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Which Halloween monster is most likely to win a UFC championship? This poll is closed. |
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|---|---|---|---|
| A Dracula |
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15 | 34.88% |
| The Wolfman |
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18 | 41.86% |
| Mark Zuckerberg |
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7 | 16.28% |
| Conor McGregor |
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3 | 6.98% |
| Total: | 43 votes | ||
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If you really want to get further away from Halloween, you can return to September here. Welcome to October, the best month of the year. We've got some real good fights and some real bad fights, so hopefully, on average, we're gonna be just fine. Watch, be spooked, and may we all be blessed with candy. This month's thread title courtesy of Nate Diaz. If this is your first time here you should stop and say hi so we know it's not just the same couple dozen of us cussing each other out all the time, but you may want to start with The General Q&A Thread for the basic gist of mixed martial arts. Yes, I'm still doing the new one. If you want to talk about MMA or combat sports events that aren't included in this breakdown: Please do. In a world of Road FC and Rizin events that don't actually air in America and the WBC threatening to rank Jake Paul, there's space for everything. And always remember the golden rule: https://twitter.com/DinThomas/status/1561216021943369728 THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS 
IS THERE ANY NEWS https://twitter.com/PharrFromHeaven/status/1576017589524131841 Antonio Inoki passed away at 79 on September 30th. It's impossible to compress Inoki's legacy into a few sentences, both in the breadth of his impact and the nuances both positive and negative of his life. He did a lot of good for sports and youth in Japan; he also represented far-right interests and won political office on platforms of homophobia and jingoism. He made political inroads with nations like Iraq and North Korea that most entities would've considered impossible; he also lined the crap out of his own pockets by doing it. He was a liar and a philosopher, a warrior and a grifter, and he is, indisputably, one of the most important figures in the history of both professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. Without Antonio Inoki's proto-MMA challenges we wouldn't have had one of the first true worldwide MMA touchstones in Inoki vs Muhammad Ali, without Antonio Inoki's training we wouldn't have had Satoru Sayama or Nobuhiko Takada and thus wouldn't have had Shooto or Pride, and without his habit of violently slapping people in the face to bless them, Lyoto Machida wouldn't have been a world champion. His legacy is impossibly broad and filigreed with as much dirt as gold, he is the progenitor of so much both good and bad about our sport, and the world, in many senses, will not be the same without him.  In one of the more unexpectedly tragic news updates, UFC veteran Elias Theodorou died on September 11, 2022 after a quiet, private struggle with liver cancer at the age of 34, which is ridiculous and unfair. He was an Ultimate Fighter winner and a deeply talented 19-3 fighter, but vastly more important than either of those things, he was, by virtually unanimous account, a wonderful human being. Everyone who knew him loved him, everyone who worked with him is mourning him, and in an industry known for its worst impulses, he was compassionate and self-aware. He was a voice for fighters' rights, he used his UFC platform to advocate for drug testing reform and became the first athlete to get a Therapeutic Use Exception for marijuana, he worked as an actor, a journalist and even the first Ring Boy in mixed martial arts, and not a single person he touched has a bad word to say about him. He will be missed. https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1567211396970020864 Sigh. https://twitter.com/MichaelBensonn/status/1570122044762689536 On the other side of the grifter spectrum, Triller appears to be done staging combat sports events thanks to a) their wasting millions of dollars on terrible cards and b) the crypto crash wiping out their investments. https://twitter.com/MMAJunkie/status/1567954975808176130 After nine years and 24 fights, Thiago Santos, the UFC's #9 light-heavyweight, left the organization to sign with PFL. How well that's going to go, I don't know, but godspeed, buddy. https://twitter.com/MMARLONMORAES/status/1570575069268824065 But the acquisitions don't stop there: Marlon Moraes, having lost 4 of his last 5 fights by violent knockout, is not, in fact, retiring, and is, in fact, moving up a weight class and going to PFL. I am not happy. https://twitter.com/lthomasnews/status/1566537729076350976 Nate Diaz is starting a fight promotion. His brother Nick also went this route back in 2013. They put on one event and closed forever. Better luck this time. I THINK MONTHLY RETIREMENT CORNER IS A RECURRING FEATURE NOW  Man, how do you start talking about José Aldo. José Aldo moved to Rio with nothing, lived in his jiu-jitsu gym, turned pro at 18, and in the nearly twenty years of competition that followed, he was never once anything but one of the best in the world. He lost one fight in his first year of competition, and it was his only loss for the next decade. He won eleven championship matches under the UFC's corporate umbrella--he went eight years without fighting a non-title fight--and that longevity is maybe the most incredible thing about him. Even in the mass index of great fighters, you cannot discuss them without discussing an awkward period of development or the time they spent toiling as journeymen or the depressingly inevitable late-career slide into humiliation. José Aldo, somehow, didn't have that. When he was a rookie, he was knocking out the greatest featherweights of the era before featherweight existed. When he was a champion, he was not just defeating but dominating the best people the UFC could throw at him. At the end of his career, when he was finally losing on a regular basis, he was losing to the best in the world and he was, more often than not, giving them hell. He hurt Max Holloway, he hurt Petr Yan, he arguably beat Marlon Moraes. In thirty-nine fights he only looked bad three times: Conor McGregor, in the fight that took away his title, Alexander Volkanovski, in the fight that took him away from his division, and Merab Dvalishvili, in the fight that ended his career. It might genuinely be the greatest career in the history of combat sports. José Aldo fought the absolute top of the talent pool across three entirely separate generations of mixed martial artists, and he was the absolute best of two of them and was at the very worst violently competitive with the third and last. There may never be another fighter like him, and watching his career was a gift. Whether he's moving onto boxing as is currently rumored or is just going to go take some well-deserved time off and enjoy being a family man, he deserves only the best.  After twenty years in the sport, Leonardo Santos has called it a day. "Lamparão" is one of the biggest and yet least-heralded almost-wases in mixed martial arts history. He's a fourth degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, he medaled multiple times in international grappling competitions, and in the first eighteen years of his mixed martial arts career he had only three losses--and two of those were razor-close decisions against Kazunori Yokota, a multiple-time world champion, and Takanori Gomi, one of the greatest lightweights in history. He choked out middleweights, he outfought welterweights, and late in his career he even became enough of a striker to knock out top contender Kevin Lee and PFL finalist Stevie Ray. But as he entered his forties, having spent his entire life in competition and finally feeling all of the mileage enough to drop three straight fights, he realized he simply couldn't perform the way he wanted to anymore, and wisely decided to exit with his health intact. He leaves the sport at 18-6-1, and his contributions as a trainer will be impacting it for decades to come.  Alessio di Chirico, somehow both abruptly and unsurprisingly, retired. On one hand, di Chirico is still relatively young at 32 and the biggest win of his career came in 2021 when he headkicked Joaquin Buckley; on the other, he was 4-7 in the UFC, he had just one win in his last six fights and he was violently knocked out twice in a row after never being stopped on strikes in his career, and that tends to recalibrate your expectations. He exits MMA at 13-7 and will focus fulltime on running the GLORIA Fight Center in Rome. And apparently also a bar. WHERE ELSE CAN I TALK TO LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE ABOUT VIOLENCE? Any of the following hangouts:
DO WE HAVE OTHER COMMUNAL THREADS? So many.
WHAT IF I HATE FORUM SOFTWARE? Through the magic of instant messaging and 40 year-old technology, you have, at a minimum, three exciting options!
 Disclaimer: These are unofficial offsite chatrooms, somethingawful's rules and liability do not extend to them, and complaining about discord stuff is still offsite drama posting
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WHAT HAPPENED IN SEPTEMBER September kicked off bright and early with UFC Fight Night: Gane vs Tuivasa on the 3rd. The UFC's French debut--which isn't as weird as it sounds, MMA was technically illegal in France until 2020--went off mostly as well as the UFC could have hoped. Stephanie Egger avenged her phantom submission loss, Cristian Quiñónez banished Khalid Taha from the UFC, Benoît Saint-Denis beat eight shades of hell out of can crusher Gabriel Miranda, Nasrat Haqparast returned to prospect status by beating John Makdessi, Abus Magomedov made his long-belated UFC debut by crushing Dustin Stoltzfus in nineteen seconds, and on the main card, Nathaniel Wood dominated Charles Jourdain, Roman Kopylov made the crowd briefly sad by knocking out Alessio Di Chirico, Nassourdine Imavov immediately soothed them by defeating Joaquin Buckley, Robert Whittaker dominated Marvin Vettori, and in the main event, hometown hero Ciryl Gane survived getting dropped to otherwise run an absolute clinic on Tai Tuivasa, ultimately knocking him cold in three rounds. September 10th brought us UFC 279, which proved to be the most chaotic weekend in the UFC since Conor McGregor chucked loading equipment at a crowded bus. The pre-fight presser was cancelled just minutes after it began thanks to a backstage altercation between Kevin Holland, Khamzat Chimaev and Nate Diaz, which was quickly usurped in memory the next day, when Khamzat arrived at the weigh-ins almost ten pounds overweight for his own main event. After a very chaotic four hours, the UFC saved the card by shuffling its top three opponents, ironically making it a much more interesting, competitive card in the process. The chaos carried into the fights. On the prelims, highlights included Norma Dumont dominating the one-fight veteran Danyelle Wolf, Chris Barnett, who became just the second UFC fighter to ever miss the heavyweight limit, overcome having his face destroyed to somehow TKO Jake Collier, Denis Tiuliulin knocking out Jamie Pickett with a big knee, Jailton Almeida making easy work of THE PLEASURE MAN Anton Turkalj and Julian Erosa upsetting Hakeem Dawodu with a surprisingly controlled performance. The main card was even better: Johnny Walker strangled Ion Cuțelaba, Irene Aldana scored just the third knockout by upkick in UFC history by punting Macy Chiasson in the liver from her back, and in our shuffled-on-one-day's-notice triple-header Daniel Rodriguez won a razor-close split decision over Li Jingliang, Khamzat Chimaev absolutely steamrolled Kevin Holland, and Nate Diaz and Tony Ferguson put on a fight that was as great as it was bizarre, with posedowns, at least a dozen inexplicable spins in place and a gushing shin wound, before Nate stunned Tony and hit one last guillotine. In his post-fight interview Nate vowed to go conquer boxing before coming back to the UFC for a championship. 209 never truly ends. And the UFC's month ended early thanks to UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Song on September 17th. The card was more or less cursed, with eight different fights on the card impacted in some fashion by reschedulings, right up until the official weigh-ins the day before the card where for the fifth time in her UFC career Aspen Ladd botched her weight cut and ultimately caused her fight with Sara McMann to be scratched. The card was a real fuckin' weird one, a mixture of amazing performances--Javid Basharat running a clinic on Tony Gravely, Gillian Robertson strangling Mariya Agapova, Damon Jackson unexpectedly starching Pat Sabatini--and terrible ones, with Trey Ogden beating a visibly frozen Daniel Zellhuber, Joseph Pyfer dispatching a horribly mismatched Alen Amedovski, and Trevin Giles and Louis Cosce putting forth one of the worst UFC performances of the year. But Anthony Hernandez choked out Marc-Andre Barriault, Gregory Rodrigues overcome having his face broken to TKO Chidi Njokuani, and in the main event, Cory Sandhagen won a hard-fought battle with Song Yadong after elbowing his face open so badly that the doctor had to step in. Bellator stepped in for its moment in the spotlight with September 23rd's Bellator 285: Henderson vs Queally and then quickly and ashamedly stepped back. It was a long and relatively uneventful attempt to win over the Irish market with a big fan favorite Dublin card that ended with most of the crowd leaving early out of boredom and frustration: A bunch of relatively uneventful decisions, the continuing fall of once-great Georgi Karakhanyan as he took his third straight loss, making him 3 for his last 10, Swedish top ten prospect Karl Albrektsson got upset-submitted by Karl Moore, Mads Burnell, after making a big deal out of not taking his fight preparation seriously, shockingly gassed and got wrestled to death by Pedro Carvalho, Yoel Romero fought Melvin Manhoef in the latter's retirement match and turned in exactly as weird and pointless a performance as he always does before getting bored and elbowing Manhoef to death with ninety seconds left in the fight, and in the main event, Irishman Peter Queally got thoroughly dominated by Benson Henderson. Rizin made its entry for the month with the extremely weird double-but-not-really card Super Rizin/Rizin 38. Super Rizin was an experiment in appealing to the American audience: A separate card that started earlier in the day with more appeal to a western audience. In theory, this is a great idea. There's a big international streaming audience for JMMA and Rizin has a ton of interesting production and great talents and matchups to show off. In practice, it was so farcial as to be hilarious. Super Rizin was delayed by an hour because Rizin couldn't