Dana White had quite a time watching the sweet science this past weekend.

On a rare week off for the UFC, it was boxing superstar Canelo Alvarez who took center stage on Sept. 30 in Las Vegas with a unanimous decision victory over Jermell Charlo. However, Alvarez’s dominant performance to defend his status as undisputed super middleweight champion was not what grabbed White’s attention.

When asked Tuesday at the Contender Series post-fight press conference about the ongoing saga of Bellator’s potential sale, the UFC CEO saved his usual venom for the rival promotion and instead directed it at Bellator’s broadcast partner, Showtime.

“If Bellator continues to exist, it’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing,” White told reporters. “If you look at all the s*** that we take about a lot of things — they’re owned by f****** Viacom. You know how much money these guys have? Why would they be going out of business unless they’re just tired of doing it, because you’re hearing rumors about Showtime too, not just Bellator. You know what I think of Showtime as a company, there’s no secret. Again, I could go on for days about their production on Saturday. They tried to do it better. I noticed. Showtime, I noticed you tried to do it better, but you guys suck.”

White’s positive comments about Bellator were somewhat unusual for the UFC boss, though perhaps shouldn’t be too unexpected considering the UFC is currently the target of a class-action lawsuit by several former fighters over its possible monopsony — a lawsuit that a federal judge in Nevada recently certified following an eight-year slog in the courts, clearing the way for a long-awaited trial that could rock the sport of MMA at its core.

White’s comments about Showtime, however, are not as surprising. The UFC CEO has been vocally at odds with Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza since the two worked together to promote the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor superfight in 2017.

Showtime broadcasted Canelo vs. Charlo this past Saturday, and when asked for his thoughts on the fight, White launched into a lengthy rant aimed at its production.

“Let me give you an example. This is how good our production is. Did you see [Anthony] Pettis there [at Contender Series]?” White said. “So the kid that threw the Pettis kicks off the fence [Magomed Gadzhiyasulov], it was three seconds left in the round, right? Three seconds left in the round. I picked up my big red phone and I called the truck, I said, ‘Put those Pettis kicks in the package.’ [They said,] ‘No problem.’ Hung up the phone, three seconds left in the round, they put them in there and they showed Pettis.

“Now, if any of you were home watching that fight that night on Showtime, they were trying to do more replays — their replays were so bad, there was a set of replays where, in both replays, nobody landed a f****** punch. So then you’ve got the commentators trying to talk about what’s going on and they were terrible replays. When you know production, they’re a f****** major network — they’re supposed to be anyway, Showtime, Viacom, whatever — that’s the f****** product that you’re putting on? When you know what you’re looking for and you know what you’re talking about in the production world, there’s nobody that can disagree with me that Showtime a horrible, horrible f****** production team.

“And listen, they’re not willing to stay in Bellator, they’re not willing to maybe move forward with boxing, so what does that tell you?” White continued. “They’re not putting any money into it. There’s probably no money in it and the guys can’t do it. I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s embarrassing. God bless all of them that work on that show.”

The post Dana White blasts ‘embarrassing’ Showtime production for Canelo Alvarez vs. Jermell Charlo appeared first on MMAInformed.

It turns out, Manel Kape really was ready to throw down at the UFC 293 pre-fight press conference.

Just days away from his own fight against Felipe dos Santos, Kape blasted Kai Kara-France, who dropped off the card after suffering a concussion in training. When Kape shouted at the New Zealander in the audience, that drew a reaction then-UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, who is teammates with Kara-France and was on stage promoting his headliner against Sean Strickland.

The fighters exchanged words, with Adesanya promising he would “bury” Kape, calling the flyweight contender a “midget” as security got between them to ensure the incident didn’t turn physical.

The situation seemingly ended there, but Kape revealed that Adesanya approached him backstage and offered an apology.

“After all this talk [at the press conference], he came to me backstage ‘Hey, no disrespect, we are Africa, we’re brothers,’” Kape said when speaking to MMA Fighting. “I said, ‘We are not brothers.

“‘Look, my problem is with Kai Kara, not with you. Why did you stand up? He can handle his business.’”

Kape said he had no beef with Adesanya until the altercation at the pre-fight press conference. But for him, the entire ordeal wasn’t just some promotional tool to hype up his rivalry with Kara-France. That’s why he refused to accept Adesanya’s apology when they ran into each other again two days later at UFC 293.

