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Which main event are you looking forward to the most this month? This poll is closed. |
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| You already know how this gag works |
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2 | 9.09% |
| You're going to pick O'Malley vs Chito |
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1 | 4.55% |
| Unless you're really invested in Amanda Ribas |
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1 | 4.55% |
| Sean O'Malley vs Marlon Vera 2 |
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0 | 0% |
| Corey Anderson vs Karl Moore |
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3 | 13.64% |
| Wait |
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3 | 13.64% |
| How did that get there |
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3 | 13.64% |
| Oh no, not more Beastin' |
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9 | 40.91% |
| Total: | 22 votes | ||
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Do you miss Alexander Volkanovski, too? Remember the good times of February here. Welcome to March. The slow start of the year is now fully and completely over, we've got eight events this month including five UFCs, Bellator's return from the dead and ONE actually putting on MMA championship fights AND Francis Ngannou vs Anthony Joshua over in the world of boxing, so buckle the fuckle up. This month's thread title courtesy of 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 if there's an event you want to make a GDT for, go right ahead, just make sure to link it here so everyone sees it and basks in the joy of violence. THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS 
IS THERE ANY NEWS  After two months of trying as hard as possible to get people hyped about a main event Dana White said would blow everyone's mind, the UFC finally, officially announced the main event of UFC 300, their biggest event ever. That fight is Alex Pereira vs Jamahal Hill. Hill openly admitted he found out about the fight the day before Dana announced it to the world, meaning the main event of the biggest and best event in UFC history came together as a third or fourth choice. And it's a fine fight! It's a logical fight to make! But after promising a knock-your-socks-off caliber of contest, a fine fight is kind of a weird letdown, and nothing quite summarizes the current state of the UFC and its weird, persistent promotional doldrums like allowing rumors to kick up on everything from cross-class superfights to brand new weight classes to superstars of the sport coming out of retirement without refuting any of them in an attempt to coast on hype they were incapable of creating on their own when, ultimately, they just put the Contender Series guy they like back in the cage for a regular-rear end title fight. It's still a great card! I'm still looking forward to it! But UFC 100 had multiple generational star champions on it, and UFC 200 had Cormier/Jones 2 turned Cormier/Anderson Silva, the rise of Amanda Nunes, and the return of Brock Lesnar, and UFC 300, while a great card, is still just a great card. It's the kind of card they put on a few times a year when they decide to really give a poo poo for one weekend. I'll be there, but boy, I wonder what happened. WHERE ELSE CAN I TALK TO LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE ABOUT VIOLENCE? Any of the following hangouts:
DO WE HAVE OTHER COMMUNAL THREADS? So many.
WHERE ELSE DOES FIGHT CHAT EXIST? Our community output has grown enough that we've got a few other places things get posted:
 Disclaimer: These are unofficial offsites, somethingawful's rules and liability do not extend to them, and complaining about discord stuff is still offsite drama posting
CarlCX fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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WHAT HAPPENED IN FEBRUARY We kicked off with UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs Imavov on February 3. It was a mixed card on paper, and it was a mixed card in practice. On one hand, the prelims gave you fantastic fights like Charles Johnson's gutsy decision over Azat Maksum, Molly McCann destroying Diana Belbiţă, Luana Carolina's last-minute knockout of Julija Stoliarenko and Themba Gorimbo knocking Pete Rodriguez dead in thirty seconds; on the other, you had Lee Jeong-Yeong beating a visibly confused Blake Bilder, Marquel Mederos beating Landon Quińones in a forgettable fight, and Jamal Pogues winning an extremely Heavyweight kind of decision against Thomas Petersen. Up on your main card Charles Radtke scored the night's biggest upset by knocking out Gilbert Urbina, Aliaskhab Khizriev went to a No Contest with Makhmud Muradov after almost poking his eye out ten seconds into the fight, Natália Silva outworked Viviane Araújo to a decision, Randy Brown knocked out Muslim Salikhov, and Renato Moicano took a close but fun decision over Drew Dober before cutting a bizarre promo about competing with his 62 year-old father regarding having kids and how he wants to be a cop and kill people and also everyone needs to go to church. And then Nassourdine Imavov beat Roman Dolidze despite losing a point for fouling him and almost getting disqualified after nearly coming to blows with Dolidze's cornerman Chris Curtis in mid-fight. February 10 brought us UFC Fight Night: Hermansson vs Pyfer, better known as the card where a bunch of prospects ate poo poo. Daniel Marcos went to a No Contest after repeatedly punting Aoriqileng in the junk, Hyder Amil punched out Fernie Garcia but Bogdan Guskov flatlined Zac Pauga, Max Griffin managed a tight split decision over Jeremiah Wells, Marcin Prachnio blew out Devin Clark, Loma Lookboonmee outworked Bruna Brasil, Bolaji Oki got a real, real narrow decision over Timothy Cuamba, and Carlos Prates knocked out Trevin Giles. On your main card, Rodolfo Vieira somewhat predictably choked out Armen Petrosyan, Michael Johnson took a wide decision over Darrius Flowers, Gregory Rodrigues overcame a scare to TKO Brad Tavares, Ihor Potieria took out Robert Bryczek, and Dan Ige absolutely crushed Andre Fili with one of the best knockouts of his career. But the night belonged to the main event, scheduled as a coming-out party for Contender Series favorite Joe Pyfer. The UFC had been trying to get Pyfer into the top ten for an entire year, and having finally found their mark in an aging Jack Hermansson, they were once again upset when Hermansson pulled his spoiler act, outfought a visibly tiring Pyfer, and rode off into the sunset with a decision over yet another prospect. ONE was up first on February 17 with ONE Fight Night 19: Haggerty vs Lobo, which is yet another in the long list of ONE cards I feel underqualified to discuss because it was mostly striking arts. This is the ongoing existential crisis of keeping track of ONE. Is it notable that Hiroyuki Tetsuka tapped out Abraăo Amorim, or that Lito Adiwang beat Danial Williams? One hadn't booked Williams in an MMA fight in a year and a half, is this going to change now? Does any of ONE's booking matter when their ladders and divisions don't really exist? Will they forget about their MMA fighters again after ONE: Qatar next month? I don't know. But Martyna Kierczyńska knocked out Wondergirl, which probably made Chatri unhappy, and Saemapetch Fairtex butchered Mohamed Younes Rabah, which probably made Chastri happy, and in the main event Jonathan Haggerty and Felipe Lobo had a fantastic back and forth that ended with a Haggerty knockout, which probably made everyone happy. But that happiness got real confused later that weekend, thanks to UFC 298: Volkanovski vs Topuria. In order, on the early prelims: Miranda Maverick probably drummed Andrea Lee out of the UFC by decision, Oban Elliott outgrappled the poo poo out of Val Woodburn, and Danny Barlow won his game of conkers by knocking out Josh Quinlan in the third round. On the regular-flavor prelims: Zhang Mingyang knocked out Brendson Ribeiro in a furious minute forty, Rinya Nakamura easily outworked Carlos Vera, Marcos Rogério de Lima notched a leg kick TKO over Junior Tafa, who filled in for brother Justin Tafa on a day's notice, and Amanda Lemos punched the poo poo out of an outgunned but incredibly tough Mackenzie Dern, who hung on to lose a decision rather than a TKO. On your main card, Anthony Hernandez choked out Roman Kopylov, Merab Dvalishvili dropped a first round but completely drowned Henry Cejudo to win a decision anyway, Ian Machado Garry took a tentative decision over Geoff Neal, and Robert Whittaker engaged in a war with Paulo Costa and took home a gritty but clear decision. But if you're reading this, you probably already know what's coming next. The main event saw the violent passing of the torch, as Alexander Volkanovski's four-year, 1,526-day reign over the Featherweight division finally came to an end when, despite putting up a great first round, he was knocked out cold by Ilia Topuria in the second. Topuria is the first man not named Max Holloway or Alexander Volkanovski to hold the (real) belt in eight goddamn years. The month ended with a triple-header on February 24, and Rizin struck first with Rizin Landmark 8. It was one of their longest and most action-packed Landmark cards yet, thanks in part to a better balance of prospects and names. Your Daiki Yahiro and Takumi Teradas were able to pick up prelim wins right alongside your Daichi Abes and Hiroaki Suzukis, and boy, that's a