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Jeremy Kennedy had already accepted that he wasn’t getting a title shot in his Bellator return, but an unfortunate set of circumstances changed his fortune at a moment’s notice.

Originally scheduled to fight James Gallagher at the upcoming Bellator card in Belfast on Friday, Kennedy felt like he couldn’t wait any longer for a potential title shot, so he jumped at the chance to fight again. In the meantime, he kept a watchful eye on Bellator featherweight champion Patricio Pitbull, who booked a fight against PFL champion Jesus Pinedo in February. Then the matchup fell apart just days before the event.

Pinedo had to drop off the card, and a last-minute effort to put PFL veteran Gabriel Braga in the fight was scrapped as well. That’s when Kennedy finally got the call he always wanted.

“When Braga stepped in to do the PFL vs. Bellator thing, I thought it was a better matchup for Pitbull,” Kennedy told MMA Fighting. “I was rooting for Pitbull because I knew I would be fighting him next. I wanted him to be coming off a win and not lose any stock. I wanted him to look his best.

“It was that Friday morning, weigh-in day in Saudi Arabia and late Thursday night here, and I got the call, ‘Pitbull’s opponent is not weighing in, he’s not fighting,’ and they know Pitbull wants to fight regardless. ‘Would you be interested?’ I was like, ‘Don’t even ask me! Just say yes!’”

The only real change for Kennedy was switching from three rounds to five rounds for a title fight, but he had already prepared for an eventual showdown with Pitbull long before that.

Kennedy promises to be more than ready to take the title from the incumbent champion.

“I was already training for the fight, already training for that date,” he said. “I got a bigger fight, a bigger opponent. It’s what I’ve been waiting for. I was ready to go for him and so the switch favored me, it benefited me. I was ready to go.”

Kennedy draws Pitbull at an interesting crossroads in the Brazilian’s career; Pitbull looks to bounce back from two straight losses, including a first-round knockout he suffered in a short-notice fight against Chihiro Suzuki in RIZIN. That fight took place at 154 pounds, which came barely six weeks after Pitbull lost a lopsided decision to Sergio Pettis in a failed attempt to become bantamweight champion.

To add to that, Pitbull turns 37 in July and has more than 40 fights on his résumé.

Kennedy isn’t counting on a diminished version of Pitbull greeting him in the cage on Friday, though he expects to find out rather quickly if the Brazilian really has lost a step or not.

“Any time you see a guy in the lighter weight classes, getting up there in the 30s and the amount of fights — that’s miles, that’s weight cuts, that’s training camps — nobody is young forever,” Kennedy said. “Father time rules.

“[But] I don’t think his performances have [shown] he’s washed now or he’s shot or anything. That fight in Japan, he had fought six weeks earlier down two weight classes essentially and then a three-day notice [fight]. I think Chihiro is a really, really decorated kickboxer that nobody really knew about. In a ring, short notice, I don’t really hold much weight outside of physically seeing him get hurt, is good for my confidence. He is human.”

Truth be told, Kennedy hopes Pitbull is still the same savage that knocked out future UFC title contender Michael Chandler in 61 seconds. It would mean a lot more to take the belt off that guy than a husk of the fighter routinely called the Bellator GOAT.

“I’ve always all along felt that I matched up well with him,” Kennedy said. “Now I get to prove that. Timing is everything. I don’t think it’s done him any favors. I’m anticipating the best but I could very well go out there and blast right through him, or it could be the [best] Pitbull, and he’s doing this thing and I’m in trouble and it’s a long, five-round fight. I still believe I’m better than him everywhere.”

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Eighth-ranked women’s flyweight Amanda Ribas headlines this weekend’s UFC Vegas 89 fight card against former two-time strawweight titleholder Rose Namajunas.  

Heading into the biggest fight of her career, Ribas has prepared for best Namajunas possible.  

“I always put in my mind that I will face the best Rose Namajunas ever,” Ribas said during the UFC Vegas 89 Media Day.  “I’m trained for the best of her.”

Ribas (13-4) is coming off a stunning spinning wheel kick finish over Luana Pinheiro in her last fight but hasn’t put together back-to-back wins since 2020.  She plans to change that on Saturday.  Ribas hopes a win over Namajunas will garner her a Top 5 ranked opponent next.    

“I really enjoyed my last year that I did three fights, so this year I hope we can do three fights.  I like to be active inside the octagon.  I hope, if I win, God bless me with that, I can do Top 5 and maybe go to the belt,” she said.  

Ribas is prepared to go five rounds against Namajunas, but wants to finish the fight.  After all, you typically need a finish to get a bonus.  

“Before I am a UFC fighter, I am a UFC fan.  I like to watch fights that end with submission or a knockout, so in all my fights I try to do that because, for me the fan, it’s better to watch and for me as a fighter it’s better to get a bonus,” Ribas said.  

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Patricio Pitbull flew to Saudi Arabia in mid-February to face Jesus Pinedo in a champ vs. champ clash at the PFL vs. Bellator card on Feb. 24, but he had to switch plans when Gabriel Braga replaced an injured Pinedo on short notice. Then Braga pulled out moments before the weigh-ins, leaving the Bellator star with no foe.

