French phenom Cedric Doumbe was expected to make his cagefighting return as part of the Bellator Paris event on May 17 at Accor Arena, taking on welterweight veteran Derek Anderson in the HBO Max-streamed co-main event.

Less than 24 hours after the announcement, Anderson revealed on Instagram that he was run down by a car and left with a mangled foot, bouncing him from the Bellator card and leaving Doumbe without a date to the big dance.

“Love you all. Hit and run,” Anderson wrote. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t make this fight happen. You have no idea. I will not be getting another bike.”

No word yet on how Bellator officials will proceed but considering Doumbe’s popularity in France, it’s reasonable to assume matchmakers will make the effort to keep “The Best” a part of the Paris fight card against an opponent to be named.

Stay tuned.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

When Conor McGregor finishes his battle with Michael Chandler at UFC 303, he’ll leave the octagon as a fighter with only one bout left on his contract.

The Irish superstar documented prior to signing his latest bout agreement that his current deal with the UFC only had two fights remaining, and one comes against Chandler on June 29. As the biggest draw in UFC history, it seems highly unlikely the promotion will let McGregor slip away, but the former two-division champion has long aspired to test himself in other areas, including a potential return to boxing — and he’s even shown interest in testing the waters in bare-knuckle competition.

After attending a BKFC show last year, McGregor touted that he wanted to throw hands without gloves at least once in his career. That was exactly what Mike Perry wanted to hear after inviting McGregor into the ring for an impromptu faceoff following his destructive win over ex-UFC champion Luke Rockhold.

Now, almost exactly one year later, Perry isn’t banking on that fight materializing, but he’s also smart enough to know that anything is possible, especially with the kind of leverage McGregor maintains over his own career.

“I think it could be a possibility,” Perry told MMA Fighting of fighting McGregor. “When my manager shared it and [he was like], ‘This will happen,’ I was like, whoa, that’s cool.

“Look, Conor likes to throw hands. He’s a great boxer. Fought Floyd Mayweather. He got a front row seat to watch my show with Luke [Rockhold] and he gave me respect by coming into the ring and giving me some of his time there. I think it would be fun and incredible.”

Of course, Perry understands that signing up for a fight with McGregor can be an invitation to some of the most vicious trash talk in the sport.

McGregor rose to fame in part because he never had a problem speaking his mind, and there’s no line he won’t cross to engage in mental warfare with his opposition. He famously engaged in a verbal attack on Dustin Poirier’s wife, and did much of the same to Khabib Nurmagomedov before they met in 2018.

Perry concedes that he’ll never match McGregor word for word, but he’s not sure the always outspoken Irishman could keep up with him punch for punch in the ring.

“Maybe he would rip me apart with the words. I’d be there for it!” Perry said. “Let’s go! I’d learn a thing or two for sure, and I’d try to teach him a thing or two in the ring when it came to fighting. I wouldn’t want any excuses and I’m sure he’s so good at talking, he wouldn’t have any excuses if we did fight and it goes the way I think it would go.

“It could possibly be that big dream fight that people are waiting on. I’ll just keep winning in the meantime and keep scaring these guys from wanting to come over here and see me.”

Since largely becoming the face of BKFC, Perry has called out a number of high-profile opponents with hopes he could get even bigger fights for his bare-knuckle career.

A couple have answered the challenge, but Perry believes he may have accidentally scared a few away with his brutal performances. That list might include one-time UFC title challenger Darren Till, who Perry claimed turned down a $ 2 million offer to fight him at the upcoming BKFC KnuckleMania IV card in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Instead, Perry faces UFC veteran Thiago Alves in the main event.

Unlike the Till matchup, Perry has little doubt that if the financials are in place, McGregor would absolutely go to war with him, which is why he won’t discount the chance that the fight could happen down the road.

“Darren Till’s going to keep being scared,” Perry said. “If Thiago shows up, what I do to him might scare some others and it might bring up some real ones. Conor’s a real one. He might see the challenge there and really be interested.”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Here’s a story that you have probably seen play out countless times before: A fighter gets accidentally poked in the eye. Oops! The referee warns his opponent to be careful as if they had no clue their fingers could inflict such damage to one of someone’s five senses. The match resumes, with one fighter still trying to blink away the pain caused by the incidental blow. But then moments later, it happens again.