much better business plan. The main card was what most people came for, though, and it didn't disappoint. Saori Oshima tapped out Claire Lopez, Yusuke Yachi cranked Rikuto Shirakawa's face off, and Masakazu Imanari, who just turned 48, picked up the twenty-ninth submission victory of his career. In your main event, Luiz Gustavo continued his winning streak by defeating Yoshinori Horie by decision. Arguably the most interesting part of the weekend, for once, didn't bnelong to the UFC. The first step in the new PFL-Bellator merger era was PFL vs Bellator, a champs-vs-champs card to determine who had the better talent all along. Except one of them wasn't a real weight division, and two of PFL's champs had to pull out, and PFL couldn't get anyone into the cage at Featherweight so Patrício Pitbull had a camp for nothing. Not a great start! Down on the prelims Malik Basahel beat Vinicius Pereira in an amateur clash, Abdullah Al-Qahtani knocked out Edukondala Rao, Claressa Shields just barely squeaked a split decision past Kelsey DeSantis, Biaggio Ali Walsh beat Emmanuel Palacio in his professional debut, and Aaron Pico avenged his 2019 loss by knocking out Henry Corrales, which is a bit unfortunate for Corrales, who took the fight on 48 hours' notice. The main card opened wth two special attraction bouts. One was a fight between the two second-best Lightweights in either company, which saw Bellator's A.J. McKee go through Clay Collard in a pretty effortless 1:10, and the other was a Bellator vs Bellator showdown between Yoel Romero and Thiago Santos, which, like any fight featuring the two over the last several years, was astonishing in its ability to showcase absolutely nothing happening. With Bellator already up by one, the championship matches unfolded somewhat unsurprisingly:
And we closed out February with the UFC's big return to Mexico, UFC Fight Night: Moreno vs Royval 2. It was packed full of Latin-American talent and, for the most part, it was actually pretty fun. On your prelims: Muhammad Naimov beat Erik Silva when he busted his leg walking the perimeter of the cage, Felipe dos Santos won a close split decision over Victor Altamirano, Ronaldo Rodriguez overcame an early struggle to choke out Denys Bondar, Farčs Ziam notched a split decision over Claudio Puelles, Edgar Chairez had his fourth or fifth rescheduling of his bout with Daniel Lacerda and finally, uncontroversially choked him out, Jesús Santos Aguilar got a split over Mateus Mendonça, and Raoni Barcelos clubbed and subbed Cristian Quińonez. On your comparatively short main card: Manuel Torres submitted Chris Duncan, Yazmin Jauregui boxed up Sam "Sampage" Hughes to a decision, Daniel Zellhuber took a decision over Francisco Prado, and Brian Ortega overcame a twisted ankle and getting dropped repeatedly to choke out Yair Rodríguez in the third round. Your main event was an extremely close Brandon Battle between Brandons Moreno and Royval, but this time, Royval came out on the right side of a split decision. WHAT'S COMING IN MARCH The slow times are over, baby. We've got seven events this month, including five separate UFCs. But ONE takes the stage first, with ONE 166: Qatar on March 1. After basically an entire year of ignoring their MMA divisions, this is After that's over, March 2 brings us UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs Gaziev. This card, as of now, only has ten goddamn fights on it, which would honestly be a pleasant change of pace because there's so much UFC. It's a real, real weird offering--on one hand you've got some genuinely good prospect fights, like Aiemann Zahabi vs Javid Basharat, Joel Álvarez vs Ľudovít Klein, Matt Schnell vs Steve Erceg and Alex Perez vs Muhammad Mokaev, but on the other you've got pointless poo poo like Eryk Anders vs Jamie Pickett, Umar Nurmagomedov facing Bekzat Almakhan, a man who apparently exists, and Vitor Petrino, who just knocked out Modestas Bukauskas, vs Tyson Pedro, the last guy who lost to Modestas Bukauskas. And your main event is top heavyweight Jairzinho Rozenstruik fighting Shamil Gaziev, who made his UFC debut in December. I dunno, man. I just don't know. But next week it's pay-per-view time, so who cares. UFC 299: O'Malley vs Vera 2 comes to us March 9, and it's pretty loving stacked. Your early prelims are Joanne Wood's (probable) retirement match against Maryna Moroz, C.J. Vergara vs Assu Almabayev, 6'7" Taekwondo prospect Robelis Despaigne against sacrificial lamb Josh Parisian, and Michel Pereira against Michał Oleksiejczuk. Your mid-prelims give you Pedro Munhoz vs Kyler Phillips, Mateusz Gamrot vs Rafael dos Anjos, Katlyn Cerminara (you may remember her as Chookagian) vs Maycee Barber, and the previously-attempted Curtis Blaydes vs Jailton Almeida. Your main card is pretty much a card of main events: Petr Yan vs Song Yadong, Gilbert Burns vs Jack Della Maddalena, Kevin Holland vs a debuting Michael "Venom" Page, Dustin Poirier vs Benoît Saint Denis, and in your main event, Sean O'Malley attempts to avenge his career loss by defending the Bantamweight championship against Marlon "Chito" Vera, because rankings do not matter. And then we're right back to the Apex with UFC Fight Night: Tuivasa vs Tybura on March 16. This isn't a bad card, exactly, but it is, uh, an anticlimax after the pay-per-view. You've got some cool fights like Jafel Filho vs Ode' Osbourne, Natan Levy vs Mike Davis and Cory McKenna vs Jacqueline Amorim, but a lot of it is also more of a 'voting present' kind of deal. Gerald Meerschaert vs Bryan Barberena, Pannie Kianzad vs Macy Chiasson, Christian Rodriguez vs Isaac Dulgarian and Josh Culibao vs Danny Silva are extremely There fights. Ovince Saint Preux vs Kennedy Nzechukwu could be very There or very funny, in fairness. But your main event of Tai Tuivasa vs Marcin Tybura will probably be a one-rounder, one way or another, and that'll at least be gratifying. March 22 brings us the first new, solely-Bellator branded event in their new existence as an occupied territory of the Professional Fighters League, Bellator 302: Anderson vs Moore. This begins the PFL experiment of taking Bellator around the world to build their global profile, and the first stop is Ireland, a place Bellator has definitely not already been several thousand times. It's consequently also a local-appeal card, including Tofiq Musayev vs Alfie Davis, Ciarán Clarke vs Darius Mafi, Jeremy Kennedy vs James Gallagher and Fabian Edwards vs Aaron Jeffery. It's like you never left, Bellator. Your co-main event was to be a Women's Featherweight title eliminator between Leah McCourt and Sinead Kavanaugh, but McCourt's out injured and a replacement has yet to be announced. Your main event, filling the void Vadim Nemkov left behind, is a Light Heavyweight championship match between Corey Anderson and Karl Moore. And the next day, March 23, we have Rizin Landmark 9. This is another in the larger set of Landmark events Rizin's been putting on lately, with 11 MMA bouts and 4 kickboxing bouts. But Yuya's kickboxing, so goddammit, you should watch it. On your MMA side of things, highlights include Yusaku Nakamura vs Arman Ashimov, the 0-3 sumo Heavyweight Takakenshin trying to finally get a victory over Cody Jerabek, who is, uh, a Middleweight, Yuta Kubo against Ryogo Takahashi, Erson Yamamoto vs Yuya Shibata, Igor Tanabe vs Kiichi "Strasser" Kunimoto, and Koji Takeda vs Kyohei Hagiwara. Your top three bouts see RENA returning after almost a year off to face Shim Yu-ri, Naoki Inoue vs Shoko Sato, and Rizin Lightweight champion Roberto Satoshi de Souza vs legend Keita Nakamura, which is awesome except for the part where it is a non-title fight, for some goddamn reason. That evening we have UFC Fight Night: Ribas vs Namajunas, another Apex show. This one's very much a mid-prospect showcase, including some attempts at rehabilitation. Jarno Errens! He's back! He's facing Steven Nguyen. Davey Grant! You remember him, right? He's got Cody Gibson. Ricardo Ramos fights Julian Erosa, Kurt Holobaugh will complete the UFC's attempts to bury Trey Ogden, Billy Quarantillo tries to get back on track against Gabriel Miranda, and despite all sense, Mohammed Usman will face Mick Parkin. Edmen Shahbazyan was supposed to have a neat kickboxing match with Duško Todorović, but he's hurt, so instead it's Edmen and A.J. Dobson. Payton Talbott! You remember him! He's fighting Cameron Saaiman. And your main event is a fight with Amanda Ribas and Rose Namajunas, both of whom are, uh, ruled out of title contendership. I don't know, man! I don't know. We come to the end of the month with the rare second consecutive show fronted by women's MMA, UFC Fight Night: Blanchfield vs Fiorot, on March 30. And of course, like so many cases, it wasn't supposed to be main evented by women, Sean Brady vs Vicente Luque simply fell through, and hey, it's Jersey, so gently caress 'em, I guess. But you get Andre Petroski vs Jacob Malkoun, Viktoriia Duakova vs Melissa Gatto, Julio Arce vs Herbert Burns and Nate Landwehr vs Pat Sabatini! Who could be mad! Your main card is a little better, with bangers between Bill Algeo and Kyle Nelson, Vicente Luque and Joaquin Buckley and Virna Jandiroba vs Loopy Godinez, but you, uh, also have to watch Chris Weidman fight Bruno Silva. I know. I don't want it either. Your main event is, of course, Erin Blanchfield vs Manon Fiorot, a sure-thing #1 contender match for Women's Flyweight that you could easily have done a year and a half ago, but why not waste some goddamn time, I guess.