get Floyd Mayweather or his entourage through traffic in a timely fashion, the first two matches were talented Japanese fighters Kota Miura and Nadaka Yoshinari against outsized and outmatched Thai kickboxers, the latter of whom looked as though he wasn't even aware he was fighting that night, and lasted about four minutes put together. The co-main event was a kickboxing match between Kouzi, a multiple-time kickboxing champion, and Ray "Jizzy Mack" Sadeghi, Floyd Mayweather's roided-out bodyguard who was 40 pounds heavier and had never had a fight in his life. Hilariously, Jizzy Mack still actually knocked down Kouzi and they had to quickly fake-call it a slip just to make sure the fix was in. And the main event was the second in Rizin's weird boxing experiments: Floyd Mayweather Jr., one of the greatest boxers of all time, in a three-round exhibition against Mikuru Asakura, one of Rizin's top MMA featherweights. It went essentially identically to the Mayweather/Nasukawa exhibition four years ago--Floyd was more than content to bob, weave, nonthreateningly spar and give Rizin its money's worth right up until the moment Mikuru decided to actually land and try to hurt him, you could see Floyd sort of smile and shake his head, and about twenty seconds later Asakura was on all fours and unable to get up. It was a deeply, deeply bizarre card, and I cannot possibly imagine how much money they lost. Do it again. Rizin 38 itself started a couple hours later, and it was both a solid card and a tough night for Japanese stars. DEEP lightweight champion and top Rizin contender Juri Ohara got smoked in just under ninety seconds by Brazilian striker Luiz "Killer" Gustavo, the inexplicably continuously pushed Kenka Bancho himself, Kyohei Hagiwara, officially dropped his record into negative numbers after getting choked out by kickboxer Chihiro Suzuki, Japan's arguable best heavyweight Shoma Shibisai choked out Callyugibrainn "Juggernaut" Marinho Borges de Oliveira, the only Brazilian fighter in mixed martial arts who apparently doesn't know how to grapple, but not before Gibrainn broke his face with one punch, fan favorite Hiromasa Ougikubo made his first appearance since his upset victory as Rizin's 2021 Bantamweight Grand Prix champion and promptly got the absolute brakes beaten off of him by South Korean champion Soo Chul Kim, Ayaka Hamasaki similarly fell in an upset to Si Woo Park's comprehensive assault and Seika Izawa submitted Anastasiya Svetkivska, but not before dealing with one of the toughest grappling challenges of her career. The main event was the triumphant return of Kyoji Horiguchi against the very intentionally overmatched Kintaro Masakiri, a 14-11 journeyman, and Horiguchi did choke him out in the second round, but not before being getting violently dropped. During the post-fight press conference, he announced he was just too small for bantamweight and wanted to drop back down to flyweight and go take the Bellator belt. Bellator does not have a flyweight division. Neither does Rizin. Kyoji, buddy: I'm concerned. Invicta held its event for the month on September 28th, Invicta FC 49: Delboni vs DeCoursey. It was almost as long as a seven-fight card can be--all but the main event went to a decision--and a couple fights were extremely forgettable and consisted almost entirely of jockeying for clinch position against the fence, as unfortunately tends to sometimes happen. But Ireland's Shauna Bannon won a tough fight against Nadia Vera, just-released UFC talent Poliana Botelha picked up a win against Helen Peralta, Kaytlin Neil battered the crap out of Hannah Guy, Valesca Machado put on a fun striking fest against Liz Tracy, Ketlen Souza beat Maiju Suotama in a somewhat lopsided co-main event, and at the top of the card, "Jilly-Bear" Jillian "Lionheart" DeCoursey, who really needs to pick a nickname, not only pulled an incredible upset but did so in incredible fashion, wresting Invicta's Atomweight championship from Jéssica Delboni with a rear naked choke in the first round. September 29th saw ONE Championship 161: Petchmorakot vs Tawanchai. This card was supposed to end the long, long-cursed horrors of ONE's heavyweight division, which had been in contract hell for almost two full years, but world champion Arjan Bhullar pulled out with an arm injury, thus kicking the can even further down the indefinite line. The card proceeded as a much less decorated affair and was more kickboxing than MMA, with Ferrari Fairtex angrily beating Han Zihao for missing weight, Iraj Azizpour and Roman Kryklia proceeding on to the finals of ONE's Heavyweight Kickboxing Grand Prix, which will most likely be settled this December, and in the main event, in a surprising upset, Tawanchai P.K. Saenchai defeated Petchmorakot Petchyindee his first loss in three years and wrested away ONE's Featherweight Muay Thai Championship. And the month ended with the second event in their monthly double-header, September 30th's ONE on Prime Video 2: Xiong vs Lee 3, which is too many opposing numbers in a single clause. This card was also cursed, losing one of its three championship bouts, giving up two undercard bouts and ultimately going on with only nine fights, which were, at least, pretty fun. South Korean prospect Ho Taek Oh narrowly defeated Shooto champion Ryogo Takahashi, undefeated Turkish standout Halil Amir scored an upset knockout over former top contender Timofey Nastyukhin, Ilya Fremenov stopped Martin Nguyen, Stamp Fairtex won a fantastically gritty match against Jihin Radzuan, Mikey "Darth Rigatoni" Musumeci took a decision over Cleber Sousa to win ONE's inaugural Bantamweight Grappling Championship, and in the main event, despite a first round that saw her getting beaten so badly that Herb Dean was quite literally standing between them waving his arms to signal a TKO before stopping in mid-wave as though psychically feeling Chatri preparing to tear his paycheck in half, Angela Lee survived five rounds but still lost a decision to Xiong Jingnan, who retains her Women's Strawweight title. WHAT'S COMING IN OCTOBER The dog days of summer are over and we are in the sprint to the end of the year. The October 1 double-header begins with Bellator 286: Pitbull vs Borics, aka Bellator's Rare Good Card. The prelims are, as Bellator does, less than ideal--ten bouts featuring mostly people you've never heard of and may never hear from again--but undefeated prospect Lance Gibson Jr. has a gimme fight against the 15-12 Dominic Clark, Khalid Murtazaliev and Khadzhimurat Bestaev will have a very silly Russia-off with a half-foot height difference and Islam Mamedov will face "Nyquil" Nick Browne in what should actually be a fun fight. The main card is only four fights but is an all-bangers affair: former champion Juan Archuleta vs Enrique Barzola, nearing-contendership Aaron Pico vs a top contender in Jeremy Kennedy, AJ McKee makes his lightweight debut against perennial weirdo Spike Carlyle, and in the main event, Patricio Pitbull defends the featherweight championship against Ádám Borics. For once, the UFC's offering might actually be weaker. UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Yan, also happening that night, has been cursed by injuries and is...a little light. Ilir Latifi and Alexey Oleynik will fight to see who the widest man truly is, Raoni Barcelos and Trevin Jones should have a fun fight, Sodiq Yusuff meets the ruthlessly mismatched Don Shainis, Brendan Allen and Krzysztof Jotko fight to see who can get three in a row, Maxim Grishin tries to return to light-heavyweight against Philipe Lins, who unintentionally shamed PFL by winning its 2018 heavyweight tournament before immediately getting hosed up by Andrei Arlovski, Francisco Trinaldo will try to old-man-strength the poo poo out of Rudeboy Randy Costa, and in your main event the UFC will try to get Mackenzie Dern, winner of one straight fight, into title contention by defeating Yan Xiaonan, who is on a two-fight losing streak. It's not great. But it's got nothing on UFC Fight Night: Grasso vs Araújo on October 15. I'm a big Alexa Grasso fan, so it pains me to say this: This might be one of the worst fight night cards I've seen the UFC promote, both in terms of entertainment potential and actual relevance. Nick Maximov and Jacob Malkoun will try to wrestle each other into neutrality, Duško Todorović and Jordan Wright will fight to keep their respective jobs, Mike "CM Punk Slayer" Jackson is inexplicably back again, Cub Swanson is for some reason fighting Jonathan "The Dragon" Martinez, Brandon Royval and Askar Askarov are fighting for contendership, Neil Magny is taking on Daniel Rodriguez in your co-main event--and if your response to that is 'didn't Daniel Rodriguez just get hit a hundred times less than a month ago,' the answer is yes--and your main event is Alexa Grasso, coming off a submission victory over Joanne goddamn Wood, vs Viviane Araújo, who vaguely beat Andrea Lee. It's really not great. And all of that energy was reserved for a four-event MMA weekend the following week, but it's going to start real weird, to the point that, with September almost over as of this writing, I can't actually tell you what the gently caress is happening for half of it. ONE Championship has been running double-headers every month, and according to them, October is no different. ONE Championship 162 is booked for the early morning of October 21. ONE says it's happening. ONE is still promoting it on their website. With less than a month to go, there are zero fights announced for it. Is it still happening? Probably. Will there be any worthwhile fights on it? I have no idea. Will it just be Chatri Sityodtong giving a TED talk about how successful he is and how lucky you are to be alive during his time on Earth? Wake up at 3:30 AM PST and find out. You might think this lack of promotion is because their more important card later that day, ONE on Prime Video 3, is stacked, to which I would say, you fool, you absolute rube, what sport do you think you are following. The card, in fact, just lost its main event thanks to Shamil Abdulaev getting injured, so as of three and a half weeks before the show you're looking at exactly two booked fights: John Lineker defending the featherweight championship against Fabricio de Andrade, the 8-2 prospect who is getting thrown way the gently caress in the deep end, and Regian Eersel vs Sinsamut Klinmee for ONE's first-ever Lightweight Muay Thai championship. Whatever else happens, who knows. We'll find out a week beforehand if we're lucky. Do you get the sense that ONE's insistence on doing giant double-events may have been a logistical nightmare that is running them ragged? But, presuming it doesn't fall apart beforehand, that weekend will be redeemed by UFC 280: Oliveira vs Makhachev on October 22, which is where the UFC's lackadaisacal fight nights make sense, as the card is loving stacked. Nearly every fight is either potentially exciting or potentially informative: Among others, Jailton Almeida tries to crack the heavyweight ranks against Shamil Abdurakhimov, Lina Länsberg and Karol Rosa do battle for their respective careers, Muhammad Mokaev continues his meteoric prospect run against Malcolm Gordon, Nikita Krylov and Volkan Oezdemir try to knock one another stupid and Belal Muhammad meets Sean Brady in a battle to see which wrestler the UFC will be forced to stop ignoring and consider for a loving title shot. The main card is similarly built: Beneil Dariush and Mateusz Gamrot will try to put themselves in position to inherit the lightweight title scene, Manon Fiorot meets Katlyn Chookagian in a women's flyweight title eliminator, Petr Yan will inexplicably have to fight Sean O'Malley, whom the UFC is leapfrogging over the entire division for what will, one way or another, be a hilarious top contender fight, Aljamain Sterling will try to hold onto his bantamweight championship for his first true defense against TJ Dillashaw, and in the main event, Charles Oliveira will fight to regain the lightweight championship he never truly lost against Khabib's protege, Islam Makhachev. And then we can all enjoy a nice early-morning/late-night cigarette with Rizin 39 on October 23. After the majesty of SUPER RIZIN the organization seems to be taking a step back and lining up, let's charitably say, easier competition for their homegrown stars. Top welterweight Daichi Abe is facing the 16-13-9 Yukinari Tamura, bantamweight star Motonobu Tezuka is getting a gimme fight against the 5-5 Azerbaijani Mehman Mamedov, and would-be foreigner slayer Koji Takeda, a 14-3 top lightweight, is facing the Hawaiian Zach "God's Warrior" Zane, who is 15-13, coming off four consecutive submission losses, and has one win in the last three years. The main event is where this trend ends: Standing featherweight champion Juntaro Ushiku, whom Rizin, to be blunt, never really wanted, is defending his title against super-grappler Kleber Koike Erbst, the 30-5-1 ace who has only one loss in the last seven years, and that was against Mateusz Gamrot, who's a hair's breadth from challenging for UFC gold. We see the month out on a pre-Halloween double-header, and it starts with Bellator 287 on October 29, which is a truly, truly baffling card. It's Bellator's return to Italy after a two-year absence, and one might assume they were doing it to promote some notable Italian talent and grow their presence in that market, and one would be wrong, because there is not a single Italian fighter on the main card. There are a bunch on the prelims, which are as always littered with random regional talents who aren't signed to any real contracts, so if you want to see Costello van Steenis vs Kamil Oniszczuk you've come to the right place, but the main card of this Italian fight night is populated by Americans, Brits and Irishmen, and climaxes with a co-main featuring UFC champ Leon's brother Fabian Edwards taking on Ireland's Charlie Ward, and in your main event, Adam Piccolotti, who has one fight in the last two years, faces former Road FC champion Mansour Barnaoui, who has not fought at all since mid-2019 and has never appeared in Bellator. I would say this card just isn't for us, but honestly, I have no idea who the gently caress it IS supposed to be for. And the UFC closes the month out on the same day with UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs Allen. After the two earlier, shakier fight nights, the month ends on a real solid note: Max Griffin and Tim Means will do some real violence, Mark Madsen and Drakkar Klose will do the wrestler vs striker thing, Iron Turtle Jun Yong Park is back in action against Joseph Holmes, Chase Hooper and Steve Garcia will have some real weird grapples, Dustin Jacoby and Khalil Rountree Jr. will have an incredibly tense standoff, Andrei Arlovski will gatekeep the heavyweight division again as he battles Marcos Rogerio de Lima, my boy Ilia Topuria faces the biggest threat of his career in Edson Barboza, and in the main event, Arnold Allen finally gets his long-awaited contendership test as he faces Calvin Kattar.