“Believe me, if he’s in the street with no cameras, I’ll eat you, too,” Kape said. “You are a man to back up your words. Because you’re just one [man], you’re tall, but I’ll eat you in the streets. Believe me. You don’t know what I’m capable of doing.

“He backed down again. Ask them what he said to me backstage. No man, no size, I don’t fear them, and I’m undefeated in the streets.”

While trash talk happens all the time in the UFC, Kape didn’t take kindly to Kara-France dropping out of their fight, and he really didn’t appreciate Adesanya getting involved in business that wasn’t his.

That said, Kape wasn’t shocked that Adesanya approached him backstage at UFC 293. He believes the whole drama surrounding the press conference was just a show for Kara-France and his teammates.

The same can’t be said for Kape.

“I expected it, because they’re just acting,” Kape said. “The difference is I’m not acting. I’m not acting. I’m for real.

“These people, they’re not built like me. Where I come from, what I handle. I’m different than these people. He knows. He don’t want the problem there.”

The post Manel Kape: I refused Israel Adesanya’s backstage apology at UFC 293 after press conference altercation appeared first on MMAInformed.

Tony Ferguson has seen your messages asking him to move on. He’s seen the calls for retirement that have chased his six-fight losing streak, the omnipresent hand-wringing that awaits every fight announcement, and the tearful emojis that litter his social media feeds after each setback. It was more of the same this past July, when Ferguson was choked unconscious by Bobby Green at UFC 291, and the pattern held even truer recently when the promotion announced his next dance date against Paddy Pimblett for Dec. 16 at UFC 296.

But as difficult it’s been to watch him struggle throughout what are likely the final chapters of an otherwise Hall of Fame worthy career, Ferguson is determined to right his ship.

“I’m not ready to retire,” Ferguson said on The MMA Hour. “Getting cut [from the UFC] was never in my thought process, retiring was never in my thought process. The only thing that was in my thought process is, ‘What the f*** are you doing? Get your f****** shit into gear. Do what you have to do to train the way you f****** need to train.’ Like, quit f****** horsing around. I’m trying to help so many f****** people — man, help yourself get to where you f****** need to be so that way we can help other people. And that really put myself in gear.

“It’s not easy, doing what we do inside that cage. It takes a lot of f****** balls. But we don’t have the only occupation where it takes balls, so I’m blessed to be able to do what I do, and like I said, it’s never been a thought in my head that [I should give in] to retirement.”

Ferguson, 39, is widely regarded as one of the greatest lightweights of his era. His 12-fight win streak from 2013-19 remains tied with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s undefeated reign as the longest win streak in the history of the UFC lightweight division, however the past few years have been a challenge for “El Cucuy.” Of his six consecutive losses, four have ended in violent stoppages, and nearly all of those six have been relatively one-sided affairs.

Ferguson hopes that run of bad results ends at UFC 296.

In a revealing and introspective conversation with MMA Fighting on Monday, the former UFC interim lightweight champion took accountability for his actions and said that he’s worked diligently to understand the factors that led him to his current predicament.

“I put myself in this f****** position and I’m so tired of it,” Ferguson said. “I’m so f****** tired of putting myself in these f***** up positions where it loses me a match. It’s trying new things in the fight rather than in the practice room. And it doesn’t start in the fight, it starts in the practice room. You always have to do it in the practice room, and if it doesn’t work in the practice room, you don’t do it on the f****** playing field. And I think I took my own talent for granted. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, and I’ve always done that — if I didn’t have more talent than the other person, my hard work was always going to show up. And these last couple of fights, I just let it slip through my hands, man.”

Ferguson admitted that much of his love of the game had been stripped out of him for most of his losing streak. A big part of that, he said, was the dissolution of his longtime team around the start of the pandemic in 2020. Ferguson has rifled through a variety of camps and training partners since, but said he never found a situation that matched the mentality and work-rate he was able to establish with his original squadmates in southern California.

That’s why Ferguson has gone back to his roots for UFC 296. He’s reunited with several of his old coaches ahead of his bout with Pimblett, and the change has been reinvigorating.