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Mar 1, 2024 19:01
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CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Jon Jones - 27-1 (1), 0 DefensesVery few things in combat sports reach the crossroads of awe-inspiring and unfathomably frustrating as Jon Jones. In 2020, Jon Jones notched the third defense of his second light-heavyweight championship reign after an exceedingly contentious decision against Dominick Reyes, only to abdicate the title because the UFC wasn't paying him enough, and he was bored of 205 pounds and wanted to move up to heavyweight like he'd been planning to for nearly a decade, and he needed more time to cement his place as not just one of the sport's greatest pound-for-pound fighters, but one of its biggest pound-for-pound pains in the rear end. On September 23, 2021, Jon Jones was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame; on September 24, 2021, he was arrested (for the fifth time!) after his daughter called the police on him for beating her mother, during which he antagonized the police and, inexplicably, headbutted a police car. Because this is Jon Jones, of course, the primary charges were dropped, he paid $750 for the hood of the police cruiser, and got a stern warning to stay out of trouble, young man, because there is a money-powered reality-distorting field around Jon Jones whereby nothing matters. After a year of rumors, and after the unconscionable firing of heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, the UFC gleefully announced Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane to fill the vacant heavyweight throne. Did it matter to the matchmaking that there were more deserving candidates? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He deserves the spot for his earlier success. Did it matter to his public appearances that when last we saw him he was arrested for beating his fiancee? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He was, if anything, more up his own rear end with self-righteousness than ever before. Did it matter to the fight that he hadn't competed in more than three years and looked terrible at the time? Of course not, because it's Jon loving Jones. Ciryl Gane looked too nervous to use footwork let alone throw anything, and he should have been, as Jones effortlessly threw him to the canvas and choked him out in two minutes. The longest-running, most dominant and yet most persistently annoying show in mixed martial arts is back. And in the most predictable thing possible, some bullshit happened, he got injured, he's going to be gone for at least eight months, and the UFC is not only not stripping him of the title like they've done to everyone else, they've already gotten out ahead of themselves and made clear that when he comes back, he will be fighting Stipe Miocic, not whoever the interim champion is at the time. Funny, that. Interim Heavyweight Champion   Tom Aspinall - 14-3, 0 DefensesThe UFC's Heavyweight division got itself into a weird spot in 2007. Randy Couture was the rightful, reigning, defending champion, but he and the UFC had a dispute that stretched out more than a year. The UFC couldn't strip him--it would have made it easier for him to get out of his contract--so they made an interim title. By the time Randy came back they had already made big plans for him and Brock Lesnar, but the interim title had gotten wrapped up in The Ultimate Fighter 8 (jesus christ) and it, too, had to be defended, meaning there were two championships being defended simultaneously: The Undisputed Championship, which was the 'real' belt despite being held by a guy trying to leave the company and contended for by someone with only two victories in the sport, and the Interim Championship, which was being fought over by the actual, legitimate top contenders. At UFC 295 on November 11th, 2023, Tom Aspinall, the rightful #4 contender, fought Sergei Pavlovich, the rightful #2 contender, for a new interim championship. And he won. On two weeks' notice! Aspinall's been one of the most promising heavyweight prospects in the world for years, his only loss in the UFC came from his knee tearing itself apart fifteen seconds into a fight, and he went toe-to-toe with one of the scariest punchers in the history of the sport and knocked him flat in just barely over a minute. He is, indisputably, the real deal. And now he gets to be the interim champion of a Heavyweight division in which the real champion, Jon Jones, is going to be out injured well into next year and, the UFC has made clear, will be returning to defend his title against Stipe Miocic, who by that time will have been on the shelf for 3+ years and will be going on 42. So congratulations, Tom. You're the real Heavyweight champion. I hope you get some credit for it. Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   Alex Pereira - 9-2, 0 DefensesConflicting things can be simultaneously true in this sport. It is true that Alex Pereira was brought into the UFC as a 3-1 rookie based on his history as a kickboxer rather than his accomplishments in the sport. It is true that he was fast-tracked to a title shot against the primary focus of that history, megastar Israel Adesanya, after beating just three fighters, none of whom had any hope of testing his grappling. It is also true that he rendered that discourse ultimately irrelevant by not just beating but stopping Adesanya in his title shot anyway, in the process becoming the fastest Middleweight to go from debut to champion since Anderson Silva. It was more or less an open secret that he wasn't going to stay there: Being bigger than most Heavyweights in the UFC, the weight cut to 185 was always a short-term thing. Luckily for the UFC, he got knocked out by Adesanya and gave him the title right back on his way up to 205. Once again, he got fast-tracked, this time by happenstance. A split decision victory over Jan Błachowicz made Pereira a top five contender, and when Jamahal Hill was forced to vacate his title thanks to an ankle injury--and the previous champion, Jiří Procházka, was back from his own title vacation and injury--Pereira was slotted right back into championship place. They met at UFC 295 on November 11th, and after two back-and-forth rounds, Pereira punished a Jiří who dared to grapple by elbowing his skull until he briefly stopped moving. The commentary and audience thought it was an early stoppage, but Jiří Procházka didn't, so gently caress 'em. It is true that Alex Pereira has fought seven UFC fights without having to fight an actual grappler, and that was an intentional choice by matchmaking. It is true that getting the chance to win championships in two weight classes within just two years and seven fights in the UFC is not a thing that happens to most fighters. But it is unavoidably true that Alex Pereira is a two-division champion and no one can take it away from him. After none of the UFC's other ideas worked out, they announced Alex Pereira will attempt his first title defense against former champion Jamahal Hill in the main event of UFC 300. Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs   Dricus du Plessis - 21-2, 0 DefensesMiddleweight's loving wild, man. Generally when a belt changes hands repeatedly in a short period of time you can blame injuries and strippings and title vacations, but recent history has simply been a case study in how goddamn weird things can get at 185 pounds. As of this writing (February 1, 2024) we've had five separate Middleweight champions in less than fifteen months. Divisional king Israel Adesanya dropped the belt to his nemesis Alex Pereira, Adesanya dropped Pereira himself in an immediate rematch, and in one of 2023's bigger upsets, Adesanya lost his belt to human exclusion zone Sean Strickland. But that shot, initially, didn't belong to him: It belonged to Dricus du Plessis. Dricus joined the UFC in 2020 as one of the international scene's best prospects--a two-division champion in his native South Africa's Extreme Fighting Championship, a Welterweight champion in Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, and a finishing machine who'd never gone to a decision in his life. The spotlight of the UFC gave him two new reputations: For one, as an exceptionally awkward-looking fighter who could appear shaky and exhausted and still easily knock anyone out, and for two, as a guy with real uncomfortable feelings about his homeland. Shortly after his debut Dricus du Plessis began making comments about becoming the first "real" African champion in the UFC, citing the way fighters like Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya and Francis Ngannou had left the country, and, boy, there's just no way to get around the topic that isn't gross as hell. But du Plessis knocked #1 contender Robert Whittaker dead, so it didn't matter. He was in pole position. And then he lost it, because he wanted more than a month to prepare for a world championship fight and the UFC decided that just wouldn't fly. A fully-trained du Plessis stepped into the cage against his replacement and now-champion Sean Strickland on January 20 at UFC 297, and after a close fight and a split decision, du Plessis brought the belt back to South Africa just like he promised. The UFC would really like to make good on their initial du Plessis/Adesanya plans, but we'll see if they can work it out. Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs   Leon Edwards - 22-3 (1), 2 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. The rubber match was inevitable, and once again, Edwards opened as an underdog, and once again, he proved everyone wrong. Instead of a last-minute comeback Leon simply shut Usman down for the majority of the fight, stuffing eleven of his takedown attempts, outstriking him in four out of five rounds and landing an absolutely wild 75% of his strikes in the process. It was an incredible performance against one of the greatest welterweights of all time, marred only by Leon losing a point for fence grabs. The decision was unquestionably his, and now legitimized as the champion of the world, Leon found himself dealing with the UFC's bullshit insistence that his first defense came not against the top contender, but rather, the UFC's favorite bigot, Colby Covington. Edwards dominated him and sent him away 4-1, finally ending the bullshit. At which point he, immediately, brought the bullshit back by talking down a fight with #1 contender Belal Muhammad, after naming him repeatedly as the man he should be fighting instead of Colby. Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs   Islam Makhachev - 25-1, 2 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. His first defense was a different story. Islam faced featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284 on February 12th in a rare best-of-the-best, champion vs champion match, and this time, his team's prediction of domination was thoroughly incorrect: It was a pitched battle that ended with Makhachev visibly exhausted and Volkanovski pounding on his face. Islam took an extremely close decision and the divisions will remain separate, but his aura of invulnerability has been thoroughly punctured. Or, at least, it was. In one of those funny moments of sport deterioration, his title defense against Charles Oliveira got scratched thanks to Oliveira busting his eyebrow in training, and on less than two weeks' notice the UFC ran Makhachev/Volkanovski 2, and with no hype, no marketing and no time to prepare, a visibly depleted Volkanovski got dropped by a headkick in the first round. Having now abruptly vanquished his rival, Islam Makhachev is...calling out the winner of the Leon Edwards vs Colby Covington welterweight title bout. God dammit. Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Ilia Topuria - 15-0, 0 DefensesThe king is dead, long live the king. Everyone paying attention knew Ilia Topuria was a special sort of prospect all the way back in 2020, but it wasn't until he destroyed Ryan Hall that the rest of the world noticed. A man who is equal parts German, Georgian and Spanish, Topuria established himself immediately as a force to be reckoned with: An undefeated wrecking machine with a strong wrestling game, a thoroughly solid grappling game, and the combination of terrifying knockout power and the sheer confidence to use it that can only come from having never lost a fight. Which was tested, thoroughly, when Topuria went up to Lightweight on short notice, fought a man in Jai Herbert who was half a foot taller than him, nearly got knocked out twice, and proceeded to recover, regroup, and fold Herbert in half with a punch in the second round. Suddenly, his prospect status was proven. Not only was he good, he was capable of dealing with adversity. Within the year he'd become the first (non-exhibition) fighter to ever beat Bryce Mitchell after ragdolling him and choking him out, and by the end of 2023 he'd dominated Josh Emmett, proving both his place at the top of the Featherweight contendership ladder and his ability to go five full rounds without falling over. His ascension couldn't have come at a better time. Alexander Volkanovski, one of the greatest champions in UFC history, was finally beginning to show signs of wear--somewhat unfairly, as those signs came from an incredibly inadvisable last-minute fill-in 155-pound fight against Islam Makhachev--but getting knocked out is getting knocked out, and when you've only been beaten once in a decade, getting knocked out in one round makes people ask difficult questions about your age, longevity, and durability. When Volk and Ilia met at UFC 298 on February 17, almost every question people had was, in fact, answered. Can Volk outwork Topuria? Absolutely; he won the first round handily and was dancing around him. Can Ilia keep himself in check? Completely; knowing just how good Volk was, Ilia was uncharacteristically patient and measured and didn't get himself in any real trouble in the first round while he figured out what he wanted to do. Can Alexander Volkanovski stand up to Ilia Topuria's punching power? Buddy: No one can. Three and a half minutes into the second round Topuria successfully trapped Volkanovski against the cage with his footwork, and one combination later, Volkanovski was on the floor. Ilia Topuria's destiny has come. He's the Featherweight champion. And he has, of course, already sworn to try to become a double champion within his next two fights. Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Sean O'Malley - 17-1 (1), 0 DefensesThe house always wins. I have spent years being mad about Sean O'Malley. Very few people get the red carpet rolled out for them without having some other previous success to draw on, but Dana White seemingly hand-selected Sean O'Malley as The Guy back in 2017 when he won a contract on the second-ever episode of the Contender Series, and from the second he first stepped into the octagon, he was treated like a Big loving Deal. His matchmaking was favorable, his marketing was endless, and even when he hosed up--getting his leg broken against Andre Soukhamthath, pissing hot for ostarine and missing a year, getting knocked out by Marlon Vera--the UFC was there to pick him up and keep pushing him up the ladder. He went from fighting regional fighters and flyweights to a top ten matchup, and when that match ended with him poking out Pedro Munhoz's eye, he was catapulted into a title eliminator against the #1-ranked Petr Yan, and when he got one of the year's worst decisions against Yan, he was allowed to sit on his hands for almost a year to wait for a title shot against a champion who was given three months and no injury recovery time to prepare. Is it fair for me to dislike Sean O'Malley for decisions the UFC made? Absolutely not, and I don't blame him for them whatsoever. Fortunately for me, Sean O'Malley also has a great love of making public hot takes like "here's my power ranking of my female coworkers by how fuckable I think they are" and "publicly avowed rapist Andrew Tate is a great guy I want to co-promote and advertise with" and "convicted child molester Tekashi69 is my homeboy" and "I have an open relationship with my wife where I get to bang other people but she doesn't because I'm the man" that make me feel deeply, thoroughly at peace with disliking him for other reasons. But none of that means he isn't a hell of a fighter or he didn't absolutely loving flatten Aljamain Sterling with a picture-perfect counterpunch in their title fight. Did he deserve the shot? Not even a little. Did he prove he belongs at the top? Undeniably. However much of a shithead he may be, he's the champion of the goddamn world. Just in case his status as a marketing favorite had not been made abundantly clear, the UFC announced he will have his first title defense not in a rematch with Sterling, or a meeting with top contender Merab Dvalishvili, or even a bout with the streaking Cory Sandhagen, but--of course--a rematch with Marlon "Chito" Vera, the #6 contender on a one-fight win streak who knocked O'Malley out back in 2020. Neat. They'll fight at UFC 299 on March 9th. Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Alexandre Pantoja - 27-5, 1 DefenseSometimes, you just have someone's number. Brandon Moreno spent years fighting through a quadrilogy with Deiveson Figueiredo, and unfortunately for him, he had another trilogy waiting for him the second it was over. Alexandre "The Cannibal" Pantoja was Moreno's personal bogeyman, a man who'd fought and beaten him twice. But one of those fights was an exhibition on The Ultimate Fighter, and the other was against a Moreno with five less years of evolution and growth. Surely, a third fight in 2023 would be different. And it was--unlike the previous, one-sided dominations it was a fight-of-the-year candidate that took both men to their limit and led to a split decision--but its ending was not. Alexander Pantoja scored a third victory over Moreno, and with it, after sixteen years of competition, he finally became the clear, unequivocal best in the god damned world. Which was made even more poignant when he used his post-fight interview to ask if his absentee father was proud of him--and was made even more irritating when he also revealed that despite having eleven fights in the UFC at the time, he was paid so little that he'd been part-timing as a Doordash driver just to make ends meet right up up until 2022. The idea that one of the absolute best fighters on the planet, after years and nearly a dozen fights in the world's biggest, most profitable fighting organization, would need to take on a gig-economy job to make money is outright offensive, and in a better world, it would have launched a furor. In this one, all we can do is be happy he's got the belt and will, hopefully, make some actual loving money. His first title defense came against Brandon "Raw Dawg" Royval as the co-main event to UFC 296 on December 16th, and it was a wild affair with a couple scary moments, but Pantoja emerged victorious and notched the first successful defense of the title in three years. His next contender is, in all likelihood, the winner of the Brandon Moreno/Amir Albazi fight this February--or it would have been, until Albazi got injured. The UFC promoted a Moreno/Royval 2 showdown in hopes of scoring a Moreno rematch, but Royval won, meaning they now either have to do an instant Pantoja/Royval rematch or figure out who on Earth else deserves a shot. Women's Bantamweight, 135 lbs  Raquel Pennington - 16-8, 0 DefensesThe throne is once again full. Amanda Nunes left a gaping void in the world of women's mixed martial arts when she retired last Summer, and it took the UFC seven months to do something about it. The Women's Featherweight title? That's just gone, man. The patient could not be resuscitated. There's still life in Women's Bantamweight, though, and with Nunes gone and Julianna Peńa injured, there was only one sensible match to make. Raquel Pennington should have gotten her title shot more than a year ago. "Rocky" is one of the UFC's longest-tenured women, at this point--her debut came more than a decade ago as a runner-up on The Ultimate Fighter 18 (jesus christ)--and the millstone weighing down her championship aspirations was the fact that more than five years ago she had a title fight, and it saw Amanda Nunes just beat her to a pulp. Despite being on the division's longest winning streak at the start of 2023, this loss was commonly cited as reason enough to deny Pennington the shot, and given that she's a generally affable, no-nonsense fighter with a grinding wrestling style, she is, categorically, the UFC's least favorite kind of person, which meant getting passed up over and over and having to settle for serving as a backup challenger for Irene Aldana--whom Pennington had already beaten. But with the top prospects out and Aldana having just gotten beaten even worse by Nunes than Raquel had, there was nowhere left for the company to hide. Mayra Bueno Silva had established herself as one of the division's most dangerous fighters after tearing apart Lina Länsberg's knee and nearly popping Holly Holm's skull out of her head with a ninja choke, and there were quite a few hoping she'd stop Pennington in her tracks when the two met at UFC 297 on January 20, but they were gratifyingly incorrect. Pennington outwrestled Silva, escaped her submission attempts, outstruck her 265 to 96, and finally, on a night where the UFC loudly celebrated bigotry, sexism and homophobia, took the belt home to her wife. Raquel's the first post-Nunes champion, and godspeed to her. The UFC is almost certainly waiting to see if either Peńa gets healthy or the newly-signed Kayla Harrison beats Holly Holm to figure out what's next for Raquel. Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs   Alexa Grasso - 16-3-1, 1 Defense, Sort OfEvery once in awhile someone gets to shock the combat sports world, and in 2023, it's Alexa Grasso. The UFC has been high on Grasso since she left Invicta for her company debut back in 2016--she's been one of the most consistently featured fighters in ANY women's division, be it her time at strawweight or her move up to flyweight--but her two bids at the top of the mountain at 115 pounds met with disaster, once in Tatiana Suarez handing her the only stoppage loss of her career and once in Carla Esparza outwrestling her to a decision, and watching her manhandled by 115-pound fighters left the world doubting her 125-pound chances. But thanks to her solid boxing and her ever-improving ground game she ran up a four-fight winning streak, and when the UFC announced that she'd be taking on divisional queen and one of the greatest of all time in Valentina Shevchenko, the collective fan reaction was a unanimous "sure, okay," because Valentina disposing of people was a generally accepted phenomenon and she needed a warm body. The first round was a slight surprise, with Grasso stinging Shevchenko on the feet, but as so often happens, by the fourth round Valentina had taken over the fight, was ahead on every judge's scorecard and looked poised to cruise to her eighth title defense. And then, she was struck down by the bane of the sport: Spinning poo poo. Backed into the fence, Shevchenko did what she does entirely too often--a spinning back kick--and in the half-second she was turned away Grasso leapt to her back, dragged her to the floor, and became the first person to ever submit Valentina Shevchenko. Alexa Grasso, after years of work, is the Women's Flyweight Champion of the World. A rematch was inevitable, and it came at UFC Noche on September 16th, and, like everything does, it ended in controversy. After an incredibly close fight that the media had split almost cleanly down the middle, the judges ruled the contest a split draw. Which wouldn't be crazy--were it not for said draw hinging on Mike Bell, who is typically one of MMA's most reliable judges, giving Grasso a completely, utterly inexplicable and inexcusable 10-8 score in the final round, without which Valentina Shevchenko would have won a split decision. So Grasso did not win, in the end, but she did defend her title, technically. But unless Valentina turns out to need an extended break for hand surgery, we're going right back to the rematch well. Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs   Zhang Weili - 24-3, 1 DefensesAre you really surprised? There's a long tradition of underestimating unlikely champions in mixed martial arts, particularly when they're not the fan-friendliest in style or personality, from Michael Bisping to Frankie Edgar, only to have those demeaned champions remind the world that they didn't reach the peak of their divisions by mistake. Many of the wise, studied scribes of the sport warned the foolish masses against assuming the same about Women's Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza: She was no pushover, they said, and Zhang will have real trouble. And then, come fight day, we unwashed masses pulled them from their ivory towers and forced them to run in the streets amongst the mud and filth so they, too, could feel the unburdened joy of being, because Zhang Weili, as basically every fan had assumed, did, in fact, beat the absolute tar out of Carla. It wasn't particularly close: Carla got outlanded 37-6, hurt several times on the feet, and choked out just a minute into the second round. The inexplicable, season-long Cookie Monster subplot is over, Zhang Weili is now a two-time world champion, and things are back as they should be. What comes next, however, is tricky. Carla was blown out, so a rematch is out of the question. Rose Namajunas, the only person in the UFC to beat Weili, is a likely candidate--but after her disastrous performance against Carla, it remains to be seen how much faith the UFC has in her. Jéssica Andrade has a claim, but she's splitting time between 115 and 125, and probably needs to pick a weight class if she wants a shot. So the UFC solved the problem by picking Amanda Lemos. In a surprise to no one, Zhang absolutely dominated Lemos, outstriking her 296-29, smashing her to the tune of multiple 10-8 rounds, and winning a very, very wide decision. The next step is a China vs China championship showdown against Yan Xiaonan at UFC 300.