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CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Francis Ngannou - 17-3, 1 DefenseAfter getting dicked about by the UFC for most of 2021, Francis "The Predator" Ngannou met both the biggest challenge of his career and the nexus of his promotional challenges in the form of a championship unification match against heavyweight striking savant and (bullshit) interim champion Ciryl Gane. For all of his punching prowess, Ngannou found himself getting pretty soundly outstruck and on the road to a decision loss--and he adjusted by channeling Mark Coleman and repeatedly tossing Gane on his rear end with double-legs and powerslams. In what was somehow a simultaneously incredible and disappointing performance, Francis Ngannou won a unanimous decision, notched his first title defense, turned away his stiffest challenge, and went home with his future one great big question mark. He's made a lot of noise about going into boxing thanks to the UFC's refusal to stop paying him peanuts, but his contract situation is complicated by his standing as a champion, particularly as he's now had knee surgery to repair his ACL and MCL and will be sitting out the remainder of the year on medical leave, which could mean dealing with a contract freeze. It all depends on how lovely the UFC decides to be to him, but the best gauge for that is Dana White's auspicious absence at the post-fight belt ceremony and post-card press conference. In response, Francis Ngannou appeared with Tyson Fury after his high-profile destruction of Dillian Whyte and the two hyped a potential boxing vs MMA fight between them. The UFC is pinning its hopes on a Jon Jones/Stipe Miocic interim championship match later this year, but that requires relying on Jon Jones. Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   Jiří Procházka - 29-3-1, 0 DefensesAfter a solid decade of being one of the most consistently weird people in mixed martial arts, Jiří Procházka is the champion of the world. Where most fighters get inspired by the Gracies or Bruce Lee, Jiří's interest in martial arts originated in playing Tekken with his fellow 90s kids and the turning point in his life was his viewing of the 2008 Jeff "Remake Fantasy Island as a horror movie, what could go wrong" Wadlow classic, Never Back Down. Where most of his peers embraced the athletic future of martial arts, Jiří rejected modernity and fashioned himself as The Czech Samurai, living by the code of bushido and training in The Old Ways and fashioning himself as a sometimes-berserk striker. It works wonders: He was a champion in the Czech Republic, he was a runner-up in the 2015 Rizin Grand Prix, he took the (short-lived) Rizin light-heavyweight championship, and after just two UFC fights he found himself in the cage with UFC champion Glover Teixeira. The result was an instant classic, widely hailed as the best UFC light-heavyweight title fight of all time and one of its best ever in any division, as Jiří and Glover beat the sense out of each other, trading intense if occasionally sloppy offense back and forth for four and a half rounds before Jiří finally put an exhausted Glover on the floor and, shockingly, choked him out. Ten years after his journey began, "Denisa" is on top of the world. While initially assumed he'd be defending against top contender Jan Błachowicz, it's now looking like the UFC is trying to set Jiří/Glover 2 for this December. Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs   Israel Adesanya - 23-1, 5 DefensesAfter his successful if poorly-received title defense against Robert Whittaker earlier this year, I wrote that Israel Adesanya was emulating idol Anderson Silva's career not just in meteoric rise or martial arts technique, but in their mutual capacity for winning fights in ways that make people angry. Adesanya, who rode a successful kickboxing career into mixed martial arts and became one of its fastest-rising phenomenons, is just as cursed by expectation: His technique is so clean and his striking advantages so pronounced that when he turns in a fight like his July 2 title defense against Jared Cannonier and earns a wide, obvious decision against a dangerous contender, it's considered disappointing. He set the pace of the fight and pecked Cannonier apart from the outside while waiting for Cannonier to come in and get countered, but after Cannonier learned his attacks wouldn't work he settled on not trying much else, and Adesanya was content to jab him for the remainder of the fight. The mixed martial arts community whines and has the same argument it's been having about defensive fighting for twenty years, and people wonder why Adesanya gets more of the blame than Jared Cannonier, and we move on with our lives. Izzy will be making his next defense against former kickboxing rival Alex Pereira at UFC 281 on November 12. Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs   Leon Edwards - 20-3 (1), 0 DefensesIt took half a decade to get the world to notice, but everyone sees Leon Edwards now. "Rocky" came from the kind of circumstances sports movies are made of--a poor kid from Jamaica who moved to England, lost his father to gang violence, nearly lost himself to it as a teenager and found a healthy outlet for his anger in mixed martial arts. Edwards made his debut in 2011 as a prime example of the modern generation of fighter, cross-trained from the beginning in every discipline, and in just three years he was the welterweight champion of Britain and off to the UFC. Entering 2016, Leon had suffered the first true loss of his career--he was 10-3, but one of those losses was a DQ for an illegal blow and the other a coinflip decision that could easily have gone either way--at the hands of the newly-crowned Ultimate Fighter 21 winner, Kamaru Usman, making his debut as an official UFC competitor. It took ten fights without a loss for Leon to get his rematch. The UFC seemed especially resistant to his title contendership, pushing him down in favor of the ostensibly more marketable UK star in Darren Till and booking him against numerous other contenders and gatekeepers while repeatedly elevating less deserving fighters to the championship. He wouldn't have gotten it at all, in fact, had Jorge Masvidal not gotten arrested. On August 20, the UFC acquiesced and granted the clear #1 contender his shot at the championship, and at revenge against Kamaru Usman--and after getting dominated for three and a half out of five rounds, with the commentators openly opining on the likelihood that he had given up, with just fifty-six seconds left in the fight, Edwards uncorked a headkick that shocked the world and knocked Kamaru Usman out for the first time in his career. Holding onto the belt won't be easy--Dana White is foaming at the mouth for a Wembley Stadium rematch between the two to end their trilogy--but Leon Edwards is cemented into history as the man who killed the king, and for a beautiful moment, as the best welterweight on the planet. Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs   VACANT - Permanently undefeated being as they are an abstract concept of space and time, 5-time heavyweight champion, 5-time light-heavyweight champion, 1-time middleweight champion, 2-time welterweight champion, 5-time lightweight champion AND 1-time lightweight tournament champion, 2-time bantamweight champion, 1-time flyweight champion, 1-time women's featherweight champion, 1-time women's flyweight championCharles Oliveira dusted Justin Gaethje in one round at UFC 274, but he weighed in half a pound over the 155-pound divisional limit. Initial hopes and fears about a commission fuckup wound up not panning out, meaning his historic rise to the title and historic run through the division is at least temporarily capped off by an equally historic feat: He is the first UFC fighter to officially lose their title on the scale. The world lightweight championship is vacant, and that means the most decorated competitor in mixed martial arts history is back. No one has defeated more top stars than Vacant. Vacant is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Vacant has held every UFC belt except featherweight and women's strawweight. Vacant is 3-0 over Jon Jones, and it WOULD be 4 if the UFC hadn't felt bad for him and given one of the victories to Daniel Cormier instead. Vacant has held championships in every combat sport, is a crossover star with nearly incalculable professional wrestling belts, and to this day holds the Olympic gold medal for the women's 100m run at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Vacant even has a couple successful UFC title defenses. Barring something silly happening all over again, however, Vacant's days are finally numbered: Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev will do battle to fill the void at UFC 280 on October 22. Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Alexander Volkanovski - 25-1, 4 DefensesSometimes it takes a lot of work to convince people you're the best. Alexander Volkanovski's rise through mixed martial arts is the kind of thing reserved for the all-time greats of the sport: He lost once, in the fourth fight of his career--at welterweight--and that was nine years ago. He's won twenty-one straight fights since, defeating top talent from around the world before landing in the UFC and proceeding to dominate every fighter placed in his way. There was one, single weight placed around his career's ankle: Max Holloway. Holloway was the UFC's much-lauded and much-marketed featherweight champion while Volkanovski was on his way up, and even as a 20-1 dynamo, he was an underdog against the Hawaiian. Alex beat him--soundly--but because of Holloway's prior dominance, and because the UFC wanted to get the most for its marketing buck, they ordered an instant rematch. Alex won again, but this time it was by a very close split decision, and that left a vocal part of the fanbase even angrier and more certain Max was the real champion. Two years and two fights apiece later, Alex and Max met one last time on July 2, and Volkanovski beat every shade of hell out of Holloway, not just repeatedly wobbling and outstriking him but completely and utterly shutting him out of a fight for the very first time in his career. When the bell rang, there were no questions left: Alexander Volkanovski is the absolute, undisputed best featherweight in the UFC. And now, having more or less destroyed his division, he has his eye on the pound for pound ranks. Volkanovski has taken the unusual step of calling for an interim title fight in his own division between top contenders Yair Rodríguez and Josh Emmett while he waits for the result of Charles Oliveira vs Islam Makhachev so he can issue a champion vs champion challenge--and if successful, he says, he wants to do what Conor McGregor said he was going to do and defend both at the same time. Inadvisable, but at this point, the man's earned the right to call his shot. Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs   Aljamain Sterling - 21-3, 1 DefenseVindication has rarely pissed off so many people or been so loving funny. Aljamain Sterling is a tough man and an exceptional grappler, but when he became the bantamweight champion of the world on March 6, 2021, it was not because of his talents but because the undisputed king of the division Petr Yan was a huge idiot and intentionally fouled him, leading to the first time a championship has changed hands by disqualification in MMA history. The MMA world, being a smart, balanced community, placed almost universal blame on Sterling for this. After thirteen months of anticipation, two reschedulings and an absolutely endless raft of poo poo-talk from Yan about Sterling being a fake champion, the rematch finally came on April 9, 2022, and against almost everyone's predictions (including mine!), Aljamain Sterling beat Petr Yan fair and square, controlling him in the grappling and neutralizing his striking for most of the fight and ultimately taking a split decision. People are of course even more upset at him now, but gently caress 'em. Yan is foaming at the mouth for a rubber match, but Sterling, rightly pointing out that a rubber match when you're 0-2 is stupid, eyed a fight with TJ Dillashaw, Jose Aldo or Dominick Cruz later this year, and the UFC, being the UFC, picked Dillashaw. The fight's going to co-main event UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi on October 22. Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs   Deiveson Figueiredo - 21-2-1, 0 DefensesWe have come so far, and yet we are still where we were. On December 12, 2020, Deiveson Figueiredo shockingly went to a draw with heavy underdog Brandon Moreno. On June 12, 2021, Moreno even more shockingly dropped and choked him out, wrestling the flyweight championship from his hands. On January 22, 2022, the two met for the third time and the result was an instant fight of the year candidate that saw both men trade the advantage in striking, grappling and wrestling alike back and forth, but Figueiredo's smart adjustments from their second fight won him a razor-close but still unanimous decision and the return of the flyweight championship. And now, having fought each other three times in thirteen months and finally finished their trilogy, the next stop for new champion Deiveson Figueiredo was seemingly yet another fight with Moreno, this time in Mexico as a big money card. And then: Things fell apart. What at first seemed like an amicable rivalry turned sour when Figueiredo refused to fight Moreno again, citing what he saw as racist disrespect from his corner, and called instead for a fight with top contender Kai Kara-France, only to then say he needed time to rehabilitate hand injuries and couldn't take the fight until later in the year, and the UFC, ever the sensitive organization, responded by booking Moreno and Kara-France for an interim flyweight championship match on July 30 at UFC 277. Interim Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs   Brandon Moreno - 20-6-2, 0 DefensesAnd just like that, we're right back where we started. Moreno and Kara-France put on a furious two and a half back-and-forth rounds, but as he somehow does Moreno became only more vicious and found his combinations as the fight wore on. Four and a half minutes into the third round he stunned Kara-France with a spinning backfist and followed it with a charging liver kick that put him down for good and put gold back around Brandon's waist. Immediately following the fight, Moreno called Deiveson Figueiredo into the cage and attempted to bury the hatchet, and the two appeared to somewhat tensely reconcile enough to agree on the now entirely inevitable rematch. In theory, Moreno/Figueiredo 4 will happen towards the end of the year. After the roller coaster this whole thing has been, I will hold my breath. Women's Featherweight, 145 lbs  Amanda Nunes - 22-5, 2 DefensesWomen's Bantamweight, 135 lbs  Amanda Nunes - 22-5, 0 DefensesThings are back as they should be. Up until December of 2021, Amanda Nunes was unquestionably the greatest women's mixed martial artist in history. She held and defended titles at both the signature class of Women's Bantamweight and the arguably real class of Women's Featherweight, and with her mixture of vicious power, aggressive grappling and solid conditioning, she defeated every UFC champion in the history of either class and, for good measure, Valentina Shevchenko, the ultra-dominant champion of Women's Flyweight, twice. What's more, she crushed most of them, taking on legends like Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg and knocking them dead in under a minute. Which is why it was something of a shock when she was choked out by unheralded journeywoman Julianna Peña. The abruptness of the ending to her streak, and the shockingly sloppy way she was taken out, left the fanbase both demanding a rematch and openly questioning how much of the loss was due to something being wrong with Nunes, rather than Julianna Peña doing something right, and opinions flew wildly regarding how close the second bout would be. Seven months and one season of The Ultimate Fighter later they met on July 30, and the answer was: Not even slightly. Amanda Nunes dumpstered Julianna Peña for five straight rounds, dropping her a half-dozen times and elbowing her face entirely open, and barring one touchy moment with an armbar, Peña was entirely shut out and lost a wide unanimous decision that included an incredibly rare 50-43 scorecard. Back on her throne, Amanda Nunes signaled her readiness to take a goddamn vacation for the first time in years while the UFC figures out where to go from here. Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs   Valentina Shevchenko - 23-3, 7 DefensesSometimes, when you've been untouchably atop your division for too long, any display of weakness seems like a loss. Sometimes, you might actually have lost. Valentina Shevchenko is a martial arts phenom: Multiple black belts, multiple Master of Sports degrees, dozens of kickboxing championships, hundreds of combined fights across all of her disciplines and twenty years of combat sports experience--by 34. Her most internationally popular achievement, of course, is her reign as the UFC Women's Flyweight Champion. She is, in fact, 12-2 in the UFC, and those only two losses came against Amanda Nunes, the champion of both 135 and 145, and the second was a split decision that could easily have gone the other way. This is what made it so shocking for people when the relatively unknown Taila Santos very nearly defeated her at UFC 275. Santos controlled Shevchenko on the ground, spend a good part of the fight in back mount and at one point nearly choked her out, but Valentina fought back and eked out a razor-close split decision victory that, as always, many people disagreed with. While the sport continues its ongoing struggle over what wrestling and positional control do and don't count for anymore, Valentina Shevchenko remains the queen of the hill. Her most likely next contender will come either in another cross-class fight with Amanda Nunes, or from her own class with the winner of Katlyn Chookagian vs Manon Fiorot this October. Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs   Carla Esparza - 19-6, 0 DefensesCarla "Cookie Monster" Esparza is the top strawweight in the world again, and most of the MMA world is pissed. This is not a new phenomenon for her career. When Carla Esparza won Invicta's strawweight championship it was against "Rowdy" Bec Rawlings and people were upset, because Rawlings was both a fan-friendly brawler and a huge underdog. When Carla Esparza won the UFC's inaugural strawweight championship it was against "Thug" Rose Namajunas and people were upset, half because Esparza's stifling wrestling turned them off and half because the TUF editors did an excellent job making her look like an rear end in a top hat. When Joanna Jędrzejczyk butchered her in her next fight it was hailed by the entire MMA internet as the birth of the 'real' strawweight championship and everyone just kind of consigned Esparza to the dustbin of martial arts history. (Including me. I am guilty.) It took seven years, several tough losses and the UFC publicly sabotaging her championship aspirations, but Esparza made her way back to title contention and threw the gauntlet down at her once-defeated now-undisputed rival. And in 2022, when Carla Esparza won the UFC strawweight championship back from Rose Namajunas people were upset because it was quite possibly the worst title fight in UFC history. Even weirder: It wasn't entirely Esparza's fault. If anything, she was comparatively the aggressor--if very sparingly and typically ineffectually--and Rose spent the entire fight refusing to engage and being inexplicably reassured by her corner that she was executing a perfect gameplan and everything was fine. By the end the two combined for 68 landed strikes in five rounds and no one was happy save Carla Esparza, two-time champion of the world. Having knocked out Joanna Jędrzejczyk, Zhang Weili is booked to challenge Carla for the belt at UFC 281 on November 12. Weili Zhang is already a -300 favorite. For her recent visits to Tucker Carlson's show to discuss the evils of trans women competing in sports, I will be rooting for the challenger. gently caress Carla Esparza.
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ROGUES GALLERY: NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD Bellator Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs  Ryan Bader - 30-7 (1), 2 DefensesNo, I will never stop hating on Ryan Bader. I know it's not fair. Objectively, the man's had a pretty great career--he's a huge, action-figure-looking wrestleboxing motherfucker who only ever lost to the best of the best (EXCEPT TITO ORTIZ), when he puts it together he's got some great knockouts to his name and he humiliated Fedor Emelianenko AND Matt Mitrione, which are both things I deeply adore. But Ryan Bader is Ryan Bader, and that is both his blessing and his curse, and the continual ire he gets from the MMA community for daring to exist in the way that he does is as responsible for his career resurgence as his fists. He followed his successful slow-motion nothing of a title defense back in January with an even slower, less eventful defense in his rematch with Cheick Kongo, which for bonus points was in front of a very partisan and very upset Parisian crowd who in no way appreciated his wrestling and his refusal to mix any offense into it. He recently signed a new Bellator deal that he intends to retire under and he's made clear he no longer has any intention of competing at light-heavyweight, and that means his likely next contender is either Linton Vassell, who himself only returned to heavyweight three years ago, or a Fedor rematch, which would be loving hilarious no matter what happens. Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   Vadim Nemkov - 15-2 (1), 2 DefensesAll the success in the world cannot stop the curse inherent to being in Bellator. Vadim Nemkov is a four-time sambo world champion, a former Spetsnaz operative, a 6'0" steroid golem and the light-heavyweight champion of Bellator, but his main contribution to the MMA world right now is unintentional comedy. Bellator held the finals of its light-heavyweight grand prix on April 15, and after twelve months of competition including six titlists it came down to standing champion Nemkov and top contender and professor emeritus of Beastin' Corey Anderson, and while Anderson was well in control an inadvertent headbutt opened a huge gash on Nemkov's brow--and as the fight was paused just five seconds before the end of the third round it was too early for a technical decision. So the tournament ended in a No Contest, and Bellator's championship is held by a champion who was clearly beaten, and the tournament final will need a do-over later this year, and Scott Coker continues to live a life cursed by his participation in Surf Ninjas. After months of delay, the do-over will take place at Bellator 288 on November 16. Bellator Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs  Johnny Eblen - 12-0, 0 DefensesThe world did not see this one coming. Gegard Mousasi, widely considered the best middleweight outside of the UFC and arguably better than the majority of those inside, was a -260 favorite to retain his Bellator championship and cruise through his second straight year as a titleholder. And then he got punched in his god damned face. "The Human Cheat Code" Johnny "Diamond Hands" Eblen "Suffix Nickname" dropped Mousasi on his face with a hook out of nowhere just minutes into the fight, and that signalled the beginning not just of an upset but a five-round shut-out, as Eblen dominated Mousasi standing and grappling, earning both Bellator's middleweight championship and, for the first time in his career, his own Wikipedia page. Unsurprisingly, Eblen is a lifelong wrestler out of American Top Team, explaining the power hooks and power doubles alike, and unsurprisingly, Mousasi's achilles heel was a really good wrestler. What comes next for Eblen is anyone's guess. Could be a Mousasi rematch if Scott Coker gets mad about wrestling existing again, could be Yoel Romero dropping back down to 185, could be #2 ranked Fabian Edwards trying to bring a second belt to the family. For the moment, Eblen gets to be on top of the world. Bellator Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs   Yaroslav Amosov - 26-0, 0 DefensesYaroslav "Dynamo" Amosov is in that very strange place where he's simultaneously one of the most successful prospects in the sport and a fighter almost no one feels a need to pay attention to. He's a four-time world champion in sambo, he's undefeated in nearly a decade of mixed martial arts competition, he has a 26-0 record at just 28 years old and he dominated the very tough Douglas Lima to become the first Ukrainian MMA world champion (you came so close, Igor), and he has a total of 1,253 Twitter followers. Some of it is exposure--it probably doesn't help that Amosov was on Bellator's prelims just before his title eliminator--and some of it is a very tactical and sometimes control-centric style that does not lend itself well to attracting viewers, as seen in a 7-0 Bellator record with only two stoppages, one of which was a doctor's stoppage on cuts between rounds. The fact that he's a 26-0 world champion and is still mostly being looked at as a prospect is a testament to both the amount of talent he very clearly has and the way everyone's still kind of waiting for something big to happen to him, which, uh, also indicates where Bellator is in the pecking order of the collective MMA consciousness. Bellator had been planning to finally cash in on their many years of can-crushing by having Amosov defend his title against weirdo striker Michael "Venom" Page on May 13, but Amosov is fighting in the ongoing war in his homeland Ukraine, which doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon. Consequently: Bellator Interim Welterweight Champion  Logan Storley - 14-1, 0 DefensesStop me if you've heard this one before: A company books a massively-hyped international superstar striking specialist against an American wrestler and the result makes everyone really mad. Bellator has been salivating over the idea of getting a championship on British kickman Michael "Venom" Page for years, and with Amosov no longer available they thought the half-a-foot-shorter Logan Storley would be a good candidate, and shockingly, the 14-1 wrestler whose only loss was a split decision to Amosov himself proceeded to wrestle Page for about 2/3 of their 25-minute fight. He ultimately won a close split decision that should easily have been both broad and unanimous, and as always happens with this script, MVP wants an immediate rematch. Scott Coker, proving every promoter is just one piss-fit away from becoming Dana White, used the post-fight presser to complain about the judging and insist that Storley's choice to just wrestle "isn't MMA" and shouldn't have won him the decision. It's 2022 and it is still the wrestler's fault that their opponent can't wrestle. In theory a unification match between Storley and Amosov is next, but with no sign of an end to the invasion of Ukraine, who knows. I'm sure Bellator would love to give MVP a rematch. Bellator Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs  Patricky "Pitbull" Freire - 24-10, 0 DefensesBellator's lightweight division is in a deeply unfortunate place right now. Bellator's canonical best fighter, for a very long time, was the reigning Featherweight and Lightweight double champion Patricio Pitbull, who knocked out some guy you may have heard of named Michael Chandler to win the latter. He's one of the best fighters on the planet. This is not him. This is his twin brother Patricky, who is one inch taller and also less good. Patricio held the lightweight championship without defending it for two years until the moment Bellator agreed to put Patricky in a championship main event, at which point he coincidentally decided to vacate the belt and focus on 145. Patricky also got the title shot coming off two consecutive losses, one of which was a somewhat absurd cut stoppage in a fight he was winning against Peter "The Showstopper" Queally, who himself was only 11-6 at the time and was delivered into title contention based on a victory over a guy who never won a Bellator fight. (The secret: He was Irish and the title fight was in Dublin.) Patricky won the rematch handily and is now the champion of a lightweight division where the two top contenders are 4-1 and 3-0 respectively and when you talk about him most people think you're talking about his brother. He was supposed to defend his title against Sidney Outlaw at Bellator 283 on July 22, but a last-minute injury, which for comedy's sake I'm assuming is a reaggravation of his groin tear, forced