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What would it take for you to watch Dana White's Power Slap League? This poll is closed. |
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| Dana White gets slapped at the beginning of each episode |
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11 | 22.92% |
| Dana's rotating cast of friends and politicians getting slapped on each episode |
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11 | 22.92% |
| Fight Circus crossover |
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5 | 10.42% |
| Literally no force on Earth will make me watch slap fighting |
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21 | 43.75% |
| Total: | 48 votes | ||
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Wanna go back and trick or treat while you still can? October thread here. Welcome to November. This is the month where, if you are an American, you give thanks for (hopefully) a rare holiday, and if you are not American, you point and laugh at Americans for overeating and fighting each other to be the first to purchase a TV, and if you are an MMA fan, you watch our hosed-up sport and take a slight pleasure in how many fighters are sad Bolsonaro lost re-election. This month's thread title comes to us thanks to forums master brain Tangy Zizzle. 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 A bunch, and boy, none of it's great. But we'll start with the least bad one.  Scott Coker's Pride FC fetish will never be stopped. Japanese MMA has always ended the year with a big New Year's Eve event, and this year the international co-promotion agreement is taking center stage with RIZIN VS BELLATOR, in which champions and former champions from each organization will do battle. On one hand, this is an extremely cool card with top-tier fighters and even a champion vs champion match with Patricio Pitbull meeting Kleber Koike. On the other: The event is only live in Japan. This means Bellator is committing their most popular, most prominent fighters to a card where they're fighting people no casual fan has heard of, and Bellator's core American audience will only get to see the event by tape delay twelve hours later. For such a great idea, it sure is a terrible loving idea.  The Professional Fighters League, in partnership with (and broadcast on) DAZN, will be spinning up PFL Europe in 2023, a league dedicated specifically to fostering European talent not yet snapped up by the UFC or Bellator. This is also PFL's attempt to boost their own viewership, as DAZN will be broadcasting PFL's regular events outside of America. Abrupt and poorly-planned expansion into international markets was a big part of killing Pride and Strikeforce, of course, but I'm sure PFL will learn from the past and do it right and that's weird, blood is coming out of my ears all of a sudden https://twitter.com/BigMarcel24/status/1586326531730997248 Askar Askarov, the 14-1-1 #2-ranked flyweight in the UFC, is no longer in the UFC. He'd been having some trouble lately, having missed weight two fights ago, lost for the first time in his last fight, and had his October 15 showdown with Brandon Royval cancelled altogether after health issues with his weight cut. Askarov apparently requested his release and the UFC relented, half because I'm sure they'd like him to get his head back on straight, half because it's flyweight and he's a boring wrestler so they don't care. I hope he gets to go home, breathe and figure out how he wants to proceed.  Citing a long history of unequal treatment and disrespect, Sia Boat, the head of the ultra-prestigious Muay Thai association Petchyindee, abruptly announced the dissolution of all of Petchyindee's contracts with ONE Championship. This included two ex-champions, one top contender and a handful of top ten competitors, and is something of a brutal loss as ONE is currently trying to become a large player in the Muay Thai business itself.  Dana White, who once propelled mixed martial arts into the mainstream on the back of a series of impassioned speeches about how the public perception of fighters and the UFC as uneducated, cruel and vicious was a travesty, officially licensed and announced an entirely new combat sports company in October: Dana White's Power Slap League. I am joking about neither the league or its name. This stupid, stupid thing already has uniforms and pre-taped events, it will be unveiled at a press conference on November 11th, and it will begin poisoning the world sometime next year. https://twitter.com/erikmagraken/status/1586569613311381505 Jake Paul defeated Anderson Silva in a boxing match. Acknowledging this in the thread past this point is punishable by sixer. MONTHLY RETIREMENT CORNER  Badr Hari was actually undecided about pursuing MMA or kickboxing early in his career. His first professional fight was a kickboxing match which he won by TKO; his second professional fight was an MMA match which he lost by forearm choke in twenty-two seconds. Kickboxing won pretty easily. Badr Hari had one last fight to settle his trilogy with Alistair Overeem on October 8th, lost, and immediately announced his retirement from combat sports. As a kickboxer, Badr Hari is one of the best of all time: A twenty-year veteran with an insane 106-17 (2) record, a world heavyweight champion in two different organizations, a two-time K-1 World Grand Prix finalist back when that was a major statement. He was incredibly fast and fluid for a heavyweight, and 92 of those 106 wins were knockouts, because he was just that goddamn scary. The problem is: He was also, outside of kickboxing, that goddamn scary. Badr Hari is an explosive, chaotic disaster of a human, and just to be clear about my journalistic bias, those are words he used to describe himself. He is so prolific a random assaulter of human beings, peers and romantic partners that he at one point managed to rack up seven completely separate, unique assault charges in one eighteen-month period, including beating his ex-girlfriend and, half a year later, her brother, kicking a club owner in the head and driving his car over a pedestrian on a street that was extremely visibly closed to traffic. When the court released him on recognizance with their only demand being that he stay away from hotels and restaurants he was, within a day, at a restaurant. He befriended Ramzan Kadyrov, he constantly bigtimed people and used his celebrity to intimidate, and even in his fighting career he constantly broke rules--most famously, after wobbling one of the greatest of all time in Remy Bonjasky in the final match of the 2008 K-1 World Grand Prix, he had a complete meltdown, grabbed Bonjasky by the knee, threw him to the canvas and stepped over the referee to punch and stomp him in the face. He was a brilliant kickboxer and he is also a fuckhead. I hope, in his retirement, he gets some god damned therapy.  