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Mar 1, 2024 19:01
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NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Anatoly Malykhin - 13-0, 0 DefensesONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs  Anatoly Malykhin - 13-0, 0 DefensesAnatoly Malykhin's bizarre two-year journey through ONE Championship has finally come to a place of rest. Ascension in the heavyweight division has never been the longest road in the world, but in ONE, where they don't actually bother with divisional rankings past lightweight and there have somehow only been five undisputed heavyweight championship bouts in eight years, the road is very short and easily traversed through violent punchings. Thus, when Anatoly Malykhin arrived in 2023 and punched two men out in five minutes, that was more than sufficient. But the standing champion, Arjan Bhullar, just couldn't make it to the cage. They were supposed to fight in February of 2022, but Bhullar was hurt, so Malykhin got an interim title by destroying Kirill Grishenko. They were supposed to unify the belts in September, but Arjan was hurt, so they pushed it to December--and then Arjan played contractual hardball, so in a truly baffling reversal, ONE had Malykhin drop to 225 pounds and destroy double-champ Reinier de Ridder instead. The heavyweight unification got rebooked for March of 2023--and then Bhullar pulled out again. It wasn't until June 23rd, with their bout unceremoniously placed smack-dab in the middle of a Friday Fights Muay Thai card, that the match two years in the making finally happened. And it was...massively underwhelming, with Bhullar seeming alternately frozen and as though he wanted to be absolutely anywhere else in the world. Malykhin used him as a punching bag for two and a half rounds, with Bhullar at one point penalized for trying to escape the ring, and Malykhin put a stamp on it with a TKO in the third round. Finally--mercifully--the heavyweight championship is unified. And now, rather than defending either, he's going to fight de Ridder for his 205-pound belt in March. Jesus wept. ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs   Reinier de Ridder - 16-1, 2 DefensesThere's a long tradition of B-league hype in mixed martial arts. The hardcore fanbase chafes under both the total ubiquity of the UFC as a product and the way they set themselves up as the end-all be-all of the sport. As the B-leagues create dominant champions of their own, the fanbase inevitably rallies behind them as equal to, if not greater than, the UFC's equivalent titleholder, and further, as evidence of other companies having even better talent. And once or twice a generation, they're right! But most of the time, they're not. Fighters who destroy their B-league equivalents will commonly take a step outside their comfort zone and get immediately rolled by reality. Reinier de Ridder, more than any other competitor, was the popular argument for ONE's supremacy over the UFC: An undefeated ultra-grappler with belts at two divisions, one of which happened to be the UFC's permanently embattled light-heavyweight class. The remarkable ease with which he ragdolled and submitted his opponents, and the shaky nature of his UFC peers, led to wide exultation of his skills and regular comments from ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong about his prospects against the best the world had to offer. It was consequently something of a bummer when he fought Anatoly Malykhin, the first opponent in years he didn't have a strength or grappling advantage over, and looked immediately lost when his takedown attempts did nothing. He had no visible striking defense to speak of and was ultimately, and distressingly easily, destroyed. And now he's going to do it again! On March 1, de Ridder will defend his belt against Anatoly Malykhin. Again. ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs   Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 DefensesONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs  Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 DefensesIt took three tries, but by god, Chatri gets what Chatri wants. Christian Lee, the male half of the first family of ONE Championship and its homegrown golden boy, was very mad about losing his lightweight championship in a controversial decision to Ok Rae Yoon last year. He demanded the decision be reviewed and overturned and his championship reinstated. Unsurprisingly: This did not happen. After months of complaining and just shy of a year of waiting, the two had their long-awaited rematch and Lee left nothing to chance, knocking Yoon out in six minutes to reclaim his belt. Having finally retrieved his title, Lee, being a responsible champion, proceeded to immediately challenge ONE'S 185-pound champion, Kiamrian Abbasov, for his title, a move that was definitely in no way influenced by ONE's repeated attempts to get his sister Angela Lee double-champion status. Fortunately for Christian, Abbasov horribly botched his weight cut: He came in overweight, lost his title on the scale, and was visibly depleted in the fight. Which is particularly lucky, because Abbasov beat Lee senseless in the first round to the point that a standing TKO would not have been an unreasonable stoppage. But whether from his failed weight cut or simply from punching himself out, Abbasov was exhausted by the second round, and Lee mounted a gutsy comeback and ultimately stopped him with ground-and-pound in the fourth round. After three attempts, ONE has succeeded in getting two belts on a Lee. Unfortunately, it was followed by tragedy. After the passing of his younger sister Victoria, Christian took the whole of the year to, understandably, grieve. ONE planned his comeback for February of 2024, but, y'know, that clearly did not happen. 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. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare. And then Tang Kai busted his knee and announced he was out with no definite return date. They'll try again in March. ONE Interim Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs  Thanh Le - 14-3, 0 DefensesWell, we're right back here again. Thanh Le was considered a potential breakout star for ONE during their own breakout in 2020: A genuinely skilled, hard-punching, well-rounded, charismatic, American star who only won by stoppage and almost never lost. Moreover, he was a black eye for the UFC, as they had him not once, but twice--first on The Ultimate Fighter 22 (jesus christ), where he lost in the semifinals, and second on the Contender Series in 2017, where he scored a vicious headkick knockout. But they only offered him short-notice replacement debuts, and when ONE came calling, they simply let him go. Within a year, Thanh Le was 4-0 and had knocked out Martin Nguyen to become the new featherweight champion. And then, as ONE does, they fumbled the ball. Thanh twiddled his thumbs for a year and a half for a fight with the 6-0 Garry Tonon, whom he dispatched in less than a minute. Five months later, he lost his title to Tang Kai. He waited an entire year for a rematch--and when Kai got hurt, he took an interim title fight with Ilya Freymanov on October 6, 2023, and tapped him out in 1:02. We're trying Kai/Le 2, again, in March. ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs  Fabricio Andrade - 9-2 (1), 0 DefensesThe second time was the charm. When Fabricio "Wonder Boy" Andrade joined ONE Championship back in 2020 he was a virtual unknown in the mixed martial arts world, a 20-3 kickboxer but only a 3-2 mixed martial artist who'd been fighting out in the regional circuit of China. His association with Tiger Muay Thai put him on ONE's radar, and his visible striking skills despite being just 21 at the time made him interesting enough for a developmental contract. Said contract proceeded to develop into Andrade going on a five-fight winning streak that only got more dominant as he met tougher competition, and three straight first-round knockouts punched his ticket to the championship picture. His first appearance in the spotlight, unfortunately, went a touch awry. First, bantamweight champion John Lineker lost his title on the scale after missing weight, meaning only Andrade was eligible to become champion, and he was well on his way to doing so before hitting Lineker with an errant strike to the groin so hard it shattered his cup, and with the fight not yet halfway complete, it had to be rendered a No Contest. It took four months to get to the rematch, and it was much more closely contested, but after four rounds Lineker threw in the towel, his face having been punched too swollen to continue. Fabricio Andrade is 25 and a world goddamn champion. He promptly skipped away from MMA completely and faced Jonathan Haggerty for ONE's Featherweight Kickboxing Championship on November 3rd, where he was immediately destroyed. Haggerty wants an MMA fight next. 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. The trilogy match was inevitable, and on May 5th, Johnson beat Moraes by a comprehensive decision, ending the story--and maybe his career. He says he's not sure if he's coming back yet. Fingers crossed. ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs  Jarred Brooks - 20-2 (1), 0 DefensesJarred Brooks dealt with some crap on his way to a title. By 2017 he was one of the most-heralded flyweight prospects in the sport: An undefeated 13-0 multi-champion as an amateur, an undefeated 12-0 as a professional with fights across three separate weight classes, his heavy wrestling-and-grappling grinding style ground most of his opponents to dust. He took the moniker of "The Monkey God" thanks to his unorthodox striking and wrestling entries--when you're not afraid of grappling, you can get creative with the striking. And then he hit the UFC in 2017 and everything kind of went to hell. Three of his four UFC bouts went to split decision: A debut victory against Eric Shelton Brooks probably should've lost, a followup loss against future champion Deiveson Figueiredo Brooks probably should've won, an intervening bout where Brooks was easily dominating Jose Torres only to score the rare MMA own goal and knock himself out after smacking his head on the ground doing a big, showy slam, and a third and final split decision victory over Roberto Sanchez that really, really shouldn't have been split at all. And then the UFC cut him, despite being 2 and 2 and having gone the distance with the biggest new prospect in the division, because the UFC Doesn't Like Flyweights. So Brooks went over to Rizin, where he intended to build his way up as the next big foreign threat to top star Kyoji Horiguchi--and it was over in eleven seconds, after an inadvertent headbutt cut his opponent's eyebrow open and the blood-unfriendly Japanese network called a no-contest. His international comeback was further destroyed by COVID, and Brooks found himself iced for two straight years as he waited for the dust to settle. By November of 2021, he was making his long-delayed ONE debut; by June of 2022, he was 3-0 and the top contender. And then, of course, his title fight got delayed another six months thanks to an injury. On December 3rd, 2022, he finally got his long-belated shot at a major title, and shocking no one, he wrestled the poo poo out of Joshua Pacio for five straight rounds. Four years later than expected, Jarred Brooks has international gold. And because this is ONE and nothing matters, he called out 23-pound champ Mighty Mouse, unsuccessfully had a grappling match with Mikey Musumeci, and will now rematch Pacio in March. 