Eye pokes are a common occurrence on MMA cards. Along with the usual moves like guillotine chokes, armbars, calf kicks and double leg takedowns, a thumb or middle finger jabbing into an opponent’s eye is something that viewers of the sport are accustomed to seeing.

For a long time, the frequency of eye pokes has been considered a flaw of the UFC glove. Compared to the gloves of Pride FC, for example, where fingers are slightly bent so that they cannot stick outward at an opponent as easily, UFC’s gives their fighters a lot more freedom. Pundit Joe Rogan loves the gloves that Trevor Wittman designed, saying they would be a suitable replacement for the ones used by the UFC. The years-long plea from viewers and pundits for UFC’s gloves to get changed was finally answered recently, although the jury is out on if the change will stop one of the biggest glove-related qualms.

A New Glove Appears, but will the issue of eye pokes be fully resolved?

When the promotion revealed a new glove earlier this month, the promotion made a big deal out of it. They touted how it would protect a fighter’s hands more and include a futuristic microchip that would track who the gloves belong to (think Apple’s AirTag, but for face-punching devices). But there was an immediate question people had that wasn’t really answered too well: Will the gloves reduce eye pokes?

The answer? Well, maybe, but no promises. In this piece by MMA Fighting’s José Youngs and Alexander K. Lee, the question was posed to UFC Performance Institute Senior Vice President Duncan French. He noted that the test run of the gloves in Dana White’s Contender Series saw fewer eye pokes than usual. Is there a direct correlation between the gloves and the number of eye pokes? He wasn’t willing to say just yet.

“We hope that that is a consequence of a redesign and the nature of the glove, but we’re all watching moving forward to ensure that this is going to be the case,” he said.

Could be a fix, or not. We’ll have to wait and see when equipment debuts at UFC 303.

If we tune in for UFC 302 and Islam Makhachev, Dustin Poirier, or somebody else on the card suffers pokes to their eye or eyes, what will we do? Design another glove? Good luck convincing the UFC, who just revealed a new glove for the first time in who knows how long. But what if I told you there are other fixes? As Kevin Hart said in his straight-to-Netflix movie recently: “If you can’t hack the tech, you gotta hack the people.”

Gloves Aside, How Can We Reduce Eye Pokes?

Fouls in MMA are, to an extent, legal. As long as you make a mistake and it looks believably unintentional, you are let off with a warning. The second time around, you might get a strong warning. That’s different from a soft warning because, well, it’s strong. There’s not much that actually stops fouls from happening in these instances. Apart from the possibility that a mistake could be so grand that it causes a fight to end in a no contest, is there really an reason to avoid making such errors?

It is the referee’s discretion to determine which fouls constitute a point deduction. “Only a referee can assess a foul,” the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts say. But quite frankly, the warning system currently in place isn’t strict enough. A change has to be made. The issue is, determining what type of change would be positive really isn’t easy.

Where Do You Draw The Line?

If you have initial pushback against the idea of making the rules around fouls stricter, that’s understandable. While most athletes in other sports are punished for mistakes no matter their true intent (think fouls in basketball, penalties in football), the rigid scoring of MMA means that any sort of punishment would be quite strong.

There are few comparisons to the type of punishment that getting a point knocked off a round is like. Trip someone in hockey? Your team gets a disadvantage for just two minutes, which could be a forgettable moment in the game by the end. Commit a minor foul in a basketball game? Your opponent gets to add one or two points to their score total which could surpass 100 by the end. However, in MMA, your chances of winning become significantly slimmer if a point is deducted.

It is quite honestly hard to draw the line. As it stands right now, if every foul resulted in a point deduction, we’d be seeing a lot of results go very differently. Does that mean that taking away one point due to a singular foul is too strict? Maybe. But on the other hand, how much is it really a foul if there’s no punishment attached to it? A fighter is essentially escaping scot free the first ors second time around currently. Maybe, making fouls more strict will scare fighters into being more cautious with how they move, thus causing fewer fouls to happen.