Jason "The Vanilla Gorilla" Witt announced his departure from the sport right at the end of October. Witt spent most of his career on the regional circuit, winning fights in wonderfully-named organizations like Pyramid Fights and the Chosen Few Fighting Championships and my personal favorite, the Zak Cummings Stronger Men's Conference 2018. He made his way to the UFC in 2020 and ultimately went 2-4 under its banner, his most notable win coming in a fight of the year-candidate brawl with Bryan Barberena, but after four knockout losses in the promotion and staring down his 36th birthday, Witt decided to call it a career, and honestly, good. The more people who get out of the sport with their health largely intact, the better. He leaves a 19-9 record and a weird amount of likes on Megan Anderson's twitter photos. 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 OCTOBER The month began on a double-header. First up on October 1st, UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Yan, which was just a bizarre goddamn card for a number of reasons, starting with some inexplicable booking decisions and ending with Mark Zuckerberg renting out the entire arena, barring anyone including fighter family members from entering, and watching the entire event with his wife. The metaverse synergy theory would actually have been less creepy. But Guido Cannetti turned back time with a really cool rear naked choke, Chelsea Chandler beat up Julija Stoliarenko, Brendan Allen choked out Krzysztof Jotko, Ilir Latifi outwrestled Aleksei Oleinik, Mike Davis outwrestled Slava Claus, Sodiq Yusuff unsurprisingly destroyed his random regional opponent, Raoni Barcelos notched a 30-25 scorecard against Revin Jones, Randy Brown narrowly beat Francisco Trinaldo, and in the main event, the UFC's latest attempt at marketing Mackenzie Dern failed when Yan Xiaonan defeated her by an absurdly close majority decision. We moved on immediately to Bellator 286: Pitbull vs Borics, which was not any less weird. The undercard started with CJ Hamilton beating Richard Palencia after the latter's leg randomly snapped in half, Lance Gibson Jr. scoring an arm triangle, Sumiko Inaba remaining undefeated, Khalid Murtazaliev knocking out Khadzhimurat Bestaev and Islam Mamedov scoring yet another win, but the main card is where things got bizarre. First, Juan Archuleta and Enrique Barzola moved abruptly to a catchweight contest and scored a 30-27 in what seemingly should have been a much closer decision, superprospect Aaron Pico fell to Jeremy Kennedy after his shoulder came out of its socket in the middle of the first round--which you'd think would be a fairly straightforward stoppage, but the ref didn't do anything, his corner yanked violently on the arm a dozen times and in doing so seemingly damaged his clavicle, the referee refused to make the call and brought in the ring doctor, and the ring doctor, while staring at a man with broken bones visible in his skin whose arm was frozen at a horrifying diagonal angle, hemmed and hawed for five minutes before reluctantly stopping the fight, because this sport is loving stupid, AJ McKee was victorious in his lightweight debut after a 15-minute-long scramble with Spike Carlyle, and in the main event, Patrício Pitbull defended his featherweight championship against Ádám Borics, but did so in a fight so uneventful that the crowd was lustily booing and leaving the arena before it was over. After a break that felt longer than it actually was, we returned to UFC Fight Night: Grasso vs Araújo on October 15. It was, on paper, one of the worst cards the UFC has ever promoted, and it was, in practice, Okay. On the prelims, the song of CM Punk Slayer Mike Jackson ended with Dana White's ultimate victory, as Pete Rodriguez knocked him stupid in ninety seconds, Tatsuro Taira continued his run as the great Japanese hope by submitting C.J. Vergara, Piera Rodríguez narrowly defeated Sam "Sampage" Hughes, Joanderson Brito easily choked out Lucas Alexander, Jacob Malkoun outboxed Diaz protege Nick Maximov and Mana Martinez took a narrow split decision over Brandon Davis. On the main, Alonzo Menifield crushed Misha Cirkunov, Raphael Assunçăo turned back the clock by dominating Victor Henry, Duko Todorović overcame an early scare to TKO Jordan Wright, Jonathan Martinez depressed us all by breaking Cub Swanson with leg kicks, and in the main event, Alexa Grasso took a wide decision over Viviane Araújo, likely setting her up as the #2 contender at women's flyweight. The mysterious ONE Championship 162 took place on October 21, having not had any fights announced until just a couple weeks before the card. Unsurprisingly it came and went without much notice, but there were still a couple fun things: Ruslan Emilbek choking out Ben Wilhelm, Eko Roni Saputra heel hooking the grappling-outmatched Yodkaikaew Fairtex, Jimmy Vienot outworking Niclas Larsen, the 15-8 Reece McLaren punching the crap out of the 4-2 Winston Ramos because combat sports are fair, and in the main event, Italian champ Jon Di Bella became ONE's Flyweight Kickboxing Champion after defeating Peimian Zhang. But as is always the case, the big deal was ONE on Prime Video 3: Lineker vs Andrade later that day, and as happens so frequently, it got real messed up. Two main events were scratched ahead of time, thanks to Shamil Abdulaev failing his medicals and a top Muay Thai showdown getting scratched when the entire Petchyindee Academy withdrew from ONE en masse, and then the new main event was hosed up when featherweight champion John Lineker missed weight, making him the second world champion to lose a belt on the scale this year. The card went on and had some highlights--Jeremy Miado knocked out Danial Williams in a real fun bit of voilence, Shamil Gasanov choked out Jae Woong Kim and Kade Ruotolo became ONE's brand new and particularly goofy Lightweight Grappling Champion after heel hooking Uali Kurzhev--but it's mostly remembered for the top of the card. First, Regian Eersel and Sinsamut Klinmee put on a deeply unimpressive showing that saw Eersel barely win a decision to become the new Lightweight Muay Thai Champion; second, John Lineker faced Fabricio de Andrade in a matchup where only de Andrade could win his championship, only for the match to end in a No Contest when, while seemingly on the edge of knocking Lineker out, Fabricio instead hit him with a knee to the groin so violent it shattered his cup and left him dry heaving at the side of the cage. ...and then the ACTUAL big deal happened the