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. An entire 364 days later, she had her next fight: A special rules match, with MMA gloves but only punches and no takedowns or clinching allowed, against Muay Thai champion Nat "Wondergirl" Jaroonsak. Xiong knocked her out in the third round. What are we loving doing here? ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs   Stamp Fairtex - 10-2, 0 DefensesIt was slightly awkward when Seo Hee Ham and Stamp Fairtex were booked to meet at ONE Fight Night 14 in an interim atomweight title match, given the longstanding rumors of Angela Lee's retirement, and boy, it didn't get any less weird when ONE, which clearly knew what was going on, had Angela Lee announce that retirement just minutes before said match, which was promptly changed to an undisputed championship bout. But that's just part of how ONE rolls, as is their blatant attempts at favoritism, and boy, Stamp Fairtex is their most successful case study thus far. ONE signed her back in 2017 as a Muay Thai stadium champion, and within one fight in ONE she was their Atomweight Kickboxing Champion, and within two fights she was their Atomweight Muay Thai champion. Is this a statement about how quickly they push people they want or how thin their divisions can be? The answer, as always, is Yes. But none of that stopped Stamp from being really loving good at fighting, and as she transitioned to mixed martial arts she ran up a great record--with the sole exception of a two-fight series with Alyona Rassohyna, where she tapped out in the first and attempted to deny it, then won a real close split decision in an immediate rematch. ONE did not feel the need to book a rubber match, for some odd reason. Stamp won the 2021 Atomweight Grand Prix, got her shot at Angela Lee, and got choked out for her troubles, but a year and two wins later, she was good to go for another championship showdown. It wasn't easy--Seo Hee Ham dropped Stamp in the second round and, for some mysterious reason, when recapping the round, ONE chose to highlight Stamp's offense and not show it--but she stopped Ham with body shots in the third round, and in doing so became not just the undisputed champion, but the first person to ever actually knock Ham out in a fight. (Before you say it: No, Ayaka Hamasaki doesn't count, that was a corner stoppage.) ONE has their new star, and she's a hell of a striker. The question is: Will they actually book more MMA fights for her?  Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs  Roberto de Souza - 15-3, 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. It was thus of particular interest when the main event for the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin card was announced as Roberto de Souza vs AJ McKee--a test of where Souza ranks with the rest of the world's competition. Unfortunately for him and Rizin, the answer was "under them." He positionally threatened McKee and was able to land some solid strikes in the final round, but was otherwise controlled and lost a decision. On May 6th, Satoshi beat Spike Carlyle in a fantastic fight--but it was a non-title fight, because Japanese promoters are still real scared of their own belts. Satoshi fought Patricky Pitbull at Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 29th--in another non-title fight, naturally--and took the first definitive beating of his career, getting utterly outclassed and ultimately stopped on leg kicks in three rounds. He'll make his comeback against Keita Nakamura at Rizin Landmark 9, but it is, of course, a non-title fight. Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Chihiro Suzuki - 12-3 (1), 0 DefensesChihiro Suzuki has had a very fortunate year. Suzuki rose to Rizin's notice not through MMA, but after winning Japan's KNOCK OUT Super Lightweight Kickboxing championship. He made his Rizin debut six months later--and got knocked out in twenty seconds. He spent the next two and a half years simultaneously rounding out his MMA game and annually defending his kickboxing gold, and by 2023, he was one of Rizin's top Featherweight contenders, more than ready for his shot at Kleber Koike Erbst's Rizin championship. And--he got armbarred in three minutes. However, hilariously enough, Erbst lost his belt on the scale after missing weight, meaning the title was vacant and the fight, by Rizin rules, was a No Contest, so Suzuki didn't even technically lose. He then proceeded to get the biggest break of his career. At Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 30th, 2023, despite having just lost a five-round fight to Sergio Pettis a month prior, Patrício Pitbull was thrown onto the card against Suzuki on four days' notice--and Suzuki not only beat him, he became the first person to ever knock out Bellator's GOAT. Rizin immediately booked Suzuki in against new champion Vugar Keramov for their debut in Keramov's home country of Azerbaijan, and Keramov looked poised and powerful and was in the process of ragdolling Suzuki like he does everyone else--and Suzuki caught him with an upkick on the jaw and punched him the rest of the way out from his goddamn back. Chihiro Suzuki, you are Rizin's new star. Hold onto it as long as you can and pray they don't book a Kleber rematch. Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Kai Asakura - 21-4, 0 DefensesRizin's Bantamweight title is snakebitten as hell, and, somehow, so is Kai Asakura. Kyoji Horiguchi was the first man to win it back in 2018, and a year later he gave it up, having been too injured to compete--in part thanks to fighting while injured and being defeated by, in fact, Kai Asakura, but only in a non-title fight. Asakura was a lock and a favorite to win the vacant belt that December--so he got immediately knocked out by Manel Kape. Manel Kape left Rizin for the UFC, leaving the belt once again vacant, and Kai won it after knocking out Hiromasa Ougikubo, meaning Kai was not only the champion, but he also got his rematch with Kyoji Horiguchi--only this time, Kai was defending his belt, and could finally show Horiguchi it wasn't a fluke! And then Horiguchi knocked him out in three minutes, and then the belt went into torpor for two whole years, after which Horiguchi gave it up to go be a Flyweight instead. Luckily, Rizin knew this was coming, so they booked a Bantamweight Grand Prix to crown a successor, with the explicit intention of crowning Kai Asakura. And he made it to the finals! Where he got revenge-stomped by Hiromasa Ougikubo, who then went on to lose badly to former Bellator champion Juan Archuleta, who became Rizin's first American titleholder. Archuleta was oddly at home in the pomp and circumstance of JMMA, and he promised big things for his future, and then he came into his New Year's Eve match sick, missed weight by six pounds, lost his belt on the scale, and thanks to Rizin's rules, was left with a fight where not only was he ineligible to win the title, he was ineligible to win the fight. And as sick as he was, he probably shouldn't have fought anyway! But he did, and Asakura dropped him in two rounds. Thus, for the second time, Kai Asakura is the best Bantamweight in Japan. I beg him not to walk under any dangling pianos. Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Kyoji Horiguchi - 32-5 (1), 0 DefensesWell, this was a long time coming. Before Rizin even existed, Kyoji Horiguchi was the consensus #2 Flyweight fighter on the planet. He'd won Shooto's 125-pound title, he'd come to America half to face the best in the world and half because Japan's MMA scene was in a real, real bad place at the time, and by mid-2015, he was 15-1 and ready to fight for a world championship. Unfortunately, said championship was held by Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, the best Flyweight of all time. Johnson dealt Kyoji his second-ever loss and first-ever stoppage, and it stopped Horiguchi's dream of being the best, but it also opened him up to becoming a star. A year later he was out of the UFC, back home in Japan, and, immediately, one of Rizin's top attractions. But Rizin didn't have a 125-pound division--so he settled for just winning is 135-pound belt instead. When Rizin began cross-promoting with Bellator, he went and took their belt, too, just for good measure. But his strength of schedule and his own injuries caught up with him: He ultimately vacated both belts without ever recording a title defense. By the time he came back in 2021, things had changed. He'd been knocked out for the first time in Kai Asakura back in 2019, but he was fighting hurt and on short notice, so that was excused. When Sergio Pettis knocked him out in his 2021 return fight, it was a warning; when Patchy Mix dominated him in his first match in the Bellator Grand Prix of 2022, it was a sign. Horiguchi needed to be back at 125. Bellator opened a Flyweight division more or less just for him, and at Bellator x Rizin 2 in the summer of 2023, Horiguchi faced Rizin star Makoto "Shinryu" Takahashi to crown the company's inaugural champion--and the fight ended in a No Contest after Horiguchi poked Shinryu in the eye twenty-five seconds into the first round. And then Bellator got sold and stopped operating as an independent entity. Whoops! Rizin decided to just make the goddamn belt themselves, and on New Year's Eve of 2023, Horiguchi and Takahashi had their rematch, and this time, Horiguchi choked him out. Eight years after his first attempt, Kyoji Horiguchi has a Flyweight world championship. Now, let's see Rizin give him some competition. Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs  Seika Izawa - 12-0, 1 DefenseAll 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. Rizin's Superatomweight Grand Prix was both a big coming-out party for Izawa and a series of opportunities to look shockingly mortal: She had a fair bit of trouble with Anastasiya Svetkivska in the semifinals before ultimately submitting her, but her berth in the finals against former rival Si Woo Park proved the toughest fight of her career, ending in a split decision victory she easily could have lost. Seika was supposed to face Miyuu Yamamoto at Rizin 42, but after Yamamoto had to pull out with an injury, Izawa was instead scheduled to face...the last person Yamamoto beat, the 5-3 Suwanan Boonsorn, at DEEP Jewels 41 on July 28. Izawa choked her out, shockingly. It took more than an entire year, but Izawa finally had a title defense against the 8-4 grappler Claire Lopez, and Izawa scored the fastest championship victory in Rizin history, choking her out in just barely one minute. Seika scored one more win on New Year's Eve, choking out Miyuu Yamamoto in her retirement bout, and while it was an honor, it does sort of emphasize the problem with Seika's position. She's unquestionably the best Atomweight in the world, but the last real top fighter she faced was more than a year ago. Will Rizin bring her real competition, or are they trying to simply build a star? And what IS real competition at Atomweight? She'll be taking on Si Yoon Park at DEEP JEWELS 44 on March 24, but, of course, that is not Rizin, so its title isn't on the line.
