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If Khamzat Chimaev can get past Robert Whittaker this summer, a fight with former two-time middleweight titleholder Israel Adesanya may be in his future.

On Saturday, June 22, ‘Borz’ will face his first true test at 185 when he meets one of the division’s most respected ex-champions. The Reaper’ is fresh off a big win over Paulo Costa at UFC 298 and is potentially one W away from another crack at the middleweight crown.

Speaking with Ariel Helwani on a recent episode of The MMA Hour, ‘The Last Stylebender’ declared that if Chimaev offers up an impressive showing against Whittaker, He might be enticed to sign on the dotted line for a showdown with the undefeated Chechen monster.

“If Khamzat [Chimaev] beats Rob [Whittaker], I want to test that,” Adesanya said.

Of course, Khamzat Chimaev isn’t the only middleweight on Adesanya’s radar. The New Zealander still intends on settling the score with the man who took his 185-pound strap in September — Sean Strickland.

“I’m gonna get Strickland again,” Adesanya added. “Definitely gonna get him again.“

Above all, Israel Adesanya has some business to handle with Dricus Du Plessis

Before Israel Adesanya handles business with Chimaev and Strickland, he’ll be tasked with taking out South African superstar and reigning middleweight champ, Dricus Du Plessis.

DDP and the ‘Stylebender’ appeared to be on a collision course ever since an uncomfortable staredown following Du Plessis’ win over Robert Whittaker at UFC 290.

However, those plans were dashed when Strickland delivered a dominant performance against Adesanya to win the middleweight title at UFC 293 in September. Since then, Strickland has surrendered the belt to DDP, once again putting the Du Plessis and Adesanya on a path of destruction.

When and where Du Plessis vs. Adesanya goes down is yet to be determined, but with Chimaev vs. Whittaker and now Strickland vs. Costa expected to go down over the next couple of months, things are going to get very interesting at the top of a loaded middleweight division.

Check out Israel Adesanya’s full appearance on The MMA Hour below:

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

In their final UFC 300 faceoff, Alex Pereira and Jamahal Hill locked eyes and traded predictions of their opponent’s downfall on Saturday night.

Hill, facing boos from the crowd, shrugged off his reception in Las Vegas and talked about his comeback from a potentially career-ending Achilles’ injury.

“This is everything to me,” he told UFC commentator Joe Rogan after his staredown with champ Pereira. “Regardless if you all boo, no matter how you all feel, what I almost lost, what I almost loss, what could have happened to me, what I did lose, it put a fire in me. It definitely put a fire in me.

“Regardless, I’m coming to leave it all in there. I’m just glad to be back.”

Hill grunted and walked away from the microphone, clearly still hyped from the faceoff.

Pereira, meanwhile, promised to make his first light heavyweight title challenger pay for disrespecting him at the press conference for Saturday’s event. Hill dangled a stone head Pereira used to promote himself and smashed it to the ground after an intense faceoff.

That contrasted with a friendly exchange of handshakes and autograph sought by Hill earlier on fight week. Pereira made it clear he was not happy about the turn.

“Well, it’s a great opportunity to be fighting at UFC 300,” Pereira said via translator. “It’s a huge opportunity. I’m very pumped for it. A few days ago, regarding Jamahal Hill, he played a nice guy, he asked for an autograph, and then he did what he did yesterday. Tomorrow, he’s going to lose.”

Pereira and Hill headline UFC 300 on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Pereira defends the belt after capturing the vacant title with a knockout of Jiri Prochazka at UFC 295. Hill hopes to retake the belt he lost when he relinquished the title after his Achilles’ injury, which sidelined him for 15 months after his dominant title win over Glover Teixeira at UFC 283.

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The UFC 300 official weigh-in took place on Friday morning in Las Vegas.  The main event fighters, champion Alex Pereira and former titleholder Jamahal Hill, officially made weight.  

