Author: mmafighting
The Korean Zombie is still adjusting to life outside of the cage. In August, Zombie — real name Chan Sung Jung — officially retired from MMA following his knockout loss to Max Holloway in the main event of UFC Singapore. Still only 36 years old and one of the top featherweights in the world, Zombie could continue fighting, but Zombie says given how the fight went, he knew it was time to walk away. “The funny thing about this fight is I remember every single second of the fight,” Zombie said recently on The MMA Hour. “From the moment I…
No one — genuinely, no one — could’ve foreseen this. In many ways, Sean Strickland was 2023. The real-life manifestation of the omnipresent Twitter troll. The inevitable backlash to western cancel culture given flesh. The self-proclaimed former Neo-Nazi who drops homophobic slurs with impunity and rallies against women’s place in the workforce. In an era that celebrates nastiness at seemingly every turn, the UFC middleweight champion rose to be a perfectly imperfect avatar of the past 12 months in MMA (and honestly, the world), a character both profane yet authentic, impossibly offensive yet overwhelmingly beloved, often within the very same…
Stephen Thompson may have suffered more than one kind of setback at UFC 296. “Wonderboy” not only took his first submission loss against Shavkat Rakhmonov at the UFC’s December pay-per-view, he also believes that he might have injured his foot. In a video posted to his YouTube channel, Thompson speculated that he broke his foot during the course of his fight with Rakhmonov, which ended with seconds remaining in Round 2. “I actually came out of the fight pretty much unscathed, other than the fact that I think I broke my foot with a good body kick right to the…
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! It’s the most wonderful time of the year and as the 2023 calendar nears its end, that means it’s time for the MMA community to take some much deserved time off. This year, the MMA community celebrated another holiday season in the usual fashion: spending time with their loved ones and spreading holiday cheer. Check out how some of the biggest names in MMA spent their yuletide seasons. the bully who stole gold pic.twitter.com/zitMy7Nj8C— Belal Muhammad (@bullyb170) December 25, 2023 View this post on Instagram A post shared by Conor McGregor Official (@thenotoriousmma) Pour battre…
For Miesha Tate, the stakes of her UFC Austin bout against Julia Avila were the same as her fights with Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm. Tate faced Avila on a two-fight skid, giving her a losing record of 1-2 since emerging from a five-year retirement in 2021. She knew there would be more pressure to retire if she didn’t turn things around. “I think because I’ve been doing this for so long, and a lot of people were pushing,” she said on The MMA Hour. “I just heard a lot of noise, and people thinking, ‘She’s done. She’s washed up.…
We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. The quote is from an ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy, and it’s quoted by Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in the 1971 classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. What does this have to do with fighting? Absolutely nothing. But I’ll get to that in a bit. This month, Wonka arrived in theaters worldwide. Starring Timothée Chalamet as the titular character. The film is a prequel, showing the origins of Wonka in his rise to global chocolatier sensation. I have seen the film, and I can say it’s…
Chael Sonnen will defend himself if directly threatened – fans learned that when he brawled with rival Wanderlei Silva on the set of The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3. Sonnen was at technically at work when the extracurricular fight took place, and some MMA observers might argue the same for Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis when they sat a few rows apart at UFC 296, arguably setting the stage for their brawl. UFC CEO Dana White said it was his fault for putting them so close. But should Strickland face any additional repercussions? The three-time UFC title challenger thinks not.…
Israel Adesanya had just arrived at his 47th minute of sanctioned fighting against Alex Pereira, and history was repeating itself. It started with a leg kick, as many things in the orbit of Pereira do, and all at once Adesanya appeared to be hurt as he backpedaled to the cage. This was where Adesanya’s revenge tour had come to an abrupt halt five months earlier, when his confident dismantling of the fearsome Brazilian turned on a dime, courtesy of a left hook, as so many Pereira finishes do. Bettors narrowly favored Adesanya heading into the MMA rematch, buying into the…
Mayra Bueno Silva faces Raquel Pennington for the vacant UFC bantamweight championship in the co-main event of UFC 297, but it took her some time to understand that. “Sheetara” revealed on MMA Fighting’s Trocação Franca podcast that when head American Top Team coach Marcos “Parrumpa” daMatta called with the breaking news, she initially thought her opponent would be ex-champion Julianna Peña. It took her a week to fix the mixup. “At first I thought it was going to be Julianna, so we started watching all of Julianna’s fights after dinner,” Silva said. “A week later, I found out it was…
The UFC 296 main event between Leon Edwards and Colby Covington didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Even fellow UFC welterweight Geoff Neal was ready to change the channel before the fight was over. Despite some very heated and personal trash talk leading up to the fight, Covington failed to do much of anything over five rounds. Edwards picked him apart from the outside and even slipped in takedowns against the former All-American wrestler from Oregon State. Edwards cruised to victory with 49-46 scorecards across the board, but Neal didn’t see much that really impressed from the champion or…