“I never really talked about it, how hard that really impacted me when my team broke apart. But it f****** sucked,” Ferguson said. “And then trying to put people together to keep that s*** going, man, it was almost kind of like a relationship. Sometimes you’ve just got to say bye and then just move on, and I think finally I did that — and I’m able to trust again, which is very hard for a guy like me, because everybody looks at me like a superhero. They always look like I have the right answer, and I usually do, I usually like to have the right answer. But this time I asked for help — and I asked for the right help.

“I’ve been as real as I possibly could with them, and my agent and my family, my wife particularly, and my kids, and I’ve just been real honest with them and myself. And I’ve been digging deep, man. I really dug deep to what I really needed to do. I’ve found myself emotionally and I’ve learned how to smile again. Especially in this sport, especially after six losses, you would think that you would just give up, go hide and be depressed, and go sleep all the time and do all this other s*** that a lot of people would do. I mean, I’ve seen these guys retire off of like maybe two f****** fight losses and say they don’t have it anymore or whatever the f***. I look at them and I’m just like, ‘Jeez, man.’ Like, what the f***? Slap yourself around a little bit and get back on the drawing board.”

“I’m unbreakable. I had to start believing that and I had to start telling myself that again, because I wasn’t telling myself that,” Ferguson continued. “I was telling everybody else that. I’m hyping everybody else up, including friends, family, whatever the f***, whoever it is, lots of loved ones. But I had to finally start telling myself that, because I started to see myself kind of go like this [downward mentally] a little bit. Not being happy doing what I’m doing, not competing with a smile, not having fun with training. Always kind of, like, bugged out.

“Every time I would go into my academy, I’d be f****** just like dreading it and pissy, and just, ‘F***, here we go again.’ Because I would have people telling me, like, ‘Why are you training all day when you’re wasting your time,’ all that fucking s*** that [clouded] up my head, where it was just kind of like I stopped believing in myself. And it was f****** terrible. It was like the worst f****** thing, dude. … I had to step back away, listen to myself, listen to some good advice from some good people, and really think. Put my thoughts down on paper — not just on Instagram, but put them on paper — think about what I could do, make some phone calls, ask some questions, ask for help. And f*** man, people were kind of like, ‘Hey, we’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been?’ That’s been an A-plus right there.”

Ferguson admitted that some of what he’s saying may sound cliche. It’s not lost on him that the trope of a fighter returning to their roots in an effort to rediscover some sort of long-lost success is one that’s been used by plenty of others in the past, including himself.

“But there’s a difference between saying and then actually doing it, and instead of partially doing it, doing it how you’re supposed to,” Ferguson explained. “And that’s where I’m at right now. And I’ve got people checking on me, making sure, they’re like, ‘Hey, when are we going to do this? What are we going to do this? What are we going to do this?’”

“I really had to open myself up to really look, to see if I still wanted to do this,” he continued. “I want to be real — I really, I do want to do this. I still want to compete. I’m not ready for boxing. Like, I’m not. I have to kind of let that go. You’re not boxing yet, stop training boxing all the time. There’s more than just throwing hands. Not to prepare MMA — it’s MMA and I used to do that. Like, I used to pick apart my fighters like it was chess. I used to go in there and do all that stuff. … So I really had to open myself up to a lot of things, and these are the steps I’m taking, man. I’m a f****** different person, thank God, and I really want to win. I really want to win. I’m not wishing — I’m making it happen. I really want to win.”

The post Tony Ferguson opens up on mental shift for Paddy Pimblett fight: ‘I stopped believing in myself’ appeared first on MMAInformed.

Videos of Dillon Danis sparring and banging his head against a sauna railing raised a lot of eyebrows before his boxing match against Logan Paul.

Danis said the reality of those videos is a lot different than their appearance. He touted his work with former UFC middleweight champion Alex Pereira and credited Mike Perry – Paul’s backup for the Oct. 14 boxing match – as inspiration for his self-inflicted head trauma in the heat.

“I only sparred Pereira,” said Danis on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour. “That’s f****** warming up. Do you know how hard Pereira hits? He hurt me, he was like, ‘Boa.’ Then we sparred a hard six rounds, 100 percent.”

Danis referred to his “security guard” standing off camera to confirm the intensity of the session.

“How many people would do that? You think Logan Paul could last 100 percent with Pereira? He was going 100 percent, so stop f****** discrediting my boxing,” he continued.

