“It’s crazy—and I’ve been talking with my coaches about this—I feel very frustrated because even when I lost my last two fights, I feel my prime,” Moreno said. “I feel very strong. I feel stronger, with better technique, with more knowledge about the fight game, just the result is not what I’ve been having [before]. So now my goal is to show that to the world. To back up all my words, to back up all my hard work at the gym and that’s it.”

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Interim title
| BJPenn.com

Jon Jones is the UFC heavyweight champion — but is starting to feel like a 205-pounder without the weight cut, thanks to a new-and-improved training regimen that has “Bones” hovering around the 240-pound mark.

“240 pounds, fast and strong,” Jones wrote on Instagram. “I used to walk around at 235 pounds as a light heavyweight. This almost feels like a light heavyweight fight without the weight cut.”

Glad to see those skinny-fat days are behind him.

Jones will defend the 265-pound title against former heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic atop the UFC 309 pay-per-view (PPV) event, locked and loaded for Sat., Nov. 16, 2024 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Assuming we don’t encounter another injury setback.

Whether or not the 37 year-old Jones retires from competition — or moves on to face impatient interim champion Tom Aspinall — all depends on his championship performance next month inside “The World’s Most Famous Arena.”

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Brendan Schaub has no regrets about his retirement from MMA, although the journey getting there was a little rocky.

Not so much because Schaub struggled with the decision but rather due to a public intervention of sorts held by his friend and UFC color commentator Joe Rogan just days after a 2014 loss to Travis Browne. The podcast that served as an episode of Schaub’s long-running show The Fighter and the Kid ended up as an emotionally charged conversation about why the Ultimate Fighter finalist should call it a career.

“The reality of your skill set, where you’re at now, I don’t see you beating the elite guys,” Rogan told Schaub during the episode. “I don’t see you beating Cain Velasquez. I don’t see you beating Junior dos Santos. I don’t see you beating Fabricio Werdum.

“It’s not that you don’t try hard, that you’re not dedicated, that you’re not disciplined, that you’re not intelligent. There’s shit that other people can do that you can’t do.”

Schaub responded defiantly with plans to return to the UFC, but ultimately that fight against Browne served as the final appearance of his career. A decade removed from that infamous confrontation, Schaub admits it was incredibly difficult to hear Rogan’s words in that moment but looking back now he’s thankful that his friend was brutally honest with him.

“When you’re fighting especially at that level, the UFC level, especially these days everyone is so damn good, you have to be all in,” Schaub told MMA Fighting. “I think when it comes to me in particular, especially when Rogan was talking to me, Rogan knew I had this other set of skills. I think, not to take anything away from Rogan, I think he knew I was going to be successful outside of fighting. He’s like, ‘Dude, you can do all this stuff, what are you doing?’ He was right. He was 100 percent right.

“At the time, I was mad. My mom and my brother and dad were so mad at him for doing that publicly and I told him that. Now they thank him. They’ll call him, they’ll thank him because he’s the one that really helped me out with that stuff.”

Since retiring from fighting, Schaub has continued to produce his podcast alongside comedian and actor Bryan Callen as well as launching his own YouTube channel. He developed Food Truck Diaries — a series that he previously did with Showtime where he would sit down with a fighter, grab some food and engage in a long conversation rather than just a standard interview.

Schaub also got involved in standup comedy among many other endeavors that have kept him plenty busy since he stopped fighting.

While retirement isn’t a “one size fits all” for every athlete, Schaub had plans for a career outside the cage. That’s one of the reasons why he remains satisfied with his decision to call it a career while numerous fighters struggle to walk away.

“The fighters, it’s a special breed to be a fighter, especially at that level,” Schaub said. “It can’t be your entire identity. That’s how I’ve been able to bounce around and do different things. I never just say I’m a football player, I’m a fighter, I’m this, I’m that, I’m a comic, podcaster. I like a bunch of different things. So I never just put myself in one lane. I’m OK getting backlash going, ‘Oh he’s not really into whatever it is, off-roading, he’s not really into comedy, he’s not really into podcasting, oh he’s just a football player fighting.’ All good, people are going to do that stuff.

“I think the No. 1 issue, these fighters get so wrapped up and their identity is just as a fighter. There’s some great personalities out there. Great personalities.”

Despite being retired for the better part of the past decade, Schaub still gets calls every now and again gauging his interest in a comeback.

The most recent instance was an offer from Jorge Masvidal’s Gamebred Bareknuckle MMA and Schaub admits he was tempted in the moment — mostly due to the financial windfall it would have earned him.