Hill weighed in at 205 pounds.  Pereira was the final fighter to step on the scales and also weighed 205 pounds.  

UFC 300 Main Event Weigh-In Video

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

UFC 300 is finally here!

Ahead of Saturday’s historic event, MMA Fighting’s Shaun Al-Shatti, Mike Heck, and Jed Meshew preview it all, including the main event between Alex Pereira and Jamahal Hill, the challenger’s incredible confidence, and where both guys could go based on the result. Will Pereira continue his incredible MMA run, or will Hill cement his place as the best 205-pound fighter in the world? Additionally, they discuss the co-main event for the strawweight title between Zhang Weili and Yan Xiaonan, the highly anticipated BMF title fight between Justin Gaethje and Max Holloway, Charles Oliveira’s return against Arman Tsarukyan, Bo Nickal, Aljamain Sterling’s move to featherweight against Calvin Kattar, and much more.

Catch the UFC 300 preview show above. An audio-only version of the show can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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New Gloves
| BJPenn.com

Former UFC bantamweight champion Holly Holm expected UFC newcomer Kayla Harrison to “work hard” to make weight for their UFC 300 showdown, which takes place as part of the “Pereira vs. Hill” pay-per-view (PPV) event this Sat. night (April 13, 2024) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It certainly looked like hard work.

Harrison insists the process was not as daunting as it appeared, despite this video, and was part of a larger transformation from PFL lightweight champion to UFC bantamweight contender. In fact, dropping all the way down to 135 pounds made the two-time Olympic gold medalist “more violent.”

“This [experience] has built me and shaped me and molded me into an even more evolved, higher-operating version of myself,” Harrison, 33, said on UFC’s official weigh-in show. “The sacrifice, the stress. When you’re cutting weight, heat acclamation, you’re sitting in a sauna three times a week by yourself, with your thoughts. You’re doing extra cardio, you’re taking long walks, you’re on the bike for 90 minutes. You’re hungry. It’s like a different kind of hungry, and you’re sitting with your thoughts, and it makes you more violent.”

Speaking of violence, Harrison (16-1) has 12 finishes in 16 wins.

“I’ve just never really played easy or played it safe,” Harrison continued. “I feel like I’ve had a lot of success in my MMA career, I’ve been very blessed financially, I am happy with everything that I’ve done in my life. I’m a world champion, a two-time Olympic champion, I’ve won every tournament there is to win in judo, I’ve gotten plenty of money in the bank. But when I started MMA, the goal was to be UFC champion. And I had a year to think about if that was still my goal — and it is. I want to be UFC champion and I want to give it my all, and whatever happens, I’m okay with it. But I know I’m going to be UFC champion.”

Not if the current champ has anything to say about it (and she does).

MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 300 fight card right RIGHT HERE, starting with the early ESPN/ESPN+ “Prelims” matches at 6 p.m. ET, followed by the remaining undercard balance on ESPN/ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET, before the UFC 300 PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.

To check out the latest and greatest UFC 300: “Pereira vs. Hill” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive UFC 300 event archive right here. For the updated and finalized UFC 300 fight card and PPV lineup click here.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

The UFC has made a major equipment change.

At an official presentation Friday in Las Vegas, the promotion unveiled new gloves that its fighters will compete in going forward. The change was made with the goal of reducing hand injuries and eye pokes, while maintaining dexterity and not affecting performances or outcomes.

The gloves are expected to be utilized in competition for the first time at UFC 302 on June 1 in Newark, N.J.

See photos of the gold variant below, which will be used exclusively for UFC title fights.

José Youngs, MMA Fighting

José Youngs, MMA Fighting

José Youngs, MMA Fighting

José Youngs, MMA Fighting

The gloves will also come in gunmetal (standard for non-title bouts), blue (Dana White’s Contender Series), and red for UFC-adjacent developmental programming (i.e. “Road to UFC”).