Paul mocked Danis’ previous sparring footage online.

When Paul got wind of Danis’ “head conditioning,” he speculated the jiu-jitsu specialist was looking for a way out of the fight. Paul wrote into their contract a clause where Danis will be forced to pay $100,000 if he pulls out of the fight with an injury that cannot be verified.

Danis said banging his head into wood was just another training method.

“You know how [Mike] Perry does that in the sauna, I was conditioning my head,” he said. “I’ve got a hard head.”

Asked why he released the odd video, Danis replied, “because it was content?”

So far, the buildup to the six-round, 195-pound exhibition boxing match has been dominated by Danis’ social media war against Paul and Paul’s fiancee, Nina Agdal. Former swimsuit cover model Agdal sued Danis in federal court over a video he posted that she said was illegally hacked from her phone. The case is pending.

Paul, who weighs well over 200 pounds in the offseason, is a heavy favorite to win the fight. Danis is returning to competition after a four-year layoff due to a serious knee injury. Asked about its status, Danis said, “for him, it’s fine.”

“I think when you have two knee surgeries, it will never be 100 percent,” Danis added. “Boxing is so easy compared to MMA. I think no one cares. The thing with me, I’m so hated, or now I guess I’m loved, everybody always just wants to put me down. I don’t mind it, because I bring it upon myself. But no one ever just gives me credit for anything.

“I feel like I deserve some respect for a lot of things I do.”

The post Dillon Danis responds to critics of sparring, ‘head conditioning’ videos appeared first on MMAInformed.

Joji Goto is putting his own, ahem, twist on MMA.

For the second time in four months, Goto finished a fight in Round 2 via twister submission, this time making Junya Hibino tap to the rare submission at a RIZIN event Sunday in Nagoya, Japan.

Watch the awesome finish below.

Twister tap-outs are among the rarest finishes in all of MMA, prompting RIZIN’s official English Twitter account to ask if this is the first time its ever been done in the history of the game. Even if it isn’t, this is not only two straight twister submissions for Goto, it’s his second time closing the show with the maneuver in four months.

This past June, Goto executed a nasty variation of the maneuver in his RIZIN debut against Trent Girdham.

At the highest levels of MMA, twisters remain an elusive finish to attain. For example, the UFC octagon has only played host to three such finishes: The Korean Zombie’s history-making twister of Leonard Garcia in their second fight, Bryce Mitchell’s win over Matt Sayles, and Da’Mon Blackshear’s first-round finish of Jose Johnson this past August.

The post Video: Joji Goto scores second straight twister submission win appeared first on MMAInformed.

Johnny Eblen successfully defended his middleweight title against Fabian Edwards by third-round TKO at Bellator 299. Prior to the finish, Edwards opened up a nightmarish cut on Eblen’s eyebrow that looked dangerous for the champion, and it ultimately prompted him to step on the gas and get the stoppage.

“I wasn’t really sure how bad it was,” Eblen said on The MMA Hour. “I went down in the corner after the round, the cut man put vaseline in it, it wasn’t bleeding too much. The coaches didn’t talk too much about it, they just said, ‘You’re cut. We need some more urgency out of you, Johnny. We need to get the fight to the ground. We’ve got to do some more to make it more of a one-sided fight.’

“When they went back in their corner, and I turned around and looked back at them, I guess they got a different angle on my cut, and they all looked at each other and were like, ‘That’s a bad cut.’ I kind of felt some urgency in that round, like, ‘Man, I’ve got to do something big, because I don’t know if this fight is going to be stopped or not because of this cut.’ So yeah. I’m just glad I did what I did in the third round and got the finish.

“I turned it up,” Eblen continued. “I was like, I need to go forward. I need to land heavy shots, and if I have to, get this fight to the ground, advance, get to finishing positions, whether it’s me on top or me landing heavy punches on the feet. I definitely felt more urgency in the third, and regardless of the cut, I would have turned it up in the third, because that was my game plan. But I feel like the cut made it more like, ‘Hey man, we’ve got to get this done sooner rather than later.’”