“We had Jorge Masvidal and his manager Dean [Toole] on and I work for them now doing commentating but that’s how that came about. They offered me a fight,” Schaub said. “I’m like bare-knuckle MMA? They’re like yeah. I was like you don’t have enough money, there’s no way. He goes, ‘Give us a number.’ I gave them an outlandish number and he was like dead serious, just looked me in the eye and goes ‘OK.’ I’m like what?

“For a second I’m like shit, I’ll just hit the road now get some road work in now, let’s get going, that’s an insane amount of money. I just can’t force myself to do it. At 41, my kids, I can’t take another blow to the head. I’m good. I don’t need to be Elon Musk or ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone rich. I’m good. I’m good where I’m at.”

Schaub also revealed for the paycheck he would have received that a fight against another top-level opponent would be required and that only further justified his decision to pass.

“They’re like, ‘For that number you’re going to have to fight [Junior dos Santos] or Derrick Lewis.’” Schaub said. “I’m like no, hard pass. I don’t need those problems.”

With no plans to ever fight again, Schaub admits under the right circumstances he would be tempted, but every one of those scenarios is low risk, high reward. If that component isn’t involved, Schaub is happy doing exactly what he’s doing right now, which doesn’t involved getting punched in the head for a living.

“It’s a shame I’m so big,” Schaub said. “Because if a Logan Paul or a Jake Paul came about or a KSI, sign me up! When you’re talking about the [Junior dos Santos] and Derrick Lewis’ of the world? Hell no.

“Now some YouTuber? I’ll play ball there and make all the money and get the views. To fight these actual killers? It ain’t happening. I’ve got kids.”

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The UFC has reportedly turned to a familiar face in Alex Pereira after losing its headline attraction for the final pay-per-view event of the year.

Reports emerged on Thursday regarding a potential injury suffered by UFC Welterweight Champion Belal Muhammad, who was booked to headline UFC 310 in Las Vegas on Dec. 7 in defense of his title against Shavkat Rakhmonov.

“Remember the Name” subsequently confirmed the disappointing news on social media, posting an image of a gruesome bone infection that hospitalized him and will keep him out of training for the next six weeks.

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A post shared by Belal Muhammad (@bullyb170)

With that, the promotion will need to secure a new headline matchup to close out its PPV schedule for 2024. And when it comes to saviors, no one has fit the description in 2024 quite like “Poatan.”

Pereira, a former UFC middleweight champion and the reigning light heavyweight kingpin, has had a bumper year inside the Octagon, reeling off three straight title defenses in record-breaking speed to establish himself as one of the sport’s biggest stars.

The manner of his first two defenses only added to the plaudits thrown his way, with Pereira saving the promotion after a struggle to secure a suitable UFC 300 main event and the withdrawal of Conor McGregor from UFC 303 less than three months later.

Having added the name of Khalil Rountree to his reign’s list of victims at UFC 307 earlier this month, it appeared that Pereira would finally be due a long-earned rest.

While that still might be the case, MMA Mania is reporting that “Poatan” has indeed been contacted about headlining UFC 310 against Magomed Ankalaev in light of Muhammad vs. Rakhmonov being off.

The welterweight number one contender seemingly has something to say about that, however. After wishing his injured opponent well on X, “Nomad” called to remain on the UFC 310 card in competition for an interim welterweight strap.

It remains to be seen whether Muhammad will be out for long enough to warrant the creation of another belt. But should no other options come to fruition for the Dec. 7 headline slot, the promotion has previously shown a willingness to add interim belts to the equation in such scenarios.

• Read More: Former UFC Champion Announces Retirement: ‘I Begged The UFC For 1 More’

Continue Reading Alex Pereira Approached To Save The Day — Again — After UFC 310 Loses Main Event at MMA News.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Payton Talbott takes a big step up in his next fight as he seeks to keep his perfect record intact.

The blue-chip bantamweight prospect faces 23-fight veteran Raoni Barcelos at UFC’s first pay-per-view show of 2025 on Jan. 18, multiple people with knowledge of the booking told MMA Fighting.

UFC 311 is rumored to take place in Los Angeles, but an official location is yet to be announced.

Talbott, 9-0 in just three years as a professional fighter, has made a major impact so far in the 135-pound division with a trio of UFC wins, capped off by back-to-back bonus-winning stoppages of Cameron Saaiman and Yanis Ghemmouri in 2024.

Barcelos (18-5) tapped Cristian Quinonez in his most recent appearance this past February to rebound from defeats to Umar Nurmagomedov and Kyler Phillips. The former RFA champion holds a UFC record of 7-4, with three finishes to his credit.

UFC 311 so far features four Brazilian talents, with Jailton Almeida battling Serghei Spivac at heavyweight, top-ranked light heavyweight Johnny Walker facing Bogdan Guskov, and Karol Rosa taking on rising bantamweight Ailin Perez.

Mike Heck contributed to this report.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts