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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Tom Aspinall and Leon Edwards serving as UFC champions may serve as the catalyst to finally bring the promotion back to England for a pay-per-view card in 2024.

UFC CEO Dana White teased plans for a massive card headed to England sometime this year with rumors swirling about a potential date in July. White didn’t announce any fights, although he hinted at Aspinall, Edwards or possibly both of them appearing on the card when the UFC returns to the United Kingdom.

“I have an English heavyweight champion and lots of other European stars. Two champs now out of England,” White told TNT Sports when referencing Aspinall and Edwards. “That’s another thing that was happening just recently, so we have these teams that build all their different pieces to the puzzle. Then we come together with me and I start trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and I’m like this doesn’t fit here, that’s got to go. That’s how it all works.

“We had these fights where it’s like we’re going to do this where? No, we’re going to England. So we’re going to England. We’re coming and I got great fights lined up for the U.K. fans and I’m excited to get back there.”

An announcement about the UFC’s return to England could come at any time with White adding that final touches are being put on the event right now.

“Literally days [away from announcing the event],” White said. “We’re right there working on stuff. We’ve got some badass plans for England. [It will be a] numbered card, pay-per-view. A great one.”

As far as Aspinall and Edwards competing there, White didn’t get into any specifics but with the two champions hailing from England it’s entirely possible that one or both could headline the card.

With Aspinall holding onto the interim heavyweight title, he’s been anxious to get back in action, although he won’t have the opportunity to unify the belt with reigning champion Jon Jones still scheduled to clash with Stipe Miocic sometime this year.

That matchup was delayed after Jones suffered a torn pectoral muscle that knocked him off the UFC 295 card this past November, which led to Aspinall getting booked in an interim title fight with Sergei Pavlovich.

White confirmed plans for Jones vs. Miocic are still in the works but he has no problem with Aspinall defending the interim title in the meantime.

“If you think right now it’s March, who knows, Jon Jones and Stipe because of the injury, who knows when they’ll fight,” White said. “It’s not right to let Tom to sit. If Tom wants to defend the title, we’ll absolutely do it.”

Ideally, White still holds out hope that Aspinall could eventually face either Jones or Miocic down the road but that won’t be his next fight.

“Jones is set to fight Stipe,” White said. “I hope the winner of that fight will fight Tom. Yeah, we’ll see.”

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Test Yourself
| BJPenn.com

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The upcoming UFC 300 pay-per-view (PPV) event will feature the light heavyweight title fight between reigning 205-pound champion Alex Pereira and former division titleholder Jamahal Hill. In the championship co-headliner, Zhang Weili returns to defend her strawweight strap against surging 115-pound contender Yan Xiaonan.

The action gets underway on Sat., April 13, 2024 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Referee Herb Dean will be the third man inside the cage for the Pereira vs. Hill main event, with judges Derek Cleary, Sal D’Amato and Ron McCarthy scoring the action from cageside. Prior to that, Referee Jason Herzog will complement judges Mike Bell, Ben Cartlidge and Chris Lee for the Zhang vs. Xiaonan scrap.

That’s according to a report from MMA Junkie.

“It’s truly, truly a mismatch,” Hill said about his Pereira fight. “Can he catch me and knock me out? He’s been fighting for a long time. He has strikes. He has power. Yes, it’s a possibility to get caught and lose. But short of that, short of something getting through and catching me and just putting me away, he gets his ass whooped every single way. Every single way. He has one way to win this fight. He’s not gonna — anybody who thinks he’s gonna outclass me is out of their minds. He has one way to win this fight.”

UFC 300 will also feature the “BMF” title fight between lightweight smasher Justin Gaethje and former 145-pound champion Max Holloway. In addition, Charles Oliveira looks to get back into the lightweight title hunt against red-hot 155-pound contender Arman Tsarukyan.

For the rest of the UFC 300 fight card and PPV lineup click here.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Women didn’t start fighting in the UFC until 2013 when Ronda Rousey made her debut against Liz Carmouche in a paradigm shift for the promotion after Dana White famously declared that females would never compete in his organization.

Despite that infamous proclamation, Gina Carano claims that White actually approached her years earlier with interest in having her join the UFC roster when she was undoubtedly the most famous women’s fighter on the planet. At that time, Carano was competing in Strikeforce and gearing up for a showdown with Cris Cyborg, which ultimately served as her final appearance in MMA back in 2009.

“Me and Dana [White] had a conversation right before I fought Cyborg, Dana and Lorenzo Fertitta had me into their office and basically they were like ‘we’d like you to come over and be our company’s first female fighter,’” Carano revealed on the PBD podcast. “I just couldn’t do that because I had my promises and my contract to Strikeforce.”

Following her loss to Cyborg, Carano ended up transitioning into acting on a full-time basis, which included a lead role in the film Haywire directed by Academy Award winner Steven Soderbergh. Carano never officially retired and she says that conversations eventually heated up again for her to join the UFC roster after Rousey had become one of the faces of the organization.

Back in 2014, Carano expressed interest in making a comeback and that led to meetings with White about potentially signing for a fight against Rousey. White later claimed that Carano was “the hardest human being we’ve ever dealt with” and any hopes for a deal with the UFC essentially died on the vine.

Carano didn’t address the apparent difficulties she had striking a deal with the UFC, but she says what doomed her potential fight with Rousey really came down to White’s inability to keep quiet about the matchup as she attempted to get back in shape for a fight.

“I needed six months,” Carano explained. “Because first of all, weight cutting for me during that time I would struggle because all of the women were in the 135 [pound] weight division and I could get down to 145 but there was only twice in my career where I got down to 136 and 139 and that is like chopping off a leg for me. It was so difficult for me but that’s where all the women were at that time because there wasn’t a lot of women. I sat down with Dana and [said] I wish you guys would have approached me five years ago because I’ve been waiting for this so I just need some time and I need you to keep it quiet, Dana. Keep it really quiet because I didn’t have a gym. I would have to go [re-immerse] myself in a gym, which when I go in a gym people put cameras on me and you have to find and built your team and I wasn’t living in Las Vegas, which is where my team was. So I was living in L.A. and it would have been hard and I needed to rebuilt a team and do it right.

“Dana, and I love him now, he’s been amazing now but Dana’s Dana. He immediately started talking about it and it made my life very difficult to try and get to go into that.”

Whatever hope remained to book the fight effectively expired after Carano started getting more and more offers in Hollywood, which included a role in the smash-hit film Deadpool where she co-starred alongside Ryan Reynolds in the comic book adaptation.

“It is a very difficult thing to try and do both of those things at once,” Carano said about acting and fighting. “In my head, I’m just so passionate about the storytelling and the last couple years I’ve just been passionate about trying to get back into that.”

Obviously, the fight with Rousey never happened but Carano still feels confident she would have vanquished the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion if given the chance.

“I do, absolutely [believe I would have won],” Carano said. “Because I pack a hell of a punch. I know how she punches. I punch like a trucker. [She would have the edge] on the ground obviously but I’m scrambly.

“It’s no disrespect and I’m sure she would say the same thing that she would win, but that’s just something I know. After you’ve been punched like that, she got shook twice [by] Amanda Nunes and Holly Holm, I’m one of the hardest punchers that women’s mixed martial arts has ever seen.”

As confident as she would have been against Rousey in a fight, Carano still holds the UFC Hall of Famer in very high regard. Rousey often touted Carano as an inspiration for her entry into MMA and that’s something the now 41-year-old actor never forgot.

“Ronda has just been such a respectful [person], she was such a little s*** talker throughout her career, but the one person she didn’t really s*** talk was me, really,” Carano said. “She really always did give me that tribute. To have not made the walk in the UFC and gotten to fight, to have the person that did really break down those barriers, that is very special to me and I think she’s a very special person.

“I think she gets a really bad [reputation] and people like to paint her as the bad guy, just because she likes to play the heel. She doesn’t mind playing the heel. It’s just certain people’s personalities but I think when you look deeper at the person that she is, which I watch and I study people, I think that’s a very special, special person.”