following day, with October 22's UFC 280: Oliveira vs Makhachev. The UFC's biggest card of the fall was a bit spotty for entertainment, but thoroughly delivered on consequence--for better and worse. The prelims were all about rising prospects: Karol Rosa comfortably beat Lina Länsberg, Muhammad Mokaev armbarred Malcolm Gordon, Armen Petrosyan outworked AJ Dobson and Caio Borralho outwrestled Makhmud Muradov, and Abubakar Nurmagomedov and Nikita Krylov both won somewhat sloppy if effective victories. The most impressive moment of the prelims came in their headliner, where Belal Muhammad and Sean Brady's inability to wrestle one another predictably turned into a boxing match, with Muhammad scoring a standing TKO in the second round. The main card was, uh, a loving thing. Manon Fiorot defeated Katlyn Chookagian in a close and more or less uneventful fight, Beneil Dariush defeated Mateusz Gamrot in a very impressive decision, and Sean O'Malley, despite losing on literally 100% of media scorecards, inexplicably took a split decision over Petr Yan. The co-main event was deeply uncomfortable, as Aljamain Sterling retained his bantamweight championship by destroying a visibly compromised T.J. Dillashaw, whose left shoulder popped out of its socket under a minute into the fight; inexplicably the fight went on for another eight minutes, ending with Sterling punching a defenseless Dillashaw to a TKO, after which TJ admitted his shoulder had popped out dozens of times during training camp and he'd gone so far as to warn the referee about it ahead of time, meaning this fight happening at all let alone continuing after it came out again was an institutional failure at every conceivable level. And in the main event, Islam Makhachev achieved his long-awaited destiny, not just beating but utterly dominating Charles Oliveira both standing and on the ground, ultimately knocking him down and choking him out in the second round. The vacancy is over: Islam Makhachev is the lightweight champion of the world. Rizin 39 represented JMMA for the month on October 23, and it was a violent goddamn night. The first two hours of the broadcast had a combined total of 12:20 of actual combat, thanks to REITO BRAVELY, SHogo Kuriaki, Motonobu Tezuka and Yoshiki Nakahara all scoring fast knockouts--although Tezuka's is one of the absolute weirdest of the year, scoring a TKO after a corner stoppage with some of the weakest pitter-patter punches from the bottom--and it only continued to get iffy from there. Genji Umeno broke Trent Girdham's knee apart with one kick in twenty seconds, Daichi Abe fought Yukinari Tamura to a decision, Sho Patrick Usami knocked out Shinji Sasaki, and on the main card Koji Takeda submitted the inexplicably present 15-14 Zach "God's Warrior" Zane, Yusuke Yachi stopped his losing streak by defeating South African standout Boyd Allen, angry sumo Sudario knocked out Janos Csukas, and the inevitable finally came to pass in the main event, as Kleber Koike Erbst submitted Juntarou Ushiku to win Rizin's featherweight championship. Bellator brought the penultimate event of the month with Bellator 287: Piccolotti vs Barnaoui on October 29, and, as a card emanating from Milan, its prelims were chock full of European regional fighters you have never heard of. Andrea Fusi, Nicolň Solli, someone named Cherif Ba Pape got knocked out in twelve seconds, it was international chaos. But Thibault Gouti lost his winning streak to Alfie Davis and Daniele "Scat" Scatizzi, despite clearly having made a number of lamentable life choices, beat Davy Gallon in the prelim headliner. The main card wasn't enormously more recognizable, to be frank, with Justin Gonzales, Tim Wilde and Fabian Edwards (who is, in fact, Leon Edwards' brother) taking decisions in their three fights, and in the main event, embattled lightweight contender Adam Piccolotti met Mansour Barnaoui, who came off a three-year layoff and immediately pretzeled and choked Piccolotti out. Hopefully we see him again sooner this time. Things came to a close that evening with UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs Allen, which observed our collective proximity to Halloween by being both awesome and horrifying. On one hand, it was littered with incredibly violent stoppages: Christian Rodriguez nearly popping Joshua Weems' head off with an anaconda choke, Steve Garcia re-enacting the wood chipper scene from Fargo using his fists and Chase Hooper's face, Jun-Yong Park big brothering the poo poo out of Joseph "Ugly Man" Holmes, Marcos Rogério de Lima clubbing and subbing Andrei Arlovski and Tresean Gore guillotining Josh Fremd so hard he lifted his entire body lengthwise by his neck and swung him to the floor. On the other, it was also a night of very weird judging, with Waldo Cortes-Acosta winning a UFC debut that saw him getting battered with leg kicks while hobbling around the cage for two rounds and two relatively clear fights leading Max Griffin and Khalil Rountree Jr. to oddly split decisions. And on the third hand made of broken bones and tears, it was yet another in our inexplicably long series of mid-fight injuries. First, the preliminary headliner between Roman Dolidze and Phil Hawes saw Hawes get his knee ripped apart in a kneebar, on which he was inexplicably allowed to stand and keep fighting despite barely being able to walk, leading to a brutal and entirely unnecessary knockout one minute later. Second, in the main event, Calvin Kattar blew something in his knee attempting a flying knee, and not only was the fight not stopped, he was allowed to come out for the second round--and then lost by TKO when his leg collapsed completely eight seconds in. I know I say it frequently, but apparently I cannot say it frequently enough: This sport is incredibly loving irresponsible. WHAT'S COMING IN NOVEMBER Another month of weak-ish UFC cards surrounding a giant pay-per-view and PFL having its big ejaculatory season finale. The curtain lifts on UFC Fight Night: Rodriguez vs Lemos on November 5. It's a card that skirts the line between reason and farce: On one hand, the main is a relevant women's strawweight clash between two potential contenders in Marina Rodriguez and Amanda Lemos and the co-main is the always-game Neil Magny taking on his traditional role as the breaker of prospects as he tests Daniel Rodriguez, and somehow, no matter how much we beg and plead, Chase Sherman is there, immutable and inescapable, to continue fighting at god damned heavyweight. But Nate Maness and Jailton Almeida and Miranda Maverick and Mark Madsen are there, so there's still some interesting stuff. Maybe. We hope. Rizin makes its appearance for the month with Rizin Landmark Vol. 4 that night on the 6th. It's