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Mar 1, 2024 19:01
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THE BELLATOR CHAMPIONSHIP GRAVEYARD Bellator Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs  Ryan Bader - 31-8 (1), 3 DefensesRyan Bader is the greatest Bellator Heavyweight Champion of all time, and on a dairy farm somewhere in Wisconsin, Cole Konrad feels a pang of regret. Bader made his name as the winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Nogueira vs Mir all the way back in 2008, but his UFC career proved to be one of Sisyphean torment and humiliation that included, somehow, impossibly, being the only man to lose a UFC fight to Tito Ortiz during his last six years in the company. Bader left for free agency and Bellator in 2016 and became its light-heavyweight champion on his first night with the organization, and just two years later he became its first-ever simultaneous double-champion after knocking out the legendary Fedor Emelianenko and taking the heavyweight title. Bader would go on to lose his 205-pound crown, but Fedor never forgot his 35-second drubbing at the American wrestler's hands, and for his retirement fight, he demanded a rematch. Thus it was that the entire mixed martial arts community watched with bated breath as on February 4th, 2023, Fedor Emelianenko walked into the cage one last time and promptly got the absolute crap beaten out of him again. Ryan Bader remains undefeated at heavyweight. He was to defend his title against Linton Vassell at Bellator's series finale-sounding Bellator 300, but Vassell got injured and, as Bader himself put it in a reddit post, Viacom is done with Bellator and didn't want to pay for a replacement. Ryan Bader is the best heavyweight champion outside of the UFC, and it's anyone's guess if he'll still be champion of anything by January. He also, unfortunately, got his poo poo completely wrecked by Renan Ferreira in thirty seconds, making him the one and only Bellator fighter to lose at PFL vs Bellator. Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   VACANT - The falling curtain on the empty stageLet the records show Light-Heavyweight was the first to fall, and in hindsight, who else could it have ever possibly been. After recording his fourth successful title defense against Yoel Romero in June of 2023, reigning champion Vadim Nemkov talked about the possibility of departing the division and moving up to Heavyweight to ruin Ryan Bader's life all over again, but didn't commit to the change, whether because he was waiting for a potential challenger or he knew at that point that Bellator's days were numbered anyway. Bellator got bought out by the Professional Fighters League at the end of the year and the PFL's first act was to vow a PFL Champions vs Bellator Champions card, and it was through this announcement that Nemkov's move was finally made official. He's left the division, he's moving up to 265, and he's facing 2021 PFL Champion Bruno Cappelozza on February 24. This means, at last, the 205-pound belt is vacant, but it won't be for long. The first nu-Bellator event is currently scheduled for March 22 in Belfast, and Corey Anderson, the top contender, will be facing Karl Moore to fill the void. Bellator Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs  Johnny Eblen - 15-0, 2 DefensesThere's an old combat sports tradition whereby a champion isn't really a champion until they defend their title. Gegard Mousasi has been established as the best middleweight outside the UFC that, despite the one-sided nature of their fight, Johnny Eblen's victory over him was treated as an aberration rather than the passing of a torch. It didn't matter that Eblen was undefeated, widely considered one of the absolute best by his cohort at American Top Team or that he'd dropped Mousasi on his face with his bare hands, the world needed verification. On February 4th at Bellator 290, they got it. Fedor Emelianenko's team was intending to pull one big, beautiful night of success out of the ether for their leader's retirement fight, but it was not to be: Vadim Nemkov had to pull out of the card thanks to an injury, Fedor himself was crushed for the second time by heavyweight champion Ryan Bader, and middleweight hopeful Anatoly Tokov was competitive for the first couple of rounds but was subsequently washed out by Eblen's overwhelming assault. Johnny Eblen is a defending champion now, and as things always seem to go, the conversation changed overnight from his being overrated to his being better than everyone in the UFC. This mindset only grew again after Bellator 299 on September 23rd, as Eblen faced Fabian Edwards, knocked him out in the third round, and nearly got into a post-fight brawl with his brother, UFC champion Leon Edwards. Eblen admits he has no idea what his future is or if Bellator will still be around, but he's considering a move to light-heavyweight with Vadim Nemkov leaving the division wide open. Eblen had a scare against Impa Kasanganay but ultimately won his PFL vs Bellator bout. Bellator Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs   Jason Jackson - 18-4, 0 DefensesGetting in right before the buzzer is one of the best times to get in. Jason Jackson does not win any points for having "The rear end-Kicking Machine" for a nickname, but his successes speak for themselves. Jackson actually had two run-ins with the UFC early in his career--since he got his start training with the short-lived Blackzilians team, he was part of The Ultimate Fighter 21 (jesus christ): American Top Team vs Blackzilians, where he was choked out in the second round. He didn't get invited to the UFC, but two years later he was on the third episode of the Contender Series, which saw him spend the first round mostly cage-clinching before breaking his ankle out of nowhere twenty seconds into the second round. He was in Bellator a couple years later losing a decision to Ed Ruth, and that was about the point the world decided to ignore him. As it turns out: A mistake. His path through Bellator was slow--to the point that he's only had one fight a year for the last three years--but by this year he was on a six-fight winning streak and a sensible opponent for Yaroslav Amosov. Very few people gave him a chance, but having not knocked anyone out since mid-2018, absolutely no one expected him to knock Amosov, the best Welterweight outside of the UFC, the gently caress out in the third round. Jason Jackson is, officially, the Bellator Welterweight Champion. He defended Bellator's honor by kicking Ray Cooper III's leg in half at PFL vs Bellator. Bellator Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs   Usman Nurmagomedov - 17-0 (1), 2 DefensesIf there's a single, developing throughline of mixed martial arts in 2022, it's the growing power of the Dagestani wrestling brigade. Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov built an army of ultra-grapplers, and after his passing the American Kickboxing Academy's Javier Mendez and Adulmanap's son and protege, the now-retired Khabib Nurmagomedov, unleashed them on the world. Usman, Khabib's cousin (as well as the younger brother of Umar Nurmagomedov, undefeated and ranked UFC bantamweight), took to Bellator in April of 2021 and proceeded to burn an undefeated path through the Manny Muros and Patrik Pietiläe of the world. His style was a little more eclectic--lots of spinning kicks, lots of stick-and-move jabs and stomps to the leg--but the resemblance became uncanny once he inevitably, and easily, ragdolled his opponents to the canvas and generally choked them out in short order thereafter. When he was announced as the #1 contender to Bellator's lightweight title, I was somewhat miffed: He hadn't beaten any top contenders, Bellator had already held a title eliminator and it was won in a crushing thirty-second knockout by Tofiq Musayev, the whole thing smacked of a pathetic attempt to glom onto some of Khabib's mainstream attention. I at no point said that he wouldn't very, very easily win. At Bellator 288 on November 18th, Usman very, very easily won, defeating Patricky "Pitbull" Freire at every aspect of the game and leaving him sans both his championship and one eyebrow. Usman's first fight as champion was both a defense and an entry into the first round of Bellator's Lightweight Grand Prix on March 3rd at Bellator 292, where he met, crushed, and retired former UFC champion Benson Henderson, handing him just the third submission loss of a 17-year, 42-fight career. He faced fellow tournament semifinalist Brent Primus at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was as one-sided and yet uneventful as you can imagine. Until Usman failed his drug test. Bellator says it was for medication rather than PEDs and thus he won't be stripped, but the fight's a No Contest and they need a rematch, which seems awfully selective. Bellator Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Patrício Pitbull - 35-7, 1 DefensePatrício Pitbull had a weird goddamn 2023. 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 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. Pitbull's next fight was the rare cross-promotional bout, facing Rizin's featherweight champion Kleber Koike Erbst on the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin special. It was the only fight on the card that wasn't particularly competitive: He shut Kleber down completely and won a wide decision. There is only one featherweight king outside the UFC. And he's now on a two-fight losing streak, with one of those fights being a bantamweight loss to Sergio Pettis and the other a lightweight knockout to Chihiro Suzuki that he took on four days' notice. Bellator: Please stop killing Pitbull. Bellator Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Patchy Mix - 19-1, 0 DefensesIt took a long goddamn time, but Patchy Mix is finally getting the credit he deserves. Fans had already singled out Patchy as a uniquely talented fighter by 2019, when he signed to Bellator as the 10-0 King of the Cage Bantamweight Champion who'd submitted almost everyone he faced, but it wasn't really until he choked out Yuki Motoya at Bellator's first co-promotion with Rizin that people really paid attention. Which was unfortunate, because his next fight was a shot at Juan Archuleta for the vacant Bellator Bantamweight Championship and Archuleta schooled him on their feet, ending both Mix's title hopes and his undefeated streak. It didn't help matters when, two fights later, he blew his weight cut for a big Dublin match against James Gallagher. But Mix kept winning, and when he entered the Bantamweight Grand Prix and promptly stormed the bracket by beating Kyoji Horiguchi and choking out Magomed Magomedov, suddenly, people paid attention again. When he fought interim champion Raufeon Stots and knocked him out cold with a knee in less than a minute and a half, people began wondering if maybe he was the real champion and Sergio Pettis, who'd been out for a year and a half and returned to a vanity fight with Patrício Pitbull, wasn't the fake. The two met at Bellator 301 on November 17th, and Mix left no doubt: He outwrestled Pettis and choked him out in the second round. Patchy Mix is, finally, the undisputed Bellator Bantamweight Champion. It remains to be seen if his division continues to exist. Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Cris Cyborg - 27-2 (1), 5 DefensesYup. It's 2024 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. 