Eblen did secure the finish just 21 seconds into the third round. But afterward, things took another bad turn when he nearly came to blows with Edwards’ brother, UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards, after allegedly spitting on the unconscious Fabian. Eblen denies that, and he though he admits he got too heated with his celebration, he said he didn’t intentionally spit on anyone. After taking time to cool off, he said he attempted to squash the beef.

“What happened was, I was fired up, I was talking s***,” Eblen said. “I probably shouldn’t have. I should have been a good sport, I should have walked away and let my fists do the talking, but I can’t exactly remember what I was saying at the beginning. It had something to do with him staring at me. I was thinking about the staredown, and how he couldn’t stop looking at me when they told me to turn towards the cameras, and I thought that was really weird and we kind of got into it. I remember at the end of it I yelled ‘p****’ at him, at the very end. There’s blood, sweat, and just s*** everywhere. I watched it back, and I could see how someone could possibly think I did, but I was just yelling at him.

“I’m sorry that he thinks I did that. I just got a little too heated and was yelling at him. After the fact, I got to sit down and kind of gather myself and go over and talk to them and squash it, because I feel like we both hate Colby [Covington], so I hope he beats Colby. I hope Leon beats Colby. I don’t like these guys, but I hate Colby more.”

Covington previously trained at American Top Team, Eblen’s current gym, before famously falling out with the team. Covington now trains at MMA Masters and will face Edwards for the UFC welterweight title in the main event of UFC 296 in December.

Eblen said he is “going to learn a lot from the experience” and do his best to avoid similar situations in the future, but “The Human Cheat Code” doesn’t have too much time to worry what happened on Saturday. Now 10-0 inside the Bellator cage, with two successful title defenses to his name, he is hoping for a quick turnaround so he can continue making his case for being one of the best fighters in the world, whether that comes against presumed No. 1 Contender Aaron Jeffery, or in an opportunity to make a little history.

“When it comes to the middleweight division, I think yes, [Jeffery] would be the next logical step,” Eblen said. “He beat two of my friends, Austin Vanderford and Dalton Rosta, and he’s the next guy in line to fight for a title that I haven’t beat. So yeah, I would love to get in there and beat his ass and get paid again. But it’s a matter of if Bellator wants to make that fight, or if they want to make him fight again. It’s not my decision at the end of the day.

“If that’s not the case, I think the next logical step — whatever can happen quicker — is going up a weight class and fighting for a 205 belt. It’s an interest of mine. I’ve been thinking about it. It’s another step, and it’s going to legitimize my name, and it’s what the GOATs do. The GOATs of the sport don’t just stay in one weight class, they move weight classes and they show they’re actually, pound-for-pound, one of the best guys in the world.”

The post Johnny Eblen talks gruesome Bellator 299 cut, denies spitting on Fabian Edwards in post-fight altercation appeared first on MMAInformed.

Terence Crawford was not impressed by Jermell Charlo’s performance.

Charlo, boxing’s undisputed light middleweight world champion, suffered a one-sided loss to Canelo Alvarez on Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, losing in a listless effort by scores of 119-108, 118-109, and 118-109. Charlo’s attempt to jump up two weight classes and upset the undisputed super middleweight champ was ambitious, but ultimately Alvarez bullied Charlo around the ring and had his way throughout the 12-round bout.

But that didn’t stop Charlo (35-2-1) from calling his shot and challenging Crawford, the undisputed welterweight champ and current No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in boxing.

“I’m down to fight whoever, you know? Hey, I want to fight Terence Crawford. F*** that. I could fight Terence Crawford at my weight division,” Charlo said post-fight. “Yeah, yeah, I know he’s somewhere around this joint. Tell Terence. Yeah, yeah, I’ll fight Terence Crawford. Let him fight Errol Spence or whatever they got going on, get that out of the way, I’m waiting. I’m about to get back right into training. Tell him don’t worry about it.”

Crawford, however, did not take Charlo’s callout lightly.

The pound-for-pound king responded with a flurry of hostile tweets, which can read below.

“[Charlo] you went out sad. Didn’t even try to win, all you did was try to survive. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ok y’all I’m over [Charlo] he’s no longer on my hit list. He went out there and laid down and let Canelo spank him like he was his daddy with no type of resistance.”

“Congratulations Canelo you made the so called lion look like a baby cub.”

Check out complete Canelo vs. Charlo results here.