Pitbull said he “completed the mission” in Saudi Arabia even though there was no official fight. Then he returned to Brazil the morning after the event.

“We went to the warm-up room at the hotel, and did five rounds of sparring there,” Pitbull said on MMA Fighting’s Trocação Franca podcast. “We followed the schedule as if we were fighting. There was no real fight, but I went there and sparred the twins that Eric Albarracin brought form Kazakhstan [Idris and Chingis Idrisov].”

Later on, Pitbull agreed to defend his Bellator title at Bellator Champions Series Belfast, which takes place Friday.

Pitbull cut weight for his cancelled fight in Saudi Arabia, but he said that going down to 145 pounds a second time in four weeks wouldn’t be a problem since “I kept my weight low.” The decision to spar in Saudi Arabia was to reset his mind after the match was ultimately cancelled, he explained.

“[I wanted to] reach the goal that was programmed to happen,” Pitbull said. “We know that a fight cancellation is frustrating to anyone, but we have to keep the body awake for the goal that was planned. When we went down and did five rounds of MMA there, it was fire. Those who witnessed the training know it was no joke.”

The Bellator featherweight champion said the company “wasn’t contractually obligated” to pay him after the contest was canceled, but he revealed that he was reimbursed for his camp and time lost.

On Friday, Pitbull puts his belt on the line for the first time since October 2022, when he beat Adam Borics via decision. In his following matches, he went to Japan to defeat then-RIZIN champion Kleber Koike in a non-title affair, and then he lost to Sergio Pettis for the Bellator flyweight belt and against Chihiro Suzuki in a short-notice lightweight contest for RIZIN.

Jeremy Kennedy, a veteran of the UFC and PFL, won four of five since joining Bellator in 2020 and challenges for gold after three straight victories in bouts against Emmanuel Sanchez, Aaron Pico and Pedro Carvalho.

“I don’t see Jeremy Kennedy as that dangerous guy that will hurt you,” Pitbull said. “He will dominate, he will stall. If you don’t have a good strategy to get away from it, it’s going to be time lost and work thrown away. We’ve worked hard on those takedowns and his type of game. He can keep pressure the entire time, but we’re ready to frustrate him since the first minute of the fight until the end so it backfires for him.”

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“Really difficult”
| BJPenn.com

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) makes its eagerly-awaited return to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the upcoming UFC 301 pay-per-view (PPV) event, headlined by the five-round flyweight title fight pitting reigning 125-pound kingpin, Alexandre Pantoja, against Top 10 title contender Steve Erceg, a high-octane (some might say “brutal”) fight card that also features the return of former UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo — and maybe even light heavyweight titleholder Alex Pereira!

Event: UFC 301: “Pantoja vs. Erceg”
Date: Sat., May 4, 2024
Location: Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro Brazil
Start times: ESPN+ PPV, ESPN2, ESPN+ (6 p.m. ET Prelims | 10 p.m. ET Main Card)

UFC 301 Main Event On ESPN+ PPV:

125 lbs.: UFC Flyweight Champion Alexandre Pantoja vs. Steve Erceg

UFC 301 Main Card On ESPN+ PPV (10 p.m. ET):

135 lbs.: Jose Aldo vs. Jonathan Martinez
185 lbs.: Paul Craig vs. Caio Borralho
205 lbs.: Anthony Smith vs. Vitor Petrino
185 lbs.: Michel Pereira vs. Makhmud Muradov

UFC 301 ‘Prelims’ Card On ESPN2/ESPN+ (8 p.m. ET):

155 lbs.: Joaquim Silva vs. Drakkar Klose
125 lbs.: Alessandro Costa vs. Kevin Borjas
125 lbs.: Dione Barbosa vs. Ernesta Kareckaite
145 lbs.: Joanderson Brito vs. Jack Shore

UFC 301 Early ‘Prelims’ Card On ESPN+ (6 p.m. ET):

155 lbs.: Elves Brener vs. Myktybek Orolbai
145 lbs.: Jean Silva vs. William Gomis
115 lbs.: Karolina Kowalkiewicz vs. Iasmin Lucindo

*Fight card, bout order and number of fights remain subject to change.*

To check out the latest and greatest UFC 301: “Pantoja vs. Erceg” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here.

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Benoit Saint Denis never seriously considering dropping out of his fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 299, but he definitely paid for that decision.

Despite a valiant effort to get the win, the French lightweight ultimately suffered a brutal second-round knockout, which served as his second setback since joining the UFC roster. Saint Denis revealed afterward that his conditioning was zapped from a round of antibiotics he took to battle an infection that could’ve cancelled his fight.

As it turns out, Saint Denis actually had a staph infection on his forehead that was diagnosed two days before he was scheduled to leave for Miami to compete at UFC 299.

“The last sparring session, I had this ugly stuff on my forehead,” Saint Denis said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “It was two days before leaving France, last Friday was the last sparring session. I had been leaving Saturday. Out of respect for everybody, you have to take treatment when you notice something like that.

“I called the doctor and we tried to figure out a process to try to be in the best shape possible and to make the fight happen. To be in fight shape that is good enough to be respectable for your opponent, to give the people the fight they want to see because you are the co-main event of such a huge fight.”

