Author: mmafighting
Vince McMahon is out. On Friday, WWE president Nick Khan informed employees that McMahon tendered his resignation as the executive chairman from TKO Group Holdings — the merged company with the UFC and WWE — and he will no longer have any association with the company. “I wanted to inform you that Vince McMahon has tendered his resignation from his positions as TKO Executive Chairman and on the TKO Board of Directors,” Khan said in an e-mail to employees. “He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or WWE.” The news comes just a day after a…
Sean Strickland continues to sell himself as the people’s champion of the UFC. The former UFC middleweight champion on Friday came to the defense of MMA fans after longtime UFC commentator Jon Anik expressed displeasure with the hostility he encountered from those who disagreed that Dricus du Plessis beat Strickland at UFC 297. Anik said he considered covering the NFL instead of MMA as a result of the backlash. Whereas several active UFC fighters and industry vets came to Anik’s defense, Strickland chided the UFC employee for not being grateful to the promotion’s fan base, using an expletive to describe…
UFC 300 is expected to deliver a loaded lineup for the promotion’s historic April event. Following one of the most chaotic years in recent memory, the UFC will bring UFC 300 to its home base of Las Vegas on April 13. UFC CEO Dana White has promised one of the most stacked, and perhaps, unpredictable lineups in company history. With four title fights already on the books for the first quarter of the year, including Sean Strickland vs. Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight title, and Mayra Bueno Silva vs. Raquel Pennington for the vacant women’s bantamweight title at UFC…
UFC flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja may have let the cat out of the bag on his second title defense. While appearing at an event featuring the Brazilian soccer team Clube de Regatas do Flamengo, Pantoja revealed his plans to striker Gabriel Barbosa. “I’ll be defending the belt in Rio, on May 4,” he said. The UFC flyweight champ didn’t reveal his opponent. With ex-champ Brandon Moreno rematching Brandon Royval at UFC Mexico city next month, and Manel Kape currently benched after badly missing weight for a bout against Matheus Nicolau at UFC Vegas 84, immediate options for the next title…
Merab Dvalishvili has quite the sense of humor. Scheduled to face former two-division champion Henry Cejudo at UFC 298 next month in Anaheim, Calif., Dvalishvili has put himself in a position for a bantamweight title shot against Sean O’Malley. But the current champ already has his first title defense set for UFC 299 against Marlon Vera — the man O’Malley called out after his UFC 292 win over Aljamain Sterling, and the only fighter to defeat him. Avenging prior losses seems to be a theme for O’Malley, along with facing fighters lower in the rankings then Dvalishvili. Acting as “Professor…
DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of our favorite fighters in MMA history. On this episode, the MMA Fighting staff takes a deep dive into the late Kimbo Slice, an internet legend who became the biggest star in MMA. Back in the early 2000s when MMA was still making its way into the mainstream, the more sophomoric corners of the internet birthed an entirely different kind of combat sport: bareknuckle fights in backyards and boatyards all across Miami. At the time, Kimbo Slice – real name Kevin Ferguson – was a driver and bodyguard for a pornography company, and…
Tony Ferguson might have been less than 100 percent in his most recent fight. The former UFC interim champion revealed on social media that he suffered an MCL tear two weeks before Thanksgiving, which would have been less than a month before his UFC 296 fight with Paddy Pimblett on Dec. 16. Pimblett went on to defeat Ferguson via unanimous decision, sending “El Cucuy” to his seventh straight loss. See Ferguson’s Instagram post addressing the injury below. “F***** my s*** up during a practice sesh, MCL tear,” Ferguson wrote in a caption. “I kept it to myself and put it…
In some ways, Sage Northcutt has been preparing to fight Shinya Aoki for nearly three years. Following a litany of injuries suffered in his ONE Championship debut, Northcutt was ready to return to action in April 2021 when disaster struck yet again. Just before he was set to travel to Singapore for the fight, he started feeling sick, and it didn’t take long to realize he wouldn’t fight. “I think if I remember correct, maybe a week and a half before flying out to Singapore for the fight, came down with COVID,” Northcutt said when speaking to MMA Fighting. “Didn’t…
UFC lead commentator Jon Anik is getting a bit fed up with the negative portion of the MMA fanbase, and rightfully so, which has led him to ponder his future as a broadcaster in this space. Quite frankly, Anik deserves much better, and the UFC watching experience would change drastically if he weren’t around. On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck discusses Anik’s comments on his podcast, it being more than OK that he expressed those feelings about the situation, and how this is the new norm for the sport and it doesn’t seem…
Daniel Cormier isn’t letting Jon Jones have the last word. In the latest back-and-forth exchange between the longtime rivals, Cormier and Jones have found themselves arguing about their reputations with the UFC and their respective legacies. Cormier suggested that Jones was a “bad employee” after a recent unsealing of court documents revealed a series of 2014 text messages between former UFC Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta and future UFC CEO Dana White in which they had unkind words for Jones. At various points, they refer to Jones as a “scumbag,” a “punk,” and a “douche.” Jones fired back at Cormier, calling him…