It’s hard to figure out how this change can be properly made, and I’m not going to propose a hard rule that MMA should abide by. Instead, I think this is something that people within the industry should discuss more. Fighters, trainers, referees, pundits, and more. The eye pokes discourse should not start and stop with changing the gloves.

The way it’s set up right now, there’s no incentive for fighters to be careful about what they do. While most fouls are honestly unintentional, they could also arguably be happening because making such errors are an afterthought in training and competing. With stricter rules, that could change.

An improved glove that reduces eye pokes would be big for MMA and is important for UFC to focus on. And who knows, come UFC 303 we might be seeing a new glove that actually makes significant changes. However, eye pokes cannot be completely abolished in MMA with an equipment change. With the way gloves must be designed, allowing fingers to poke out, they are inevitable. To limit the issues further, a stricter interpretation of the rules must be followed as well.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Aljamain Sterling got the job done in his new weight class at UFC 300.

The last UFC event was a pretty darn good one, wasn’t it? UFC CEO Dana White stacked the deck and promised us an all-timer, and undeniably, it delivered with one of the most absurd lineups ever seen in MMA history. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that every fight provided the same level of fireworks as the unforgettable BMF title tilt between Justin Gaethje and Max Holloway.

That bar was always going to be impossibly high to reach. However, with all the overall greatness that the event delivered, the slightest of stinkers would get called out and criticized. That’s where the former UFC bantamweight champion Sterling’s unanimous decision over Calvin Kattar at featherweight comes in. It was a dominant effort from Sterling, and former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier believes it made a worthy argument for “Funk Master” to challenge the new BMF champion, Holloway.

“Put ‘Aljo’ in the BMF title fight, yes,” Cormier said on Good Guy / Bad Guy. “If anybody is a BMF, they can do what ‘Aljo’ did at UFC 300. You go up a weight class, you dominate somebody in the grappling like that, that’s a BMF, Ryan. Put ‘Aljo’ in the next title fight.”

The latest episode of Good Guy / Bad Guy was a special one, as it saw Cormier reunite with his previous ESPN co-host on DC & RC, former Pittsburgh Steelers free safety and Super Bowl XLIII champion, Ryan Clark. In typical fashion, they weren’t afraid to disagree with each other.

Sterling’s Kattar victory was his first after his tough second-round TKO title loss to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 this past August. Had the 34-year-old 28-fight veteran (24-4) come up short, he’s since admitted that probably would have been a wrap on his career. Thankfully for Sterling, he went out and looked just fine at 145 pounds. It just wasn’t the most exciting of performances, and Clark wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade.

“It is, D.C. It’s a ‘boring motherf*****. That’s what that is,” Clark responded. “That’s what the BMF would stand for if Aljamain Sterling was the new BMF champion (laughs).

“I love him. He has to win. You gotta go out and win, that’s why it’s called mixed martial arts. Chael [Sonnen] landed strikes against Anderson Silva and rocked him then Chael took it to the ground and dominated him on the ground. I have no problem with that. Chael is absolutely a BMF. If it is two names that are that big, I am okay with the fight going that way. Just don’t put the belt up. Put the real belt up for that fight. Do not put the BMF up for it.”

TOP STORIES

Crossover. Sean O’Malley confident he’s 2 wins away from Ryan Garcia boxing match, Garcia responds

Hype. Coach: Conor McGregor technique ‘as sharp as ever’ ahead of Michael Chandler fight

Expensive. Conor McGregor’s UFC 303 return features ticket packages exceeding $ 12,000

Next. Deiveson Figueiredo calls for ‘dream fight’ with Dominick Cruz for UFC 303

Unique. Jiri Prochazka explains what being samurai means to him, pre-fight UFC 300 visualization at T-Mobile Arena

Onward. Aspinall? Ankalaev? Alex Pereira discusses options for next move after UFC 300

Idea. Daniel Cormier calls for Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler to be 165-pound ‘super lightweight’ title fight

VIDEO STEW

BROADENED HORIZIN.

UFC Vegas 91 Promo.

Free fight.

MORNING MUSIC

Go to Twitter, use the #MorningReport hashtag, or find one of my tweets with it, and drop me a jam you’re currently really into. I’ll pick the best one alongside my daily choice and give you a shoutout! You can also share in the comments below — those are just harder to sift through sometimes!

SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Poatan things.

Champ.

Nothing odd to see here.

What the.

Good for them calling this out.

Road to UFC.

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

James Llontop (14-2) vs. Chris Padilla (13-6); UFC Vegas 91, April 27

Ben Tynan (6-0) vs. Mauro Cerilli (15-5); ONE 167, June 8

Dakota Ditcheva (11-0) vs. Chelsea Hackett (4-2-1); PFL Uncasville, June 13

Valentin Moldavsky (13-3) vs. Linton Vassell (24-9); PFL Uncasville, June 13

FINAL THOUGHTS

R.C. comes back for one appearance and is as cold-blooded as ever. Sheesh.

Thanks for reading!

EXIT POLL

If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @DrakeRiggs_ on Twitter and let him know about it. Also, follow MMAFighting on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

185?
| BJPenn.com

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Finally, Conor McGregor’s return is official. The Irish superstar has been away for nearly three years now, but he’ll be back in the cage opposite Michael Chandler at UFC 303 on June 29, 2024. Chandler waited an awful longtime for the match up, and his patience is finally paying off.

Perhaps it results in a golden title too?

UFC color commentator Daniel Cormier is in favor of adding some extra flavor to the match up. It’s rare to see a pay-per-view (PPV) headliner without a title on the line — that’s how the BMF belt became a thing! — but Cormier feels this is the perfect moment for UFC to introduce the much-talked about and long-awaited 165-pound weight class, which he’s dubbing “Super Lightweight.” According to “DC,” McGregor is the perfect star, and Chandler is the right opponent at the right time for such a landmark change.

“Here’s my thought process, right? When it comes down to championship opportunities, I have said this time and time again — a lot of times it comes down to being at the right place, at the right time,” Cormier said Good Guy / Bad Guy (via MMAFighting).

“Even going back to me, they had no intent of giving me my first championship opportunity [in 2015]. But then Alexander Gustafsson got hurt, they called me in, I stepped in. I never left the title picture after because I was reliable. They could always call me and say, ‘Hey, do you want to fight this guy for the belt?’ It was also the same way with Dustin Poirier right now, we see it happening [at UFC 302], where, if you’re in the right place at the right time under the right circumstances, sometimes it happens faster.

“I believe that if they’re going to do a 165-pound division, it should have a name attached to the weight class that is so big that it draws people’s attention,” Cormier continued. “Conor McGregor being that name. Michael Chandler, on the other hand, will benefit from being in the right place at the right time, where these guys would then fight for the super lightweight championship of the world, because that’s what I believe it is. Because it’s only 10 pounds heavier than 155, so let’s call it the super lightweight division. Move 170 to 175, move 185 to 195, keep 205, [keep] heavyweight.”

Moving Middleweight to 185-pounds is an unusual twist, but this is hardly the first time an 165-pound division has been proposed. Being that Lightweight and Welterweight are two of the deepest divisions in the sport, it’s reasonable that a three-way split could be introduced without hurting the depth too severely.

One top-ranked Lightweight contender says it’s happening!

Unfortunately, UFC CEO Dana White said years ago that it’s not happening while he’s in charge. Perhaps enough time has passed to shift his opinion? A Conor McGregor triple champ moment would sell a lot of pay-per-views, after all.

Insomnia

After this weekend, I am fully convinced that Ryan Garcia is the main character.

Jiri Prochazka at Middleweight sounds like a terrible idea, but also … I’d watch it.

I would love to hear Bruce Buffer announce Mr. Bipolar, preferably on regular ESPN.

Boxing greats having some fun in front of an adoring crowd — you love to see it!

A quick celebration of UFC pups!

Confirmed: UFC is NOT rebooking Bryan Battle vs. Ange Loosa after their controversial “No Contest.”

This is what a real CEO looks like. Zuck and Dana could never!

Slips, rips, and KO clips

How many lukewarm Max Holloway impressions will we see in 2024? Dozens and dozens, surely.

Nothing against Kurt Scooby, but upsets are always fun.

Early aggression doesn’t always pay off.

Random Land

Seems like a worst case scenario.

Midnight Music: Pop, 1964

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.

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