him out. Outlaw was instead knocked out by debuting Tofiq Musayev in thirty seconds. You might think this would give Musayev dibs on a title shot; you would be wrong. Patricky will instead be defending his title against Usman Nurmagomedov, Khabib's younger cousin, at Bellator 288 on November 18. Bellator Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Patrício Pitbull - 33-5, 0 DefensesOne fight after being violently dethroned, Patrício Pitbull is back on top of the world. Patrício Pitbull has long been considered Bellator's GOAT, as a two-division champion with a 21-5 record across twelve years in the organization that's staggering not just for its breadth but for the way he had only ever been defeated by hard-fought decision or freak injury until July 31, 2021, when the meteorically-rising A.J. McKee knocked him loopy and choked him unconscious in one round. Pitbull protested the stoppage, as fighters always do, but he didn't have a case. By their rematch on April 15, 2022, Bellator had already anointed McKee as their new top star to the point of making him the central feature of their new promo packages--which made it very awkward and very funny when, after five hard-fought if tentative rounds, Patrício emerged with a unanimous decision victory. It has since been McKee's turn to complain and cry foul about bad judging, despite the fight actually being fairly clear, but he's also declared his intention to leave the division and move to lightweight, so Patrício is once again the undisputed king of his division. He'll be defending that crown against Bellator's top contender the 18-1 Ádám Borics at Bellator 286 on October 1. Bellator Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Sergio Pettis - 22-5, 1 DefenseSo Sergio Pettis is good now, apparently. It's not that he was ever bad, exactly, it's that he was more or less forever in big brother Anthony's shadow. Sergio had a long five years in the UFC where he on several occasions seemed poised to break out into the top ranks and vie for a title, but he always managed to fall just short, building a strong win streak before getting controlled by Henry Cejudo, barely squeaking past Joe Benavidez only to get dominated by Jussier Formiga, moving up to 135 and getting shut down by Rob Font. He went to Bellator just a few months before his brother left for the PFL, and now, in a stunning turnaround, Sergio is the successful one in the family. He won Bellator's bantamweight championship in his third fight with the organization, and in the biggest fight of his career, an interpromotional match pitting his title against Rizin bantamweight champion (and former Bellator champion himself, who vacated due to injury) Kyoji Horiguchi, Pettis shocked the world by battling through four difficult rounds he was fairly clearly losing and knocking out the heavy favorite with a painfully pretty spinning backfist. Sergio Pettis is no longer an also-ran. Unfortunately, as these things always go, he followed this up by getting injured. He's out of this year's Grand Prix and his timetable for return is iffy enough that Bellator immediately booked an interim championship between Raufeon Stots and Juan Archuleta for Bellator 279 on April 23. Bellator Interim Bantamweight Champion  Raufeon Stots - 18-1, 0 DefensesHe did not waste the opportunity. Raufeon Stots has been looked on as a major bantamweight prospect for years: A two-time DII wrestling champion, a heavy-handed puncher and an exceptionally conditioned grappler with guidance from Roufusport, Jens Pulver and Kamaru Usman thanks to their shared alma mater who won his first regional title just two years into his career. He's 18-1 with his only loss coming via a shock 15-second knockout against one of the best in the world in Merab Dvalishvili. Stots stormed Bellator in 2019 and is on an unbeaten six-fight streak with the organization, and when faced with both the entrance to his first grand prix, the stiffest competition of his career in former champion Juan Archuleta and the interim Bellator championship on the line, Stots did what some of the best in the world couldn't and knocked Archuleta out in the third round. Loudmouth wrestler Danny Sabatello defeated Leandro Higo to reach the next round of Bellator's Grand Prix, and will face Stots at Bellator 289 on December 9 for both a berth in the tournament finals and the interim championship. Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Cris Cyborg - 26-2 (1), 4 DefensesYup. It's 2022 and Cris Cyborg is still out there. For those who don't know, Cris Cyborg was the canonical women's featherweight fighter, a muay thai wrecking machine who didn't just beat but brutalized essentially all of her opponents, including ex-Star Wars Gina Carano, and her popularity as a destroyer of humans is the only real reason women's featherweight even exists as a division, to the point that the UFC added it when she was the only actual fighter at the weight class they employed. She was 20-1 (1) when she passed the torch to Amanda Nunes, who slew her in just fifty-one seconds. She took one more fight in the UFC to complete her contract, but left for Bellator almost immediately afterward with uncharacteristic cooperation from the UFC itself--after all, they'd gotten what they wanted out of her. Her first Bellator fight was a one-sided destruction of their featherweight champion, and she's defended it three times since. At this point in Cyborg's career the problem isn't her or her fighting or her age, but simply that there's no one in Bellator for her to fight--after just five fights she's already hitting rematches, having just recorded her second one-sided bludgeoning of a very game but outmatched Arlene Blencowe. Consequently, Cyborg decided her next fight would be a boxing match, and on September 25 she faced Simone da Silva, a jobber to the stars coming off twelve straight losses across multiple combat sports, and won a unanimous decision. However, being as da Silva had been knocked out just one month prior, she was still technically suspended and the fight might not count. Cris Cyborg is the featherweight champion of a company she isn't currently fighting in, in a sport in which she isn't currently interested in competing, and her boxing debut may or may not have legally happened. Bellator Women's Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Liz Carmouche - 17-7, 0 DefensesThis wasn't a thing most people expected, nor are most people happy about it, but it kind of makes me smile. Liz "Girl-Rilla" Carmouche is a former marine who's been grinding away at mixed martial arts for twelve years, and for the entirety of those twelve years she's been just good enough to touch the top of the mountain but not quite good enough to climb it. In 2011, just one year into her career, she challenged for Strikeforce's bantamweight championship only to get choked out, in 2013 she participated in the first women's fight in UFC history and nearly upset everyone's marketing plans by neck cranking the poo poo out of Ronda Rousey before ultimately getting armbarred, and in 2019 she challenged Valentina Shevchenko for her flyweight title but just couldn't touch her. Her shift to Bellator wasn't met with much fanfare, but three wins with two violent stoppages earned her a shot at champion Juliana Velasquez on April 22, 2022. It seemed to be going Velasquez's way, but just before the end of the fourth round Carmouche muscled her to the ground, put her in the crucifix position and began landing elbows that were, respectfully, pretty visibly inconsequential, but referee Mike Beltran felt differently and called the fight off, leaving Velasquez apoplectic and Carmouche a world champion for the first time in her career. For some reason it took Bellator eight whole months to get around to addressing this: The two will have a rematch on December 9 at Bellator 289. It's worth noting that a) ONE uses different weight classes and b) ONE also has a dozenish various kickboxing champions, and for the moment, for sake of my sanity, we're just going to stick to the MMA champions. Maybe later we'll change this. FOR NOW: ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Arjan Bhullar - 11-1, 0 DefensesIt's Arjan Bhullar, the man ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong swears is better than Francis Ngannou. Bhullar, the first Indian world champion in the sport, was a big deal as a wrestler in his native Canada, won multiple collegiate championships at heavyweight, took a Commonwealth Games championship and ultimately achieved his dream of representing Canada at the 2012 Olympics where he was eliminated in the first round. He made his MMA debut two years later as, you may have already guessed, predominantly a wrestler. He was picked up by the UFC in 2017 at 6-0, and had a respectable 3-1 record with the organization, but chose not to sign a new contract after feeling the UFC was lowballing him. He signed with the then-growing ONE Championship in 2019, won his debut fight, took a year and a half off for the pandemic and returned in May of 2021 to TKO the baddest heavyweight in ONE, its reigning champion of almost six years, the man, myth, legend and Truth, Brandon Vera. And then, much like Vera, he promptly refused to sign a new contract and sat out for a year so he could play hardball. Chatri publicly shat on him and his management and set up an interim championship. ONE Interim Heavyweight Champion   Anatoliy Malykhin - 11-0, 0 DefensesFor all things, there is a Russian punchman. Anatoly "Spartak" Malykhin is both an undefeated mixed martial arts fighter, a punching machine, and an avowed wife guy who credits her with his career, which he was about to give up as a 5-0 regional champion before meeting her. He promptly moved to Phuket, upped his game, met ONE's talent scouts and got signed directly into co-main event status. He is not only 11-0, and not only has finished all eleven fights, no one has yet made it further than the second round with him, including noted steroid elemental Amir Aliakbari, whom he starched in three minutes, and interim championship contender Kirill Grishenko. After many, many months of back and forth, and some truly irritating social media posturing, the inevitable unification fight got signed--and somehow, inexplicably, they opted NOT to put the heavyweight championship on the big American Amazon Prime card. No faith in the wrestlers, I suppose. Bhullar and Malykhin were supposed to end the heavyweights curse and reunify the belts at ONE 161 on September 29--and then Bhullar pulled out with an arm injury. So the heavyweight champion hasn't fought in eighteen months and the interim champion has been waiting for him for eight. I'm sure ONE would like to rebook them as soon as possible, but at this point, who the hell knows what's going on. ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs   Reinier de Ridder - 16-0, 0 DefensesONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs  Reinier de Ridder - 16-0, 2 Defenses"The Dutch Knight" Reinier de Ridder is probably ONE's most successful MMA fighter and he was recently deemed insufficiently important to merit a Wikipedia page. ONE prides itself on creating the 225-pound cruiserweight class many MMA fans have wanted for years, but it almost immediately fell victim to the problem many had theorized: A sufficiently skilled 205-pounder will probably also just win at 225. Aung La N Sang was the first to hold both titles simultaneously, but Reinier, a childhood judoka turned all-around adult grappling monster, choked him out in one round to win his middleweight title. Curiously, Sang was scheduled to defend his remaining title against someone else, but COVID put the seemingly more logical Reinier in, who promptly took the other belt home too. Because ONE is very, very silly, Reinier then made his first defense of the 205-pound title against Kiamrian Abbasov, ONE's 185-pound champion (whose own title was not on the line) whom he also choked out, meaning Reinier de Ridder is now the lineal titleholder of 1/3 of ONE's entire men's MMA program. To further make this more ridiculous, his first post-triple-champ fight was not a fight, but a grappling match against all-time BJJ great André Galvão, and upon wrestling him to a draw, he challenged him to an MMA fight which Galvão accepted. André Galvão's last mixed martial arts bout was twelve years ago, it was at 170 pounds, and he was knocked out in two minutes by Tyron Woodley. While the fight is still expected later this year, de Ridder made a pit stop to defend specifically the middleweight title against former champion Vitaly Bigdash at ONE 159 on July 22, in which Bigdash, fighting a grappling savant, decided it was a good time to jump a guillotine. He was styled on and submitted with an inverted triangle choke. de Ridder was originally to defend the light-heavyweight championship against Shamil Abdulaev at ONE on Prime Video 3 on October 21st, but Abdulaev failed his medicals for as of yet unspecified reasons, and his next fight is up in the air. ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs   Kiamrian Abbasov - 23-5, 1 DefenseIt's Kyrgyzstani wrestleboxing time, baby. Kiamrian "Brazen" Abbasov came up in the Russian regionals and took home both the Tech-Krep FC championship and the MixFace championship, which is much, much funnier. He was picked up by ONE as an ultra-promising middleweight prospect, and lived up to that promise by immediately getting outworked against living legend Luis "Sapo" Santos. He was back in ONE nine months later, and was its new welterweight champion ten months after that. He's a smart, tactical fighter with a well-rounded skillset, but he has a tendency to get manhandled by superior wrestlers, which made it all the more baffling when ONE booked him against Reinier de Ridder, who pretty easily controlled and ultimately submitted him. Admittedly, ONE kind of has a proto-WEC thing going on--their lower weight classes are dangerous and interesting, their higher weight classes are so much less important that ONE doesn't even have rankings above lightweight on their own website. After two years of giving him essentially nothing winnable to do, ONE has finally found a use for their long-reigning welterweight champion: Defending his title against their lightweight champion, Christian Lee, at ONE on Prime Video 4 on November 18th. ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs  Christian Lee - 16-4, 0 DefensesThe house always wins. Christian Lee is one of ONE Championship's centerpiece fighters, a star 170-pounder with an incredibly aggressive style who stops almost everyone he fights and has been under contract to ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong since he was 17. He is also, helpfully, the younger brother of one of ONE's biggest stars, Angela Lee. For this reason, and so many others, ONE was deeply displeased when, two years into his reign, Lee lost his title to South Korean champion Ok Rae Yoon in a shocking decision--both in terms of Yoon's status as an underdog and in the general consensus on the wisdom of the judges' decision itself. Christian Lee pitched a fit about it and demanded a rematch, and ONE, entirely content to get the belt back on their star player, was happy to oblige, sitting Yoon out for 11 months and throwing him right back in with Christian Lee, who proceeded to absolutely wipe the floor with him and knock him out in just six minutes. It wasn't without controversy--Christian Lee should, technically, have been disqualified for soccer kicking the poo poo out of Yoon's face--but ONE holds the right to use their discretion in deciding if an illegal blow matters or not and, shockingly, their massively-marketable 24 year-old English-speaking wunderkind who also happens to be a head coach at the CEO's martial arts academy got the benefit of the doubt. Christian Lee has his championship back and ONE has their preferred star back, and by virtue of his one-fight winning streak, and his sister failing to win double-chapmion status, ONE is immediately doubling down on him. Christian Lee will challenge Kiamrian Abbasov for his Welterweight championship at ONE on Prime video 4 on November 18th. They'll get their Lee double champion if they have to kneecap someone to do it. ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs   Tang Kai - 15-2, 0 DefenseTang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China's WBK (after investigating, we THINK it's World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz "Ong Bak" Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai's weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai's Dragon Gym and Phuket's legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It's worked out quite well: He hasn't lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China's Rebel FC got ONE's attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he's held for two years. Tang Kai, at the beginning of ONE's worldwide invasion, is suddenly a very visible prospect: A power striker on a 10-fight winning streak and a champion in the world's most competitive weight class. The target on his back is very, very real. ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs   John Lineker - 35-9, 0 DefensesJohn God drat Lineker, world champion. "Hands of Stone" is a 5'3" ball of muscle with lunchboxes attached to it. Our own LobsterMobster very accurately described him as someone who hits like a truck made out of a train. Lineker's been fighting since 2008, but he ran up a fairly unimpressive 6-5 record in the first year of his career and briefly considered retiring. And then, settling into his style of gritting his teeth, stomping forward and never, ever ceasing in his attempts to punch you as hard as he possibly could, he started murdering everyone. After thirteen straight victories and two regional bantamweight championships he was picked up by the UFC for its then-nascent 125-pound weight class, which was problematic given his love of being a giant muscle golem. He went 6-2 at the weight class, but he also managed to miss weight in half of those fights, resulting in his being forced up to bantamweight, where he was noticeably undersized and often gave up half a foot of height, and it didn't loving matter because he was John God drat Lineker. He went 6-2 again, with his only losses being a unanimous decision to two-time champ TJ Dillashaw and a razor-close split against top contender Cory Sandhagen. And staring at this massively marketable multiple-bonus-winning top contender who was knocking dudes dead at 135 pounds, the UFC decided to release him. Dana White said it was his lack of professionalism and weight misses, which seems like a strange thing to get mad about three years later; it is somewhat more likely ONE FC was trying to sign him and he rationally asked why he, as an eight-year, 16-fight UFC veteran, was only getting paid $46k to show. Three months later he was destroying people at 145 pounds in ONE, and three years later he fought reigning champion Bibiano Fernandes, one of the best featherweights of all time and arguably the best fighter outside the UFC period, and became the first person to ever knock him out. John Lineker is a violence machine, his fights are must-see television, and he's a goddamn 145-pound champion at 5'3". He'll defend his title against Fabricio Andrade at ONE on Prime Video 3 on October 21st. ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs  Demetrious Johnson - 31-4-1, 0 DefensesThe king has returned. Demetrious Johnson's 2019 debut with ONE Championship was essentially scandalous. "Mighty Mouse" had long been a fan favorite of the lighter weight classes, a 5'3" combat machine who had been going the distance with world champions like Kid Yamamoto and Dominick Cruz while still working a day job in a warehouse, but it was only in 2012 when he dedicated himself to mixed martial arts as his full-time job that he became a star. He won the UFC's flyweight tournament and became its inaugural champion, and his talents are the reason a division that has existed for a decade has only had five champions--three of whom came in the last two years after he left. By 2018, Johnson had one of the longest winning streaks in the UFC, was the all-time recordholder for championship defenses in the UFC and had recorded some of the most outstanding finishes in the history of the UFC. By 2019, he was out of the company. Johnson and the UFC never got along--or, to be blunt, Johnson was one of the few publicly calling the UFC out on its bullshit. When he won the flyweight title and became a world champion while only getting paid $23k/23k he let it be known, when the UFC cut sponsorship money in the Reebok era he noted the raw deal it gave the fighters, and when Dana White tried to force him to take fights up at bantamweight by threatening to kill the flyweight division if he didn't, he told the world. After Henry Cejudo beat him in a razor-close coinflip decision and took the bargaining leverage of his championship away, it was over in a heartbeat. Dana White personally disliked him enough that he traded him to ONE Championship in exchange for their welterweight champion, Ben Askren. Johnson proceeded to immediately win ONE's flyweight grand prix, but took the first stoppage loss of his entire career in his shot at Adriano Moraes and his world championship and engendered a thousand MMA thinkpieces about if his time as a top fighter was over. A year and a half later, he got his rematch, and on August 27 at ONE on Prime Video 1 he returned the favor, handing Moraes his own first stoppage loss after knocking him out with a flying knee. A trilogy rematch seems inevitable, but for the moment, having just turned 36, Mighty Mouse is a world champion in the second weight class of his career and shows no signs of slowing down. ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs   Joshua Pacio - 20-3, 3 DefensesJoshua "The Passion" Pacio, thusly named after his passion for hotel and restaurant management. A childhood student of both kickboxing and wushu, Pacio quickly established himself as one of the best 125-pound MMA fighters in the Philippines and, ultimately, was too good to stay there. He signed on with ONE in 2016, and his combination of solid grappling, spinning kicks and quick, darting punches got him up to a strawweight title shot within the year, which led to the first loss of his career and the discovery of his primary weakness: Strong wrestling games. Fortunately, this being 125 pounds and a striking-centric promotion, there aren't that many threats out there for him. He's on his second title reign now, his first having been ended during its first defense in a split decision by the greatest rival of his career, grappler Yosuke Saruta, but he wrested the championship back from him in a rematch and this past September defeated him again in a rubber match. Pacio is among the longest-reigning champions in ONE, having notched 1000+ days and 3 title defenses, but as ONE's profile has risen it has begun attracting international talent, and at ONE: Reloaded on April 22, former UFC fighter Jared "The Monkey God" Brooks took a decisive victory and lined himself up as the most likely next contender--and then got himself injured and scratched from his title shot a week before it happened. Better luck later this year. ONE Women's Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs  Xiong Jing Nan - 18-2, 7 DefensesXiong Jing Nan dreamed of lifting weights. She'd enjoyed sports as a child, and when China started its national push for Olympic supremacy she began training heavily in hope of joining the national weightlifting team. But then she met aspirants for its boxing team and fell in love with the idea of living out a martial arts movie and getting to hit people for fun and profit and she never looked back. She turned pro in 2014 and immediately became a standout, going 9-1 in China's Kunlun Fight promotion with wins across three separate weight classes. What made her truly dangerous wasn't one-punch power, but the ability to break her opponents with constant pressure striking, scoring TKOs with combinations stretched out across dozens of consecutive, unending strikes. The story was no different when she moved to ONE in 2017, and she was strawweight champion within two fights. ONE's women's MMA divisions have been its most stable, each having had exactly one champion, and they were so dominant that they inevitably had to fight each other--and, hilariously, traded wins back and forth in the process. 115 lbs champion Angela Lee went up to 125 to challenge for Xiong Jing Nan's belt but Nan stopped her with body kicks in the fifth round, and half a year later Nan dropped down to 115 to challenge for Lee's belt only for Lee to choke her out with twelve seconds left in the fight. Xiong has notched three successful title defenses since, which set her up for her greatest challenger yet: Angela Lee, again, apparently. Despite ONE's best attempts, Xiong successfully defended her title against Lee again, nearly finishing her in the first round and ultimately winning a decision. ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs  Angela Lee - 11-3, 5 DefensesAngela Lee is one of ONE's biggest stars and has been widely called its postergirl, and while the metrics may be debatable, she's an extremely solid choice. Her background is varied both culturally and martially: Born in Canada in a Singaporean-South Korean family made entirely of martial artists who all collectively moved to Hawaii when she was a child, she was not only training alongside them as a child, but training in multiple disciplines. By 15 she was a national Pankration champion, by 18 she had been signed by ONE before having a single professional fight, and by 20 she had two black belts and three defenses of ONE's atomweight championship. Lee is an extremely versatile fighter, capable of backing up her aggressive if sometimes loose striking with very solid defensive and offensive grappling, and her only two losses have come when fighting up a class at 125 pounds, against both its champion Xiong Jing Nan--whom she later choked out in a rematch at 115--and world jiu-jitsu champion Michelle Nicolini in a very, very close decision. Lee went on hiatus at the end of 2019 to have a baby and intended to be back by the end of 2020, but then the pandemic happened and she decided to use her cache within the company to just sit it out, making her arguably the smartest fighter in the world. ONE declined to make an interim championship, so she returned to competition this past March as a defending champion and main-evented the ONE X supercard against its atomweight queen in her absence, Stamp Fairtex, and notched her fifth title defense after choking her out in the second round. She got a trilogy fight with Nan on September 30, once again coming to her weight class and challenging for her title, but ultimately fell short and lost a decision. You may be shocked to hear this, but a Lee sibling disagrees regarding the idea that they lost a decision.  Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs  Roberto de Souza - 14-1, 2 DefensesRoberto "Satoshi" de Souza is trying to become the new Gegard Mousasi. On April 17 he had the chance to avenge the only loss of his career, a half-knockout half-injury against "Hollywood" Johnny Case back in 2019, and he succeeded in emphatic fashion, climbing Case's back, locking him in an inverted triangle choke and eventually forcing an armbar. He's now 14-1 and inarguably one of the best lightweights outside of the UFC, but unlike most of the other fighters to bear that title, he has made it clear he has no interest in changing that. Where the A.J. McKees and Michael Chandlers of the world want to test free agency and notoriety, Roberto de Souza is happy in Japan, both because his Rizin pay is fairly lucrative and his entire family jiu-jitsu business is based in the country. This is admirable, but it's also a little unfortunate: Rizin really only has around a dozen lightweights under contract, and "Satoshi" has already beaten a third of them. He may be waiting for a Spike Carlyle or a Luiz Gustavo to work their way into contention, but the Rizin ranks hold few surprises for him at this point. If he's happy, though, he's happy. Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Juntaro Ushiku - 21-8-1, 0 DefensesJapan has always had an extremely strong regional MMA scene, and occasionally top competitors somewhat abruptly pop out of it. The Fighting Bull Juntaro Ushiku is the latest, and one Rizin didn't quite seem to expect. One of Rizin's primary stories has been its love of the Asakura brothers, Kai and Mikuru, both of whom have made big impacts and gotten some perhaps occasionally favorable matchmaking to speed along their route to Japanese stardom. It was somewhat counter to Rizin's plans when Mikuru got outfought and controlled by a lesser-known wrestler in Yutaka Saito, and even moreso when Saito promptly got his face kneed off by Ushiku, the featherweight champion of DEEP. Look at that lovely, low-res picture up there. If you dealt with it with aplomb, quote this for something dumb. Ushiku did, in fact, immediately return to DEEP two months later. He's a scrappy fighter--well-rounded, no enormous standout skills, lots of split decisions, very difficult to finish--and Rizin wanted the title back on Saito enough that they gave him a rematch despite having only lost a fight in the interim. The resulting fight was very close, but off the strength of having dropped Saito with a headkick, the judges gave Ushiku the unanimous decision. I had assumed Ushiku would be defending against Mikuru, but Mikuru instead fought, uh, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Ushiku was instead announced as defending against Kleber Koike Erbst in the main event of Rizin 39 on October 23rd. Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Kyoji Horiguchi - 30-5, 0 DefensesKyoji Horiguchi is going through a difficult time in his career. Horiguchi is, indisputably, one of the absolute best flyweights on the planet. He's an incredibly fast, powerful striker with very solid wrestling and aggressive grappling to back up his skills, and the streak of incredible knockouts and submissions on his record is a testament to his skills. Trouble is: He's not fighting at flyweight, he's fighting at bantamweight, and it's finally starting to become a problem. His half-decade unbeaten streak ended in 2019 thanks to a first-round upset loss against Kai Asakura, but Rizin rushing him back in mid-knee injury was blamed for that, especially when Kyoji starched Kai in a rematch the next year. And then he lost his Bellator bantamweight championship to Sergio Pettis after winning most of the fight only to walk into a spinning backfist. And now he's lost his berth in Bellator's bantamweight grand prix after just getting grappled to death by Patchy Mix, who, while very good at jiu-jitsu, also had the advantage of half a foot of height and reach on Horiguchi. He continues to be almost certainly the best fighter in Rizin, and inarguably Japan's best at flyweight AND bantamweight, but three years ago he was the nearly-undefeated champion of the two biggest b-leagues in the world simultaneously and now he's 1-3 in said three years and has a Rizin title he's never defended. Last month, this section concluded with the difficult questions about where he goes from here, and Rizin's attempt to help him out by giving him a tune-up fight with Kintaro Masakiri, a 14-11-2 journeyman coming off multiple consecutive losses: Horiguchi won, but not before nearly getting knocked out. During the card's post-fight press conference he said he was coming to the conclusion that he was just too small for bantamweight, and needed to drop down to the 125-pound flyweight class and win Bellator's championship. Bellator doesn't have a flyweight class. Neither does Rizin. Kyoji Horiguchi's future: Still a real big problem. Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs  Seika Izawa - 8-0, 0 DefensesAll hail the new queen. After years of reigning as Japan's best atomweight, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki fell not once but twice to the rookie Seika Izawa. A 24 year-old who was pushed into judo as a child by a frustrated mother who was tired of her constant fighting with her brothers, Izawa discovered a love for grappling that led her to win junior championships in judo, wrestling and sumo alike. She would still be pursuing judo had the pandemic not shut down much of its competitive scene, but fortunately, mixed martial arts is a terrible sport run by monsters who don't care about things like deadly diseases, which made it a tempting professional prospect. Four months after her formal MMA training began Izawa was winning fights in DEEP, less than a year after that she was DEEP's strawweight champion, and one year later she was dominating one of the best women's fighters in history on Rizin's New Year's Eve special. As Japanese organizations tend to do, frustratingly, the fight was a non-title affair, meaning Izawa had to come back and do it again on April 17. After a scary moment where Hamasaki almost stole an armbar, Izawa resumed her wrestling domination and formally took Rizin's atomweight championship. As entirely fresh blood, the world of Rizin's talent is open to her--but that also means she's got a real, real big target on her back. She's successfully submitted her way through the first two rounds of Rizin's Atomweight Grand Prix, although she had a fair bit of trouble with Anastasiya Svetkivska, and is now set for a rematch of her 2021 battle with Si Woo Park at the tournament finals this December.
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Oct 1, 2022 18:54
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Marching Powder posted:i of course had to check tank's wikipedia to make sure he hadn't done anything, like, hitler-y because enthusiastically endorsing anyone in mma is just that sort of minefield. He’s from Huntington Beach.
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Oct 1, 2022 18:56
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voted the wolfman because arlovski already won a ufc title
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Oct 1, 2022 19:00
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it'd have to come down to the Wolfman v Dracula for me. McGregor would lose, Zuck couldn't make weight because he's a robot and they can't make his programming work with lighter metals. Dracula v Wolfman i'd have to go with Wolfman considering biting isn't allowed so Dracula would be at a distinct disadvantage.
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Oct 1, 2022 19:09
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Personally, my money's on Zuck. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4013536&pagenumber=2#post526664748 We're back to the GDT for Dern/Yan, which starts at the top of the hour. Get hype for however insanely awkward this corporate synergy will be.
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Oct 1, 2022 20:17
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Oct 1, 2022 21:09
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LobsterMobster posted:IT NEVER ENDS Last portion of PETS WEEK Adam Borics has whatever the Hungarian word for dog is  Spike Carlyle got some big ol beasts  AJ McKee has a dog (STOP CROPPING DOG EARS, YOU B-HOLES)  more like Aaron Pico de Gallup, am i rite???  Jay Jay Wilson has a lil pug  Nadine Mandiau's got a good pup  Lance Gibson Jr has a large Akita  Mike Hamel has some good puppos  Cee Jay Hamilton's dog  more like keoni doggs, am i rite??? 
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Oct 1, 2022 21:20
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better not be no dang ole last edition of pets week, we need sequels
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Oct 1, 2022 21:22
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good puppers. puppy parade between undercard and maincard you idiots. it sells itself.
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Oct 1, 2022 21:26
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Aye Doc posted:better not be no dang ole last edition of pets week, we need sequels i love it. thank you LB. I like that the two biggest dog categories are little cute dogs and pitbulls with docked ears.
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Oct 1, 2022 21:43
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i like to hope that the pitties were cropped by a previous lovely owner and were then adopted by the kind hearted ufc fighter. sometimes it's nice to lie to ourselves thank you for all the posts lobstermobster
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Oct 1, 2022 21:46
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my boston terrier has a little hosed up nubbin of a tail and people think I had it docked. nope, that's just how he was born.
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Oct 1, 2022 21:50
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Can someone explain to me the different between the top two poll options and the bottom 2
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Oct 1, 2022 22:03
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beep by grandpa posted:Can someone explain to me the different between the top two poll options and the bottom 2 bottom 2 are fictional creatures used to scare people with threats of "the other", such as The Irish and "Soulless tech goobers" Draculas and wolfmens are real and they are my friends.
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Oct 1, 2022 22:07
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I am a wolfman, but the wolf part is a droopy-faced basset hound who just wants to chill on the couch and fart all day
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Oct 1, 2022 22:18
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quote:i of course had to check tank's wikipedia to make sure he hadn't done anything, like, hitler-y because enthusiastically endorsing anyone in mma is just that sort of minefield. So was/is tank Abbott okay?
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Oct 1, 2022 22:29
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ilmucche posted:So was/is tank Abbott okay? clean according to wikipedia, but hails from skinhead city so almost certainly has tangential associations with shitbirds. my headcannon says those associations consisted mostly of kicking their rear end.
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Oct 1, 2022 23:03
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https://twitter.com/ufc/status/1576364144990728192?t= The gently caress
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Oct 2, 2022 01:21
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Oct 2, 2022 06:08
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seems like zuck is dealing with losing half his fortune in an extremely mature and adult way
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Oct 2, 2022 06:10
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Watching the recent ONE event and, by god, Roman Kryklia is a big motherfucker. edit: Tawanchai vs. Petchmorakot was a real banger of a fight. Unperson_47 fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Oct 2, 2022 |
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Oct 2, 2022 06:57
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beep by grandpa posted:https://twitter.com/ufc/status/1576364144990728192?t= https://twitter.com/breezygoblue/status/1576367427058745346 Lol
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Oct 2, 2022 07:12
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mewse posted:seems like zuck is dealing with losing half his fortune in an extremely mature and adult way is he getting a divorce or something? Kinda unfair to any fighters in the cage when you got the Zuckbot staring at you. Gotta be disturbing.
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Oct 2, 2022 07:13
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zuck's poor wife lol great date mark.
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Oct 2, 2022 07:20
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Kvlt! posted:is he getting a divorce or something? Nah, Meta stock's down like 60% over the last year because the company sucks rear end. He's still worth tens of billions so I'm sure he's fine and enjoying his midlife crisis.
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Oct 2, 2022 07:33
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i give it a year before Dana puts him in the ring against the softest opponent known to man
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Oct 2, 2022 07:37
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CM Punk is free now too
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Oct 2, 2022 07:53
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Bob sapp
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Oct 2, 2022 09:37
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I watched BKFC 30 last night. Ive seen their fights on youtube but first PPV. Love the WWE style walkouts lol edit: sorry, shouldve posted this in boxing thread not MMA
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Oct 2, 2022 09:45
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Not MMA related but since Kickboxing thread is basically dead, there's a big Glory card this next weekend on the 8th of October where Badr Hari and Alistair Overeem will attempt to do harm to one another and we, the audience at home, get to watch that happen in real time and possibly see a double KO which would mean we'd all win. However then the building would riot and be set on fire.
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Oct 2, 2022 11:39
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Honestly BKFC and kickboxing and everything is still germane here, it's just "UFC/Combat Sports" takes up space in the title and then how would we make hilarious jokes
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Oct 2, 2022 16:57
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what the heck are all of us sickos going to do this week? calendar looks pretty bare e: maybe i'll get back to work on Operation: Secret Project, since i do want to finish it at some point for y'all
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Oct 2, 2022 17:11
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Mekchu posted:Not MMA related but since Kickboxing thread is basically dead, there's a big Glory card this next weekend on the 8th of October where Badr Hari and Alistair Overeem will attempt to do harm to one another and we, the audience at home, get to watch that happen in real time and possibly see a double KO which would mean we'd all win. Hope we are getting Ubereem back on the horse meat
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Oct 2, 2022 17:12
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LobsterMobster posted:what the heck are all of us sickos going to do this week? calendar looks pretty bare It's a secret obviously but can you tell us how long have you been working on it and what drew you to wanting to speak on it? Always liked your articles. They always had really unique angles.