Friday’s presentation was comprised of a video narrated by UFC Vice President of Consumer Products Ember Morr, who announced that the design of the new gloves was handled by sports equipment manufacturer VICIS RDI. The video also featured VICIS Vice President of Product Development Jason Neubauer, who explained how some of the new features would benefit fighters.

“The current glove that they were using was basically just a chunk of foam, a solid piece,” Neubauer said. “It wasn’t really developed as an impact-mitigation type of foam, it was just more or less a certain density that seemed to work well for fighting. The limitation there is one, how much it absorbs impact, but also its rigidity, and that was probably one of the major parts of the glove was that rigidity wouldn’t allow you to easily open and close your hand and therefore you could have eye pokes or other difficulty during fighting.

“What we developed was a multi-layer slip-plane system that allowed us to continue to mitigate those impact, but allow those slip layers to slide on each other in use without ever minimizing the actual offset between your hand and the outer edge of the glove.”

Changes have also been made to the seams, padding, wristband, and finger holes, all with the intention of reducing injury.

“The final product is something that we’re extremely excited about,” Morr said. “It is a glove that is really going to revolutionize the MMA fight glove space. Some of the changes you’re going to see on the new glove are there are zero seams around the hand, all of the seems are around the inside, so there’s no place for a laceration to occur from a seam. The padding in the back of the hand has been broken into two and essentially the first pad in that break allow for the hand to have this movement, while the new layering technology allows for the hands to move and be flexible. The layering system aside, the foams are different foams, they allow for impact dispersion so that you’re not getting as much impact in a singular spot in the knuckle, so you’re seeing more distribution of the strike across the hand.

“There’s pads that are on the bone, that are on the outside of either side of the hand. The new wristband is a curved, ergonomic wristband, so it actually cinches down to the wrist. There’s no more room to put your hand down into the actual glove, and then it’s a cross-function cinch, so it also allows for that tight custom fit to be exactly how the fighter wants around their wrist and provides support.

“The finger holes used to be cut straight across the finger. We’ve now cut that down at an angle so that there’s no bulk under the finger, which is allowing you to close your hands and not fight against the leather in the hand.”

UFC fighters Vanessa Demopoulos and Julian Erosa were also featured in the video, endorsing a demo version of the glove, which was also underwent live testing during the most recent season of the Contender Series.

During a Q&A following the presentation, UFC Performance Institute Senior Vice President Duncan French said that the statistics showed there was a reduction of eye pokes in the Contender Series contests, but could not confirm whether that could be attributed primarily to the updated glove design.

“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,” French said.

See information, specs, and more photos from the official UFC Glove Launch press release below.

Construction Features

• New wristband locking system, better fits to the wrist, removing any space that permits an opponent from grabbing the glove

• Lack of seams minimize abrasions and cuts; all seams are now on the palm side of the hand just below the fingers

• Innovative padding makes it easier for fighters to keep their fingers in a natural position and minimize eye pokes

• Removal of finger binding reduces bulk and minimizes seams that may cause abrasions and cuts

• Padding added to the sides of the glove at the index and pinky fingers to protect vulnerable bone structure

Fit and Sizing

• Glove sizing has been rescaled to better fit the athletes’ hands; slimmer profile removes excess space at the outside of the hand

• Eliminated male/female sizing, streamlining the number of gloves to 10 unisex sizes, from XXXS – XXXXL, that properly scale with increase in hand size

Weight

• Minimized weight and weight differential based on sizes

– Glove weighs between 3-4.9 oz (1.9 oz differential)

– Weight reduced 1-1.5 oz from previous UFC glove

Shape

• Ergonomic curved wristband for better fit around the wrist

• Scooped/angled finger holes eliminate bunching on the inside of the fisted hand

Material Development

• Lining, custom printed 2-way stretch, moves with the hand

• VICIS RFLX stacked foam padding, engineered for maximum flexibility and protection

• Updated low profile hook and loop, minimizes snagging and reduces weight

UFC

UFC

UFC

UFC

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