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Reigning UFC bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley discusses pay-per-view numbers for his recent title defence against Marlon Vera. 

Ever since his sensational knockout win on the Contender Series, the UFC saw something in Sean O’Malley. While many potential stars ultimately fall short, O’Malley has built himself into an elite fighter and has managed to build a solid fanbase thanks to his personal efforts, and of course the UFC. 

However, Instagram followers and likes are all well and good, but if you’re a champion the UFC are more concerned about how many PPVs you can sell. 

Following his fight with Aljamain Sterling in which he would capture the title in the main event slot of UFC 292, there had been concern about how many PPVs were actually sold. 

Sterling himself was even shocked when he discovered how low the numbers were for the PPV, drawing into question the legitimacy of O’Malley’s status.

“I got the PPVs,” Sterling said via his YouTube channel. “We were going through them and I was like ‘these are the numbers that this guy was trying to say he’s this big pay-per-view star’. 

“I’m just like, ‘Oh my God.’ When I saw the numbers, I literally said to her, ‘If I had any idea this is what the numbers would have been, if I could have predicted that this is what it would have been, my ass would have waited and taken my vacation then.’”

“I trusted that the bag was going to be this blow-me-away kind of thing, bigger than all the other ones. It wasn’t.”

Sean O’Malley speculates UFC 299 pay-per-view numbers

Not only was Sean O’Malley matched up with Vera in rematch, the UFC stacked the card top to bottom and featured fights such as Dustin Poirier vs. Beniot Saint Denis and Gilbert Burns vs. Jack Della Maddalena. 

Talking via his YouTube channel, O’Malley discussed the number and promised to reveal them once he knew, but also seemed to already be trying to excuse them should they come back low. 

“I still haven’t heard, officially, the pay-per-view numbers yet, but once I do, I’ll let you guys know,” O’Malley said. “I wonder if I’m allowed to, I’ll have to make sure and check.”

“Everyone I know streams it,” O’Malley continued. “I don’t really know anybody, except for you [Welch], you buy it… Pretty much everyone I know illegally streams, it’s too easy, not that I know, but I’m assuming it’s too easy… I buy them because I would feel guilty not, you know what I mean? Especially being in my position.” (H/T MMA News)

How many PPVs do you think Sean O’Malley sold? 

LowKickMMA.com

“Platinum” Mike Perry revealed his dream opponent to face inside the Bareknuckle Fighting Championship cage.  If he could pick any opponent, it would be Jake Paul.  

Perry has called out Paul before and served as the backup for Logan Paul’s boxing match against Dillon Danis last October.  But Perry knows Paul isn’t coming to BKFC.    

“Jake Paul,” Perry said when questioned about his dream opponent by TMZ Sports.  “If he hurts Mike Tyson, let me get that bro.  He’s not coming to bareknuckle.  That’s the thing, though.”

Paul has a boxing match lined up against 57-year old former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson on July 20 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.  Tyson will be 58 when he makes the walk to the ring to face the 27-year old Paul.  

“He’s not doing bareknuckle,” Perry said of Paul.  “But I wouldn’t put it past Jake Paul because he’s been doing stuff that people would say that he’s afraid of and things like that.”

Despite the unlikelihood of Paul fighting bareknuckle, Petty issued a challenge to the YouTuber-turned boxer. 

“So Jake, I definitely issue you a challenge.  If you get through Mike Tyson, test yourself for real and let’s have a street fight,” said Perry.  “Jake might have the balls to do it.”  

“I’d like to say I’d beat him as fast as he’s beating these taxi drivers, especially bareknuckle,” Perry continued.  “I’ll hurt him.  He’ll cry and run away and cower in the corner in the fetal position… They’re getting him these guys that he can just knockout, man.” 

Perry headlines BKFC Knucklemania 4 against Thiago Alvez on April 27 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California.  He’s currently undefeated without gloves with a 4-0 record.

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