another of Rizin's particularly weird minor-ish league events, with a bunch of local fighters you haven't heard of and a bunch of particularly hilarious matchmaking for the people you have: Alan Yamaniha is facing Yasuhiro Kawamura, Kanna Asakura victim Satomi Takano is back in action against Street Fighter characters Laura Fontoura, Masakazu Imanari is back against all reasonable expectation, Ikuhisa Minowa is not only back but is facing a Japanese fighter whose nickname is SAMURAI MARK HUNT, and your main event sees kickboxer turned 1-2 mixed martial artist Ren Hiramoto against the 13-6 grappler and former DEEP champion Satoshi Yamasu, for...some reason. But the big event of the month is the UFC's big swing, UFC 281: Adesanya vs Pereira on November 12. Much like the previous month's effort it's a stacked pay-per-view with a bunch of prospects, a likely title eliminator and multiple championships where even the prelims are interesting: Human action figure Carlos Ulberg faces streaking light-heavyweight Nicolae Negumereanu, undefeated Ottman Azaitar is back from two years in UFC blackball jail to face Matt Frevola, Karolina Kowalkiewicz tries to keep her losing streak at bay by fighting Silvana Gómez Juárez, Molly McCann is back in action against the ever-tough Erin Blanchfield, Dominick Reyes is somehow on the prelims against Ryan Spann and Brad Riddell meets the too-good-for-how-much-he-loses Renato Moicano. On your main card, Dan Hooker meets prolific knee murderer Claudio Puelles, Frankie Edgar has his retirement fight against rising bantamweight Chris Gutiérrez, Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler will do a terrible violence to one another and Carla Esparza will try desperately and most likely unfortunately to hold onto her Women's Strawweight Championship against Zhang Weili. The main event is one of the weirdest and yet most compelling title matches of the year: Israel Adesanya, king of middleweight, defending his crown against Alex Pereira, the kickboxer who once knocked him out. And then it's time for everyone to try to sprint to get their poo poo in before America goes on vacation for Thanksgiving. We have five goddamn events in three days, and it starts with Invicta FC 50. As a celebration of Invicta's 50th event--and an attempt to fill the void left when Strawweight Champion Emily Ducote vacated her title to sign with the UFC--Invicta is going old-school and holding a one-night, four-woman tournament to crown a new 115-pound champion. There are four other fights on the card--two bantamweight clashes, one featuring new prospects Claire Guthrie and Marilia Morais, the other a bought between UFC veterans Katharina Lehner and Talita Bernardo, and two tournament reserve bouts, but the tournament itself features some of the highest-ranked strawweights outside the UFC: Recent cast-off Gloria de Paula, the 9-2 "Polish Assassin" Karolina Wójcik, 10-3 Valesca "Tina Black" Machado, and 12-2 "Mel Pitbull" Ediana Silva. Next up, we get ONE 163: Akimoto vs Petchtanong on November 18. As with ONE's double-cards lately it's a little shorter than most, but unlike their other doubles this actually has a good amount of neat poo poo on it. Yuya Wakamatsu is back against Woo Sung Hoon, Shinya goddamn Aoki is back after taking most of the year off to flip people off some more, Hamderlei Silva herself Seo Hee Ham is meeting rising sensation Itsuka Hirata, Yushin Okami is back to fight Aung La Nsang, Roman Kryklia and Iraj Azizpour will meet in the finals of ONE's weirdly short Heavyweight Kickboxing Grand Prix, and Hiroki Akimoto will defend ONE's Bantamweight Kickboxing Championship against Petchtanong Petchfergus. And then it's time for Bellator 288: Nemkov vs Anderson 2. I know I talk poo poo about Bellator's tendency to pack on ridiculous amounts of prelims featuring fighters no one has ever heard of on a fairly regular basis, but 288 is pushing it to the point of parody, with a truly unconscionable nine prelims currently announced with four more potential fights yet to be finalized, and that's before you get to the main card, which features a welterweight prospect coronation as killing machine Roman Faraldo battles the embattled Levan Chokheli, heavyweight wrestler Tyrell Fortune tries to ragdoll the much larger Daniel James and 20-year veteran Daniel Weichel meets the undefeated prospect Akhmed Magomedov. Then, two title fights: Patricky Pitbull defends his lightweight title against Khabib clan member Usman Nurmagomedov, and in the main event, the aborted Bellator Light-Heavyweight Grand Prix gets a final do-over, as Vadim Nemkov and Corey Anderseon do battle for both the tournament title AND Nemkov's Light-Heavyweight Championship. The UFC ends its month with UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs Spivak the next day on November 19. This is unabashedly a fight night more focused on dumb, fun poo poo than real divisional matchmaking, but the dumb, fun poo poo looks pretty dumb and fun. Vanessa Demopoulos gets another chance to grapple Maria Oliveira, Jennifer Maia and Maryna Moroz will grind each other to paste, Charles Johnson gets a shot at recemption against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, Andre Fialho vs Muslim Salikhov and Jack Della Maddalena vs Danny Roberts will compete to see who is the true punchiest of punchmen, William Knight will try not to collapse into a pile of flying muscle against Marcin Prachnio, Rodolfo Vieira continues his redemption tour against Cody Brundage, and in our main event, Derrick Lewis, knockout king, faces Sergei Spivak, the crown prince of ground and pound. ONE finishes off a very long week with ONE on Prime Video 4: Abbasov vs Lee that evening. Like most Prime cards, it's short but a banger. Kwon Won Il and Mark Abelardo will try to speed one another to death, Jonathan Haggery and Vladimir Kuzmin get their rescheduled Muay Thai showdown, Bibiano Fernandes will try to recover from his first knockout loss in sixteen years against Stephen Loman, the world's most violent kickboxer Rodtang Jitmuangnon defends his Flyweight Muay Thai Championship against Joseph Lasiri, and in the main event, ONE tries one more time to get a double champion out of their promotional darlings the Lee family, as 170-pound champion Christian Lee challenges 185-pound champion Kiamrian Abbasov for his title. And finally, in one of both the bravest and absolutely silliest promotional choices I've ever seen, the month closes out with PFL 10 on November 25. To be clear: This is a pay-per-view. PFL believes they are now an established enough brand that they can put on a mixed martial arts pay-per-view the day after Thanksgiving featuring mostly fighters very few people have ever heard of and it will all work out. It is, in their defense, a pretty crazy card by PFL standards. In addition to prelims that feature Aspen Ladd's PFL debut against Julia Budd and Jeremy Stephens fighting Natan Schulte, the main card features the championship finals for all of their tournaments, featuring such stars as Sadibou Sy and Stevie Ray after their marketable, well-known fighters all got the poo poo kicked out of them, and a special match featuring their two biggest free agent signings as Shane Burgos will fight Marlon Moraes in each man's PFL debut. But the main event, as always, is PFL's desperate attempt to create their own Ronda Rousey, as the undefeated two-time tournament winner Kayla Harrison fights fellow finalist Larissa Pacheco, which is more exciting until you realize they've fought twice already and Harrison beat her both times.