Saint Denis also struggled with his weight cut in the final days leading up to the fight and that only further exacerbated the issues he faced from the round of antibiotics coursing through his body.

“I was tired the whole week with the staph infection,” Saint Denis said. “Maybe this is also my fault. I came in a bit too heavy. With the treatment I took, the weight was not going down as [easily] and I had two more kilograms to cut before the weight cut, and it was too difficult. I paid the day after. I had no reflexes. I was out of form.”

After first arriving in Miami, Saint Denis sat down with his team to discuss whether or not he should actually compete, but it didn’t take him long to realize the risk was worth the potential reward.

“Tuesday, we had the debate … it didn’t take a long time to convince myself to make it happen anyway,” Saint Denis said. “With a staph infection, sometimes in five days you’re getting in better shape. Sometimes in one week, sometimes in eight days. The problem was with the stress and the weight cut, the infection, my body didn’t manage to do both things — didn’t manage to cut the weight being on a very strict diet and at the same time treat the infection.

“Maybe it could have been something that worked. Maybe if I had less kilograms to lose, which I will work on for the next fight, maybe I would have been in very good condition and it would not have affected me this way and I would have been ready to give my all. Even given these conditions, it’s difficult when you have a huge opportunity like that to say no.”

Even with his body working against him, Saint Denis still came storming out of the gate and he had his moments in the fight with Poirier.

Unfortunately, Saint Denis says he only had about five minutes to give, and he was already running on fumes by the time the second round started.

“I was very slow,” Saint Denis said. “My kicks were sloppy as hell. You can see my first kick at two minutes at the beginning of the fight, it was a [body] kick, it was terrible. In my fight with Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos in the third round, I was in better shape than the first round against Poirier. It was my fault. We are professionals. We are trying our best to be the best shape possible.

“I won the first round but I’m the one in despair, because I know it’s over. I couldn’t take the opportunities there.”

Saint Denis promises that before he contracted the staph infection, he was more than ready to face Poirier in the biggest opportunity of his career. It was only after he arrived in Miami that he began to realize his dream fight was slowly transforming into a living nightmare.

“The worst fight week,” Saint Denis said. “I had very bad news for my health. I just couldn’t cancel. It can happen to everybody to be sick during fight week. We have two legs and two arms, we are human, we are not robots. I was hoping with the treatment that I took for my staph infection, I was hoping that after five days of taking antibiotics, I would be in good health, at least 90 percent and be ready to have this huge opportunity and to be able to give him a good fight also. Because out of respect for him. I would love to have a bit more energy to give him more than five minutes.”

Saint Denis isn’t consumed with regret due to the loss, because he made the choice to step into the cage that night and go to war with Poirier even if he wasn’t close to full health.

All he can hope now is that he’ll eventually earn the chance to avenge that loss somewhere down the road as he continues his pursuit of becoming a UFC champion.

“I need to get my ticket back to such an opportunity again,” Saint Denis said. “Of course, even in good health, maybe I would have gotten knocked out by Poirier. He’s a great fighter, an amazing fighter. I hope I will work my way back to having this kind of opportunity and to show that this day it was not the ‘God of War’ in there.

“I will give you my best again as soon as possible. I will make the adjustments to try to be at my best in the fight, because a fight against a guy like this, you cannot be diminished.”

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Inaugural UFC bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey has revealed a series of concussions which she had suffered – and ultimately kept “secret”, led to her retirement from mixed martial arts competition, and her departure from the sport.

Rousey, a former undisputed Strikeforce and UFC bantamweight gold holder, has been sidelined from the Octagon since she suffered a thunderous opening round knockout loss to former duel-weight champion, Amanda Nunes back in December 2016.

The defeat came as Riverside native, Rousey’s second on the bounce, following a hellacious high-kick KO loss to Holly Holm in her seventh attempted title fight defense in Australia the year prior. 

Ronda Rousey discusses decision to retire from MMA

And linked with a comeback to combat sports in the time since – particularly given the recent merging of the UFC and Rousey’s former stomping ground, WWE, under the TKO Group banner, the Judo practitioner revealed a slew of concussions ultimately forced her hand into retirement from combat sports.

“My concussion history that I had to keep secret for years, so I would be able to continue to compete and perform,” Ronda Rousey said during an Instagram Live session, ahead of the release of her memoir, Our Fight. “That’s basically why I had to retire.” 

Departing the WWE late last year, Rousey recently commented on the ongoing situation involving former organizational brass, Vince McMahon – branding him an “evil, unethical, slimeball” in the process.

Dowsing rumors of a potential return for Rousey this year, UFC CEO, Dana White confirmed that the Californian veteran would not be returning at UFC 300 next month at the beginning of this annum, remaining confident the ex-bantamweight titleholder ever steps foot inside the Octagon again. 

A decorated former champion, Rousey racked up consecutive championship wins over Liz Carmouche, Miesha Tate, Sara McMann, Alexis Davis, Cat Zingano, and Bethe Corriea during her tenure with the UFC.

What do you think about Ronda Rousey’s legacy in the UFC?

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