The post Terence Crawford tears into Jermell Charlo after blowout Canelo loss, callout: ‘You should be ashamed’ appeared first on MMAInformed.

Johnny Eblen isn’t a fan of the rumors of a PFL-Bellator merger.

Recently, it’s been an open secret in the MMA world that Bellator is on the auction block, and earlier this month, rumors began circulating that PFL was in process of acquiring the rival promotion. Whether the rumors will ultimately prove true remains to be seen, but Bellator middleweight champion Johnny Eblen, who defended his title with a third round TKO win over Fabian Edwards at Bellator 299 this past weekend, says that the vibes were definitely a little off at this most recent event.

“I feel like the staff isn’t as hyped anymore,” Eblen said on The MMA Hour. “Not altogether, but it just kind of felt like when I went to check in, that it wasn’t the same this time. They’re still doing their thing and there’s a lot of uncertainty, so I can totally understand why, but other than that, other than the energy behind it, everything ran smoothly. Everything ran great. The Bellator staff is amazing. Everything ran how it should have ran.

“I guess it’s just like this big cloud of uncertainty is hanging over everybody’s head when it comes to Bellator and the future of Bellator and what’s going to happen. It’s going to change how people are feeling during events like this.”

As things stand now, Bellator has at least two more events planned out for the year — Bellator 300 and 301 — but after that, nothing has been announced, meaning that Eblen’s fight with Edwards on Saturday may have been his final one inside the Bellator cage.

And if that’s the case, that’s OK by the middleweight champ.

“I don’t know what the future holds, I just understand that I’m damn good at what I do, so I will always be employed, whether at Bellator, PFL, or the UFC, or freaking ONE,” Eblen said. “I can’t count ONE out. Quite possibly it could have been my last fight with Bellator, or not. They could have a few more events and drag this out a little bit longer. I’m not sure what the whole deal entails and what they’re going to do. Who knows? I’ll just be here waiting, ready to fight again, and take on whatever challenge they bring me next.”

With a deal not even confirmed, nearly anything could come next for Elben, be it in Bellator, PFL, or free agency. Whatever ends up happening though, Eblen doesn’t particularly like the big picture of everything should PFL actually end up acquiring Bellator.

“I think it’s bad, personally,” Eblen said. “It’s two major organizations, really, that are controlling a lot of fighters. I know PFL is meaning well though, and they’re trying to get guys paid more, so I can kind of see how it might be good, but you don’t know until it’s actually done. They could say that they’re going to pay fighters more and what-not but then absorb Bellator and do the same thing that the UFC is doing. Not to say that that’s what they’re going to do, but I like more competition than less competition.”

On top of the decrease in competition, Eblen in particular faces a different kind of problem: PFL does not currently have a middleweight division, meaning Eblen may not even have a home should the rumors prove true. The creates an entirely separate set of uncertainties for the middleweight champ, with some possible outcomes that he really doesn’t want.

“I think it’s a little odd and it’s kind of like, are you going to build [a division] for me?” Eblen said. “Are you not? We don’t know what’s going to happen. If they do and they get me to do a tournament structure, I’m not upset with that. I’m going to make a lot of money. And I’m also not upset with, ‘Hey, we’re not going to build a middleweight division,’ and they terminate my contract or sell it or whatever and I go to the UFC. I’m not upset with that either.

“It’s just weird. If they do buy it, they’re going to have to build a division around me or they’re going to have to do what they’re doing to Kayla Harrison, which is actually something I don’t want because I want to fight often. The worst possible thing that could happen to me is around my prime getting stuck fighting one time a year, against not the best guys in the world. Unless they can somehow get the best guys in the world by somehow paying them more. That’s what they did with Francis, but can you do that with some of the best ‘85ers in the world? I don’t know.”

And if they can’t? Eblen isn’t sure where that ultimately leaves him in his career, other than wishing things were different.

“If they get some new people to bring over, to sign, that are top-10 guys, that would make it interesting, but that’s a matter of if,” Eblen said. “That’s the only thing they could possibly do. Other than that, I’d just be kind of just fighting guys that aren’t the best in the world, and that’s where the problem lies, I think, with the whole PFL deal.