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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. This, of course, did not happen, and now Tyson Fury is fighting Derek Chisora because boxing loving sucks. The UFC was hoping to put Stipe Miocic against Jon Jones on December 10 for an interim title, but Stipe apparently isn't biting on the money they're offering, so unless someone blinks the best hope is Jon Jones vs Francis Ngannou in 2023. 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. In the desperate hope of recapturing the madness of their first fight--and capitalizing on Glover Teixeira, who appears poised to retire after this year--the UFC booked an instant rematch. Jiří vs Glover 2 will go down at UFC 282 on December 10. 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   Islam Makhachev - 23-1, 0 DefensesDestiny has come. When Islam Makhachev made his UFC debut in 2015, Khabib Nurmagomedov, considered by most to be the #1 contender and soon to be the best in the world, swore up and down that Makhachev, not him, would be the best lightweight champion of all time. Coming from him, the praise made sense: Khabib and Islam have trained together since they were children growing up and learning to wrestle in Makhachkala. Islam learned under Khabib's father, trained with Khabib's team and even made the pilgrimage to America to join Khabib at the American Kickboxing Academy. And then, two matches into his UFC tenure, Islam got knocked the gently caress out in the first round by the little-known Adriano Martins, who hasn't won a fight in the six years since. Even as Makhachev racked up wins, the memory of his loss and his wrestling-heavy approach to his fights let people cast doubts on him. Sure, he's good--but he lost, so he's not as good as Khabib. Islam Makhachev, as his trainer tells it, never wanted to be Khabib. He loves fighting, but he doesn't love the spectacle or the glory or the attention. So when, after ten straight wins, Makhachev was picked to challenge Charles Oliveira for the vacant title he never truly lost, a lot of folks just weren't quite sure what to think. Sure, he was an incredible wrestler, but Charles Oliveira is a submission wizard, and sure, he's on a ten-fight streak, but he hasn't fought a single person actually IN the top ten, and Oliveira represents a huge, dangerous step up as a man who's been destroying some of the most accomplished lightweights in the sport's history. Analyst opinion was split right down the middle; the fight, as it turned out, was nowhere near that competitive, and the only analyst who was entirely correct was Khabib. Islam demolished the former champion, outstriking him, taking him down at will, controlling him in the grappling, and ultimately dropping him with punches and choking him out in the second round. The Charles Oliveira story is over, the Islam Makhachev era has begun. Unlike most new champions, there's no question about what's next for him: The UFC is intent on having him defend against featherweight champion and pound-for-pound great Alexander Volkanovski when they go to Perth, Australia for UFC 284 on February 12. 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 called his shot at the lightweight title before Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev had even fought, and moments after Makhachev was victorious, Volkanovski was in the cage staring him down. Come February, he'll get his chance at all-time greatness. Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs   Aljamain Sterling - 22-3, 2 DefensesAljamain Sterling is the most simultaneously blessed and cursed fighter I've ever seen. A lifelong wrestler and grappler who started fighting at 19, Aljo took the long road to championship contention, dealing with setbacks and beating half the challengers the division had to offer before getting his shot at the seemingly unbeatable Petr Yan. He left their fight as the new, victorious champion, not because he had defeated Yan--he appeared to be on his way towards a loss--but because Yan had both illegally and outright intentionally kneed him in the head on the ground, resulting in the first-ever title change by way of disqualification. It took thirteen months for the inevitable rematch to materialize, and this time, Aljamain soundly outgrappled Yan and won fair and square--but the judges only gave him a split decision, which Dana White himself got pissy about, and the fanbase that already loved Yan and hated Sterling took it as carte blanche to poo poo on him all over again. Aljamain Sterling had the rare and coveted UFC title defense, and people hated him more than ever. The UFC itself made matters worse when, rather than booking the José Aldo title fight everyone wanted or giving Marlon Vera and his fan-favorite winning streak a shot, they tapped former champion and marketing favorite TJ Dillashaw as the top contender after winning one contentious split decision. Fans were split on whether Sterling would be able to outgrapple the accomplished wrestler, and Sterling made them all look extremely silly by catching a Dillashaw kick and immediately, easily ragdolling and controlling him thirty seconds into their fight. Unfortunately, seconds after that, Dillashaw dislocated his shoulder. Because everything is silly, Dillashaw was allowed to fight for a round and a half with one of his arms clearly not functioning, leading to Sterling getting a very easy ground-and-pound TKO in the second round, and after the fight Dillashaw immediately admitted that his shoulder had popped out dozens of times during camp, to the point that he had forewarned the referee of the injury before the fight so he wouldn't stop it immediately. If everything about that sentence sounds completely insane and backwards to you: Welcome to our fake idiot sport. Aljamain Sterling has three straight victories in championship fights, and through absolutely no fault of his own, most of the fanbase thinks none of them should count. Jesus wept. 