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Oct 2, 2022 17:53
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Is it carl.cx
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Oct 2, 2022 17:55
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Marching Powder posted:It's a secret obviously but can you tell us how long have you been working on it and what drew you to wanting to speak on it? Always liked your articles. They always had really unique angles. Operation: Secret Project began while I was putting together some of my B League Previews, and I noticed A Thing I've been doing minor work on it for a few months
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Oct 2, 2022 18:10
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| # ? May 30, 2024 13:09 |
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 Glory: Collision 4 Date: Saturday, 8th of October 2022 20:00 CEST (14:00 EDT) Venue: GelreDome, Arnhem, Netherlands How Can I Watch?: $15 on the Glory App (see below for some comedy though)  In an age where MMA is a wildly popular and fairly large sport, still nowhere near on par with boxing is, there’s been one thing that’s always been brought up by multiple people who enjoy pretty much all combat disciplines: “Why isn’t Muay Thai/Kickboxing more popular?” Frankly, I don’t have the answer. I can only guess and it mostly involves “because there’s not enough space on TV/broadcast and also there’s the whole ‘the sport is more corrupt than boxing’ (which is a feat on its own) thing” that makes me think it will never grow in size. So today I’m going to try and take a look at an upcoming PPV event being hosted by Glory which is being held in just a few days and will feature two of the most notable names in heavyweight kickboxing and four, yes four, title fights. It has been a few years since I last watched Glory but my memory of their events being mostly “Yeah that was some pretty good kickboxing and their events weren’t too bad.” This was probably around the time of Nieky Holzken, Joseph Valtellini, Simon Marcus, and the early beginnings of Rico Verhoeven’s title dominance. Coming back to Glory in 2022 will most likely be a shock to the system for myself given I barely watched the sport aside from reading the odd headline about kickboxing here and there. Mostly it was bad news too. That’s also probably why kickboxing never kicked off as a big name sport either, so add that one to the list.  Main Event: Badr Hari (106-16-2, 2 DQ) vs Alistair Overeem (10-4)Oh boy. This is certainly going to be a doozy. For those that follow MMA many of you recognize Alistair Overeem who was released from his UFC contract in March of 2021. A constant contender for UFC gold, Overeem never quite put together his “authentic” strength and power and his skills in kickboxing and grappling to win the biggest MMA belt he had his eye on. Following his release, Overeem posted a video of him putting down his MMA gloves and picking up kickboxing gloves. This being nearly a decade after he last fought in kickboxing made a lot of people’s ears perk up. Overeem is a former K-1 World Grand Prix champion (from before K-1 basically collapsed on itself) after all. While the talent pool in the 2010 K-1 World Grand Prix was not as robust and talented as it had been in prior years, it’s still a notch in the belt of Overeem’s kickboxing record. Mostly, Overeem used his clinch strength and knees to do most of the work. The man had some hellacious knees that eventually caused K-1 to change the rules on how long you could clinch for and that you could only clinch with one hand instead of two. It wasn’t solely due to Overeem but I mean, the timing lined up perfectly for that to be at least a narrative to be discussed in their reasoning. I’m still convinced Ewerton Texeira is face down in Tokyo still KO’d to this day. https://i.imgur.com/i8HOkT3.mp4 It was then announced that he had signed with Glory Kickboxing and would be scheduled to fight against Glory Heavyweight Champion Rico Verhoeven in October of 2021, but then a few weeks out from the bout Overeem withdrew due to an injury. Now nearly a year and half after he signed with the promotion, Overeem is finally getting a fight and its against a man he knows fairly well, Badr Hari. Badr Hari is referred to as “Bad Boy” for good reason. The guy is…well…he is rivaled by Jon Jones in terms of “how is half of your Wikipedia page just your controversies section?” Badr Hari is a multi-time kickboxing champion in many of the top organizations. He has held titles in It’s Showtime & K-1, he was also the K-1 World Grand Prix runner-up two years in a row and had a Fight of the Year bout in Glory back in 2020. Touting 106 wins, with only 16 losses, Hari is a phenomenal heavyweight kickboxer. He also has two DQs in his record which should tell you off the bat something is up with this guy. As his last fight shows, he is also pretty much a walking time bomb in terms of violence both in and out of the ring (Sometimes not even involving him). For those that don’t know or missed the news, in March of this year at Glory 80, Hari was facing Arkadiusz Wrzosek in a Heavyweight bout. After two rounds members of the audience started to have a brawl and the bout had to be cancelled and the fight was ruled a no-contest. Now the kicker is this, those fans who were in the audience brawling were supposedly Badr Hari fans. The riot allegedly started after Hari got dropped by Wrzosek in the second round via a flying knee. Fans began rioting and could not be calmed down by the event staff nor the fighters also trying to get them to stop. This caused Glory and the Trixxo Arena staff to cancel the remainder of the event for safety concerns. This was also just the co-main event of the card, meaning the main event didn’t even get to happen. Here’s a video showing some of the crowd brawling for context. https://twitter.com/wagno_albady/status/1505306642161844241 Assuming this fight actually does happen this weekend, which in all likelihood could end up being scrapped because of the troubling history and also the pure chaos that is the kickboxing scene, it serves as a rubber match between Hari & Overeem. The two fighters first met in 2008 at Dynamite!! 2008 which was co-promoted by K-1 & DREAM. In a K-1 rules bout, Overeem fairly quickly took out Hari in just two minutes of the first round. https://i.imgur.com/vHECgbm.mp4 This did not sit well with Hari and throughout 2009 the two were both engaged with the 2009 K-1 World Grand Prix. Through fate, or some likely bracket fuckery by K-1, the two wound up meeting in semi-finals having both won their quarter-finals match earlier in the night. Hari would score his revenge by getting two knockdowns resulting in a TKO victory under the K-1 rules. https://i.imgur.com/Ug9QjW4.mp4 This would then lead Hari into the finals where he would be defeated by Semmy Schilt. As a rubber match over 10 years in the making, this could be the most interesting fight to get non-kickboxing fans into kickboxing. Mostly because of Overeem’s status within the realm of MMA, and the long history between the two. There’s also the fact the two of these guys are known KO artists when it comes to kickboxing, and that neither of them seem to hold back when it comes to fighting. Assuming this fight actually does happen and we’re not witness to another massive brawl, I’m going to have to say that purely based on the fact he has had more recent wins than Hari has, whose last win was in 2015, Overeem wins via TKO. Co-Main Event: Tiffany van Soest (C) (24-6-2) vs Sarah Moussaddak (8-2) This is an interesting match for me as I only know of van Soest when she first entered Glory and haven’t really followed her career in general. Partially because kickboxing was stupidly hard to find methods to watch with Glory bouncing around various streaming platforms. Van Soest was the inaugural Women’s Super Bantamweight champion in Glory and despite losing the title twice, has held a pretty strong grip on it since 2019. Granted she has also only fought 3 times since November 2019. Van Soest is a well regarded kickboxer who has toyed with going to MMA a few times, even fighting in Invicta as recent as 2017. However at 33 it seems pretty clear she’s staying in kickboxing. Sarah Moussaddak is a pretty young fighter at the age of 22 and this will be the biggest fight she’s attempted and it’s only her 11th professional bout. Whether that speaks to Glory’s limited women’s roster or to her talent is unknown to me. Purely based off the experience of the defending champion, I’m going to go with van Soest winning via decision. LHW Title (Vacant): Sergej Maslobojev (35-5) vs Tarik Khbabez (47-9-1) Remember when I said that kickboxing is full of corruption and awful people? Sometimes they can actually do the right thing every now and then. In 2015, Russian kickboxer Artem Vakhitov captured the Glory Light Heavyweight title and held onto it for 3 years before losing it to, then capturing it back from, Alex Pereira. Yes, THAT Alex Pereira everyone in the MMA world is now talking about. However, when Russia decided to invade Ukraine in June of this year Glory Kickboxing decided that A) gently caress that poo poo and B) gently caress you Artem and not only cut him from their roster in protest of the war, also stripped him of his title. They also cut ALL of their Russian athletes in that moment as well as Artem. https://twitter.com/Beyond_Kick/status/1537808106998079492 This leads us now to the bout between Sergej Maslobojev and Tarik Khbbabez for the vacant title. A professional since 2007, Sergej has been fighting all over the world since he made it as a pro. He’s gone to fight in K-1 tournaments, taken a few fights under ONE’s kickboxing banner, and also more recently signed with Glory back in 2019. Sergej is riding a 11 fight win streak and in his 40 career bouts only ever lost 5 times. Meanwhile Tarik Khbabez is a relatively younger fighter in terms of his career. Becoming a pro in 2013 he has mostly stayed within the European scene until more recently he too also took a few fights under the ONE banner earning wins over Anderson Silva (no not that one, the kickboxer) and Andrei Stoica. Tarik even got a chance to fight for the ONE Kickboxing Light Heavyweight title but came up short against Roman Kryklia back in 2019. Upon signing with Glory he entered the Glory 77 Heavyweight Tournament where he came up short after being served to heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven in the second round in the tournament bracket. With two more losses at heavyweight, Tarik is now on a three fight losing streak and dropping down to light heavyweight to fight for the title. Given the bad run of luck he has been on it is hard not to pick Sergej as the winner. That said though, Sergej also hasn’t faced as stiff of competition as Tarik. I’m going to go with Sergej wins via TKO in this one, but seeing Tarik claim the belt would be a pretty nice thing to see. LW Title: Tyjani Beztati (C) (22-5) vs Stoyan Koprivlenski (18-5) Current Glory Lightweight Champion Tyjani Beztati has fought a bunch of the top fighters in the Glory roster. With fights against Sittichai Sitsongpeenong and Marat Grigorian, Beztati is pretty well seasoned after 27 professional fights in kickboxing. Claiming the title after Grigorian vacated it in 2021 when he signed with ONE, Beztati has looked pretty strong with his title reign so far KO’ng Josh Jauncy in May of 2022. A veteran since 2014, Stoyan Koprivlenski has had a fair mix of things. While facing similar competition as Beztati, Stoyan has come up short more than once and even fought Bestati twice. Their first meeting took place at Glory 49 back in 2017 where Stoyan took the decision victory to claim the Glory Lightweight Contender Tournament title. Then in 2018 at Glory 62, Bestati was able to even the score via an Unanimous Decision win. Since the latter half of 2021 though Stoyan has strung together fight straight wins working his way up the ladder and now is set to rematch Beztati for the title. Given their history and the records for both men, Beztati wins via Unanimous Decision. FW Title: Petpanomrung Kiatmuu9 (C) (167-38-3( vs Abraham Vidales (4-1) This is likely to be the “obvious winner” fight for the evening. Petpanomrung Kiatmuu9 (yes that’s how his name is written, but he also goes by Kiatmookao) has been the Glory Featherweight champion since 2018. Since then he has not lost the title in any of his three title defenses. Mostly hopping around to other promotions in 2020, mainly in Thailand/Japan, he did drop a trio of matches to Chujaroen Dabransarakarm. Aside from that one person who seems to be Petpanomrung’s foil, the champion has been fairly consistent with his decision wins over various talents. Earlier this year he went over to Japan to fight in RISE and won their Super Lightweight championship with a win over Kento Karaguchi. With 167 wins, 38 losses, and 3 draws, it’s pretty clear Petpanomrung is the clear favorite in this one. Mexico’s Abraham Vidales has an amazing nickname in the form of “Ham” and that’s about all I can really say. A professional kickboxer since 2019, all but one of Vidales’ fights have been in Glory and all 6 of his fights have taken place in the United States. Vidales’ is making his first trip overseas for a kickboxing bout and its against a seasoned veteran who frankly has had more losses than Vidales has had fights and that alone tells you how this one will likely go. Petpanomrung wins via decision. OK, But Seriously How Do I watch This? There is less than a week before this event happens and as of the time of this writing, Glory doesn’t even know how to show you where you can go watch this legally. The “How to Watch” page for this event brings you to this page.  However you can find the purchasing method through the Glory app linked here. If you can find a way to watch it, I recommend doing so as this looks like Glory’s best card to get new fans in and also drum up interest in the sport in a way that I don’t think ONE or other promotions do all too well. That said, not having a streaming/broadcast thing easy to find a week before the event is very much on par with the history and tradition of kickboxing. Some things never change. Mekchu fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Oct 2, 2022 |
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Oct 2, 2022 18:14
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