“You have one of the best talents in the middleweight division, but how are you going to make good fights with this guy? How do you make a good production with the best middleweight but you don’t have all the other middleweights? It’s just weird to me. I think fighting is such a weird sport. I wish it was more like boxing, where you could do cross-promotional and have the best guys fight each other, and boom, you know who the best guy in the world is.”

The post Johnny Eblen dislikes rumored PFL-Bellator merger: ‘I like more competition’ appeared first on MMAInformed.

Angela Lee is entering a new phase of her martial arts journey.

The longtime ONE Championship star announced her retirement from MMA and vacated her ONE 115-pound title on Friday night at ONE Fight Night 14 in Singapore. Lee’s decision comes shortly after she revealed in a Players Tribune essay that her 2017 car crash was a suicide attempt and that her 18-year-old sister Victoria Lee also took her own life in 2022.

The toll has been heavy on Lee, which ultimately led to her decision to lay down her gloves and put an end to her fighting career.

“This year has been the hardest year of my life,” an emotional Lee said. “I’m doing my best to pick up the pieces and move forward.”

“I’m here today to officially announce my retirement. It has been an incredible eight years. I just want to say thank you to the fans, to ONE Championship, to Chatri [Sityodtong], to my teams, and just everyone. There have been so many battles, in and out of the cage.

“The last thing I want to say is this: To the fighters and to everyone out there watching right now, is that the greatest battle we will ever face won’t be with an opponent standing in front of us. The greatest battle will be within ourselves. We all go through struggles, but we all fight. And each day, we are victorious when we choose to rise up in the face of adversity. So thank you guys so much, I love you. Thank you.”

Born into a martial arts family, Lee began competing in Pankration tournaments and learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu at a very young age. Lee eventually transitioned to MMA, where she signed with ONE Championship when she was just 18 years old. She made an immediate impact with the promotion.

Lee rattled off five straight wins to start her career then became the inaugural ONE 115-pound champion in 2016 at just age 19. She went on to defend her belt five times in her career and also tested herself in several contests at 125 pounds.

Lee last competed in October 2022, dropping a decision to reigning ONE 125-pound champion Xiong Jingnan in a rubber match after the pair split two previous meetings.

Following her sister’s tragic death, Lee took an extended break from the sport. ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong previously announced that she was considering retirement, however no decision had been made official until Friday. Lee said her goal now is to work with FightStory, a non-profit she created in honor of Victoria which supports people telling their own stories about mental health.

“FightStory was created because of my sister Victoria, and I’m choosing to honor her and her life by moving forward and helping others,” Lee said.

Lee’s career concludes with an 11-3 record overall. She remains undefeated at 115 pounds.

Following her retirement, Stamp Fairtex defeated UFC veteran Seo Hee Ham with a vicious body punch in the third round at ONE Fight Night 14 to claim the vacant 115-pound title.

The post Angela Lee announces retirement from MMA, Stamp Fairtex claims vacant ONE title appeared first on MMAInformed.

Beware of the Pereira family when it comes to pranks.

Not long after Alex Pereira’s sons pulled a fast one on their old man (and barely survived to tell the tale), the former UFC middleweight champion paid it forward against his longtime friend and coach Glover Teixeira. In a video posted Friday to Instagram, Pereira is seen tricking Teixeira into believing a napkin at a sushi restaurant is a some sort of special dish.

“Look at the prank I’m going to do to Glover. It’s a napkin to clean hands, and I’ll tell him it’s to eat,” Pereira says in Portuguese, grinning.

“Good, huh?” Teixeira responds in Portuguese after getting handed the dish. “F***, man. Damn.”

“Come on, ‘Poatan!’” Teixeira adds after eating it. “F*** you, man!”

Watch video of Pereira’s hilarious prank against Teixeira below.

Pereira, 36, challenges Jiri Prochazka for the vacant UFC lightweight title on Nov. 11 at New York’s Madison Square Garden in the co-main event of UFC 295.

“Poatan” is 8-2 as a professional MMA fighter and is a former two-division kickboxing champion in GLORY. He last competed in July, when he defeated Jan Blachowicz via split decision in his light heavyweight debut. If victorious at UFC 295, Pereira will become a two-division UFC champion in just his seventh appearance under the promotion’s umbrella.

The post Video: Alex Pereira hilariously tricks Glover Teixeira into eating restaurant napkin appeared first on MMAInformed.