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. After months of radio silence, the inevitable quadrilogy fight was made official: Deiveson Figueiredo vs Brandon Moreno 4: The Search for More Money will take place during at UFC 283, the company's first event in Rio de Janeiro since 2019, on January 21. I say this as a fan of all three of their previous fights: Please, god, no more. Whatever happens, just let it go. 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 Peńa. 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 Peńa 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 Peńa for five straight rounds, dropping her a half-dozen times and elbowing her face entirely open, and barring one touchy moment with an armbar, Peńa 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. It was assumed--and at a couple points outright stated--that her next challenger would be the winner of UFC 280's battle between top contenders Manon Fiorot and Katlyn Chookagian, but despite Fiorot's victory, a number of people--bafflingly including Fiorot herself--called for her to have another fight before challenging for the belt. Which seems aggressively silly, because jesus christ, there's no one else for her to fight. Where we go now, no one knows. 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 - 34-5, 1 DefensePatrício Pitbull has had a weird goddamn year. Pitbull has long been the GOAT of Bellator, sometimes to the company's open chagrin--there were definitely times they would have vastly preferred a Pat Curran or, most particularly, a Michael Chandler to carry their banner, and Patrício had this unfortunate habit of not just beating them but making them look like poo poo. By mid-2021, he was Bellator's dual featherweight and lightweight champion, he was on a seven-fight win streak, and he was a finalist in their Featherweight Grand Prix. And then undefeated rising star A.J. McKee dropped him and choked him out in two minutes. Bellator, clearly, felt they had hit the jackpot and were going to be riding the McKee train for some time, as by their rematch ten months later, McKee was the centerpiece of all of their advertising. It was somewhat awkward when, as he had done to so many before, Patrício took him to a victorious decision that made McKee kind of look like poo poo, neutralizing his offense in the clinch, jabbing under his range, and grinding away the clock. Bellator pushed for a trilogy, but McKee, pissed off, tired of cutting weight and worried about having it happen all over again, declined and moved up to lightweight. Instead of a big-money rematch, Patrício was left to face top contender Ádám Borics, and the match, while hard-fought, was not particularly entertaining or memorable. Unusually, we didn't have to wait long to hear about Pitbull's next fight, and even more unusually, it's a co-promotional matchup against Rizin featherweight champion Kleber Koike, happening in Japan, on New Year's Eve. ...and airing in America only by twelve-hour tape delay. Great job, Bellator. 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. There's increasing word about the fight finally getting rebooked for January, but at this point, who knows. 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 Galvăo, and upon wrestling him to a draw, he challenged him to an MMA fight which Galvăo accepted. André Galvăo'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. If you stil read these things, good for you; tag this in the thread for a prize. 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-champion 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 DefensesTang 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   VACANT - The eternal, unbeaten force of entropyIt's said that when God closes a door, they open a window. After six beautiful months, Vacant's reign as the UFC Lightweight Champion had to come to an end. But ONE Championship has made no bones about their intention of bringing competition to the world of mixed martial arts, and they were not about to let the soon-to-be hottest free agent in the sport slip through their fingers. Just two days before Islam Makhachev and Charles Oliveira fought to claim the empty throne, disaster struck across the globe: John Lineker's reign as ONE Bantamweight Champion ended after 223 days when he came in 3/4 of a pound over the 145-pound championship limit. He was stripped of his title and the following day's match proceeded with only his challenger, Fabrício Andrade, eligible to become champion. But the vengeful spirits that watch over mixed martial arts refuse to let a good opportunity go. The fight was back and forth in the first two rounds, but Lineker began to visible fade in the third thanks to his bad weight cut, Andrade's excellent work in punching his eye shut, and the size and reach differential that saw him getting repeatedly punished. Two and a half minutes into the round Andrade landed a knee to the body that left Lineker reeling, absorbing punishment and seemingly on the verge of the first TKO loss of his career, and sensing the ex-champion was on the ropes and this was his chance to become a hero Fabrício Andrade charged bravely forward, wound up, and landed a perfectly placed, sharply thrust knee on Lineker's balls. It hit so hard it shattered Lineker's cup and left the unbelievably tough man dry heaving into a bucket. The fight could not continue, which meant Fabrício Andrade could not win, which meant that once again, Vacant claimed a world championship. Never before in mixed martial arts history has someone won two championships in two major organizations in one year. Count yourself lucky to have lived at the same time as this generational superstar. 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. The fight's now scheduled to serve as the main event for ONE Championship 164 on December 3rd. 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. In mid-October, it was announced he'll be co-main eventing the RIZIN vs Bellator card on New Year's Eve, and he'll have the tall order of facing top Bellator gun A.J. McKee. Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Kleber Koike Erbst - 31-5-1, 0 DefensesRizin has found the solution to Japanese MMA's historical troubles with losing their championships to foreigners: Get Japanese foreigners. Kleber Koike Erbst, while born in Săo Paulo, moved to Japan as a fourteen year-old and, four years later, elected to stay behind and continue training in grappling and mixed martial arts while his parents returned home. He found community with the above-mentioned de Souza family, working odd jobs to fund his continuing study at their school in Iwata, and later that same year he began his career as a professional fighter. His rookie years were somewhat fraught: By his twenty-first birthday he was only 4-3-1 and his prospects seemed somewhat dim. As it turns out, aging into actual adulthood makes a loving difference, as in the following twelve years he has lost only two fights. One was a decision loss to Artur Sowiński, the champion of Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki federation, and he rematched and choked him out two years later; the other, Erbst's final KSW fight, was a loss to Mateusz Gamrot, who is currently the #8 fighter an entire weight class up in the UFC's lightweight rankings. Koike joined Rizin in 2020 and immediately snapped off a five-fight submission streak, leading to his challenging featherweight champion Juntarou Ushiku at Rizin 39 on October 23. It only took six and a half minutes for Erbst to submit Ushiku with his trademark triangle choke, making him, for the second time in his career, a world champion. He won't get to rest on his laurels for very long: He's been tapped for the main event of RIZIN vs Bellator, a champion vs champion match against Bellator's Patrício Pitbull. Neither has to worry about their title being on the line, it's just a matter of organizational pride. 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. Even when Horiguchi was announced as competing on the RIZIN vs Bellator supercard on December 31, it was a little baffling: He'll be facing Hiromasa Ougikubo. This means, under the theme of the show, Horiguchi is ostensibly representing Bellator, an organization in which he is 1-2, as opposed to Rizin, where he's 11-1. 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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Nov 1, 2022 17:24
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this thread won't be any less cursed than october's
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Nov 1, 2022 17:25
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Im gonna lmao every single time I read this thread title
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Nov 1, 2022 17:31
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Less Cursetober more Cursevember
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Nov 1, 2022 17:32
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Boco_T posted:Fairly solid set of B- and Z-league cards this weekend, plenty to watch even with the underwhelming UFC card.
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Nov 1, 2022 17:36
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looking forward to hating this sport as much if not more than last month
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Nov 1, 2022 17:38
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Wait does Bellator really not have a women's bantamweight division?
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Nov 1, 2022 17:39
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Brut posted:Wait does Bellator really not have a women's bantamweight division? Nope. They skip from 145 to 125 and that's it. Also their first women's division was actually strawweight, but after they held a title tournament and Zoila Gurgel née Frausto won it she said 'gently caress this cutting weight poo poo, I'll fight at 125' and Bellator, having not had any real plans in the first place, just gave her random fights for awhile and then gave up on women's MMA altogether as a non-special attraction thing for three years.
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Nov 1, 2022 17:48
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https://twitter.com/instain_mother/status/1587091569613709313?s=46&t=_c7jh6GIKDbb2O0q3wmPPA
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Nov 1, 2022 19:19
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Hasbulla isn't all bad, they appear to be shilling NFTs now
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Nov 1, 2022 19:28
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That's a gross loving tweet. Aside from this particular tweet being gross, please do your best to avoid posting some random account's twitter take about something UFC/MMA relevant instead of just posting the thing itself, especially when that account has strong indications of being someone banned from here in some way. But mostly that's just loving gross, dude's a literal teenager, what is that poo poo.
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Nov 1, 2022 19:33
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please wont someone think of the poor platformed fascists????
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Nov 1, 2022 19:39
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I feel like I'm in some type of David Lynch type nightmare with this whole power slap thing. Like not even getting into the fact it's called Dana White's Power Slap, what is the point there? Like what skill does it test? Is it literally just a test of how hard/how many times you can get hit in the face? How do they determine who wins? I'll watch any garbage where two people beat on each other but this just completely disinterests me because it seems like there's no real test of any interesting skills and no spectacle either. It's literally just people slapping each other. I'd rather watch Nate stockton slap vids on a loop, and even then it's fun to watch Diaz slap people because of the disrespect/situation. Two people just staring blank faced slapping each other isn't only uninteresting to me I'm having a hard time seeing how anyone could find that appealing.
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Nov 1, 2022 19:46
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televised slapping has been on the internet for years, its very amusing and popular and danas a talentless shill? Watching two loving beefed dudes slapping each other is insanely entertaining for the same reasons the UFC is, spectacle and drama. But its one dimensional and you're not gonna turn it into a "sport". Brut posted:That's a gross loving tweet. a lovely teenager
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Nov 1, 2022 19:51
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Southpaugh posted:televised slapping has been on the internet for years, its very amusing and popular and danas a talentless shill? I only ever become aware of it recently I didn't know it had been around for a while. I know Dana's a talentless shill but you'd think he'd be smarter than to associate his name/brand with something like that. Then again, I am never surprised at Dana by this point.
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Nov 1, 2022 19:54
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Bluedeanie posted:please wont someone think of the poor platformed fascists???? https://imgur.com/a/10D6Eqo Tangy Zizzle fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 20:01
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Kvlt! posted:I only ever become aware of it recently I didn't know it had been around for a while. I know Dana's a talentless shill but you'd think he'd be smarter than to associate his name/brand with something like that. Then again, I am never surprised at Dana by this point. he just really really wanted to get to put White Power together in the title of something
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Nov 1, 2022 20:02
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white power's dana slap
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Nov 1, 2022 20:02
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It is baffling that I have to spell out that despite whatever lovely views that dude and his friends hold, it is still wrong to beat him up with a metal baseball bat, and posting that poo poo says way more about you than it does about him, even if he is:Southpaugh posted:a lovely teenager and he obviously is. What I actually hope happens to him (and anyone of a similar mindset) is that he becomes better educated about the world and changes his mind about all that poo poo.
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Nov 1, 2022 20:06
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Power Slap Dana White
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Nov 1, 2022 20:07
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Brut posted:It is baffling that I have to spell out that despite whatever lovely views that dude and his friends hold, it is still wrong to beat him up with a metal baseball bat, and posting that poo poo says way more about you than it does about him, even if he is: Nah I think casually poo poo posting about hitting someone with a bat is a lot less bad than hanging around a genocidal warlord for clout.
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Nov 1, 2022 20:12
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https://twitter.com/The_MMA_Media/status/1587228630480031744 I don't recognize any of these guys
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Nov 1, 2022 20:17
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no, u may only hit them with the aluminum baseball bat of facts and logic in the battleground known as the marketplace of ideas
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Nov 1, 2022 20:17
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TheKingslayer posted:Nah I think casually poo poo posting about hitting someone with a bat is a lot less bad than hanging around a genocidal warlord for clout. Ok? If anyone ITT hangs out with a warlord for clout I'll ban them.
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Nov 1, 2022 20:19
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Brut posted:Ok? If anyone ITT hangs out with a warlord for clout I'll ban them. you fuckin hear that Mel Mudkiper you god drat son of a bitch don't you GOD drat come back here
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Nov 1, 2022 20:20
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Being King of the OilDome better not count towards warlordship
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Nov 1, 2022 20:22
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Please stick to posting about watching people get brain damage for very little money ITT.
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Nov 1, 2022 20:27
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Fozzy The Bear posted:https://twitter.com/The_MMA_Media/status/1587228630480031744 Nick Maximov is known for "walks out with Nate Diaz" You know Cirkunov, come on. I know I've seen Ontiveros and Weeks fight (I wanna say Weeks fought...like a week or two ago?) but I can't tell you anything about them. The rest...yeah, no idea.
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Nov 1, 2022 20:28
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CarlCX posted:Dana White, who once propelled mixed martial arts into the mainstream on the back of a series of impassioned speeches about how the public perception of fighters and the UFC as uneducated, cruel and vicious was a travesty, officially licensed and announced an entirely new combat sports company in October: Dana White's Power Slap League. I'd kinda quibble with the idea of Dana White being the person who legitimized MMA, but it seems like Lorenzo Fertitta is involved in this new slap league as well, so my point is essentially moot
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Nov 1, 2022 20:33
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Lol. Surely the guy whose family forcibly locked his sister away for her whole life and threatened to murder someone over posting a photo of her online and are chummy with a genocidal warlord who murders gay people will change.
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Nov 1, 2022 22:23
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Mekchu posted:Lol. Surely the guy whose family forcibly locked his sister away for her whole life and threatened to murder someone over posting a photo of her online and are chummy with a genocidal warlord who murders gay people will change. wait who are you referring to and whats the story here? I havent heard of this :o
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Nov 1, 2022 22:48
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Brut posted:But mostly that's just loving gross, dude's a literal teenager, what is that poo poo. He's using his platform to show support and promote a fascist in Brazil who thinks gay people shouldn't have equal rights, abortions shouldn't be allowed, is against affirmative action, and more. So he can very much gently caress right off and be punched in the face for that.
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Nov 1, 2022 22:55
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Brut posted:But mostly that's just loving gross, dude's a literal teenager, what is that poo poo. He's 20
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Nov 1, 2022 23:33
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There are so many horrible people involved in combat sports, some times I loose track of which one is which.
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Nov 1, 2022 23:34
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Kvlt! posted:wait who are you referring to and whats the story here? I havent heard of this :o Hasbulla is pals with Chechen warlord Kadyrov Unperson_47 fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Nov 1, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2022 23:45
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Brut posted:It is baffling that I have to spell out that despite whatever lovely views that dude and his friends hold, it is still wrong to beat him up with a metal baseball bat, and posting that poo poo says way more about you than it does about him, even if he is: Man I get that but I don't anyone is seriously advocating that Hasbulla (who is 20 btw) should be Star Wars comboed with a metal baseball bat. it's just a funny tweet about a UFC athlete who pals around with guys who pogrom gay folks. I like seeing funny posts about UFC athletes in these threads, along with the pet pics and the b-league updates
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Nov 2, 2022 00:02
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Why was ottoman in blackball jail? I like the pitbull photos every month
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Nov 2, 2022 00:33
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