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 who had been knocked out just one month prior. Undeterred, she had her second boxing match on the undercard of December 10th’s Crawford/Avanesyan card, taking a unanimous decision over Gabrielle “Gabanator” Holloway, who is 6-6 in MMA and 0-3 in boxing. After a year and a half of inactivity, Cris Cyborg returned to MMA to defend her title against Cat Zingano at Bellator 300 on October 7th. It lasted four minutes. She'd like to go back to boxing now, if you don't mind. Bellator Women's Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Liz Carmouche - 20-7, 3 DefensesIt took more than a decade and some controversy, but Liz Carmouche got her flowers. "Girl-Rilla" was just as present a figure in establishing women's MMA in the mainstream, but she's the most consistently forgotten because she was the losing fighter in all of those establishing moments. She was a challenger for the early, pre-fame Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship, and was winning on the scorecards before Marloes Coenen choked her out. She was a central part of the inaugural Invicta FC card, and was planned as a title contender before the big show came calling. She became one half of the first women's fight in UFC history, and at one point had Ronda Rousey in a nearly destiny-defying neck crank, but was ultimately submitted in the first round. She's one of two women to ever defeat Valentina Shevchenko, but when given a second chance at the now-UFC champion Shevchenko, she fell short. Despite her powerful wrestling and submission skills, she was eternally denied the top of the mountain. So it was both particularly appropriate and particularly cruel when she finally won a championship on April 22, 2022--in a way that displeased everybody. Standing champion Juliana Velasquez was winning on every scorecard, but Liz Carmouche got her in the crucifix position and landed a number of, respectfully, small elbows, but referee Mike Beltran called a TKO to the immediate chagrin of the entirely safe ex-champion. The controversy made a rematch all but mandatory, and it took Bellator most of the year to do it, but the two met in the cage to run it back at Bellator 289 on December 9, and this time there was no controversy, as Velasquez submitted to an armbar two rounds in. The weirdness didn't stop there: Liz's next title defense against Deanna Bennett also hit the skids, as Bennett missed weight and was thus ineligible to win the championship. Carmouche put it on the line anyway, and fortunately, she choked Bennett out in the fourth round. She defended her title against Ilima-Lei Macfarlane at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was one of those fights where friends don't really want to hurt each other--until Ilima got kicked enough that her leg collapsed in the fifth round.
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Mar 1, 2024 19:01
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Digital Jedi posted:And I beleive this makes Malykhin the first MMA fighter in a major org to hold 3 titles at the same time. Continuing this conversation from the previous thread, I've already seen a half-dozen MMA reporters breathlessly towing the marketing line about THE SPORT'S FIRST THREE-DIVISION CHAMPION and it's already driving me insane. Like, ONE's 265-pound Heavyweight division is basically a joke with at most five people in it, but at least it exists. It's a terrible division, but it exists. 225 pounds isn't real! It's not even real for ONE! There have been like four 225-pound fights in the company in the last six years and all of them were for the goddamn belt and all of them involved people who fought at other weight classes. Which is only slightly worse than ONE's 205 division, whose last three title fights were a) the 185-pound champion, b) a guy who hadn't made 205 in four years, and c) a heavyweight, who had already beaten the champion a year and a half ago. It's just such a fake loving marketing thing and I hate seeing people parrot it. I am hating. I am a hater.
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Mar 1, 2024 19:09
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CarlCX posted:It's just such a fake loving marketing thing and I hate seeing people parrot it. I am hating. I am a hater. Yeah I hate the double champ thing. Like boxing where they're proudly displaying six belts when a guy is about to fight, the other guy proudly displaying five belts -- so the belts are worthless I guess
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Mar 1, 2024 19:27
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cant even wear that many pants to necessitate all those belts
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Mar 1, 2024 19:43
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yea, I was just posting it as a fact that he is the first. Is it an accomplishment? yes Is it actually meaningful? Not really, given what Carl just posted about it. Parnasse over in KSW had the chance to be the first just a few weeks ago but lost a decision. LobsterMobster posted:cant even wear that many pants to necessitate all those belts The man is all belts 
Digital Jedi fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Mar 1, 2024 |
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Mar 1, 2024 19:43
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Digital Jedi posted:yea, I was just posting it as a fact that he is the first. he should attach the snaps from one belt to the snaps on the next one to create a big long belt ribbon and then swing it around his head while yelling WOOP WOOP
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Mar 1, 2024 19:47
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Digital Jedi posted:yea, I was just posting it as a fact that he is the first. three
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Mar 1, 2024 19:55
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just give him 1 giant belt that weighs the same as 3
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Mar 1, 2024 20:09
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Faustian Bargain posted:just give him 1 giant belt that weighs the same as 3 Chatri's knees just got weak and he doesn't know why.
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Mar 1, 2024 20:11
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As pointed out with Stamp in Carl's monthly breakdown, ONE has no problem greasing their promotional wheels with bullshit if they think it'll give them a feather in their cap and a headliner in their roster But hell, I'll take this kinda stuff over the UFC's "turning a big dial that says racism on it" approach
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Mar 1, 2024 22:14
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 Its a long toad to the top!
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Mar 1, 2024 22:52
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LobsterMobster posted:cant even wear that many pants to necessitate all those belts Sounds like a challenge
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Mar 1, 2024 23:39
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 Basharat coming in a tiny bit heavy
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Mar 2, 2024 00:46
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coathat posted:
he wash him self with a rag on a stick haw haw haw hue hue hue
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Mar 2, 2024 01:14
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CommonShore posted:yelling WOOP WOOP Juggalo Fighting Championship when?
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Mar 2, 2024 01:42
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I just watched fifty minutes of an English dude calling Nicholas Diaz the Stocktonian. Time well spent.
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Mar 2, 2024 10:18
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Diaz time is never wasted. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4055495 Rozenstruik/Gaziev fights don't start for 6 1/2 hours but that's gonna be morning here so I'm just putting the GDT up now to be bumped when the event starts.
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Mar 2, 2024 12:37
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https://twitter.com/mma_orbit/status/1764087586459402579
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Mar 3, 2024 02:20
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twin magic
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Mar 3, 2024 02:21
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Vanilla Gorilla by KO
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Mar 3, 2024 04:19
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Bare knuckle is superior in all combat sports
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Mar 3, 2024 04:48
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Today, on the funny side of antitrust lawsuit news: https://twitter.com/MMAanalytics/status/1764796060357288029 The UFC's witness list for how not a monopoly they are got tossed out. Unfortunately, also today, on the less funny side of antitrust lawsuit news: https://twitter.com/TrentReinsmith/status/1764767320348541238 It looks like someone leaned on someone in management because all of Bloodyelbow's excellent reporting on trade secrets and income reporting from the lawsuit has been suddenly deleted.
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Mar 5, 2024 01:18
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CarlCX posted:Today, on the funny side of antitrust lawsuit news: are they archived and can they be rehosted legally
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Mar 5, 2024 01:21
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STING 64 posted:are they archived and can they be rehosted legally
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Mar 5, 2024 02:56
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still not off the trail of suspecting chael being behind the pregnancy crash in some way
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Mar 5, 2024 03:12
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Slightly MMA-related: Netflix' Physical I only recognized two other faces from the trailer, but season 1 was pretty entertaining despite the challenge imbalance, but eh, maybe they ironed that out. I'll give it a watch just to root for stun gun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GDTxXbFkNo
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Mar 5, 2024 04:49
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STING 64 posted:are they archived and can they be rehosted legally Wilcox said that they should still be on their substack. Also Zane Simon is apparently gone, probably more to follow. They are going to turn in into a regular content mill.
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Mar 5, 2024 06:53
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https://twitter.com/antontabuena/status/1764895006173847936 Yup. Nate sold BE to a content mill and everything they ever did that mattered is gone. gently caress you, Kid Nate.
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Mar 5, 2024 07:57
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CarlCX posted:https://twitter.com/antontabuena/status/1764895006173847936 Jesus. I remember him talking about his past working for politicians and how dirty it was on Knuckle up with Eugene Robinson, I guess that dirt seeps into the soul and stays there.
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Mar 5, 2024 08:03
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Depressing poo poo https://twitter.com/aaronbronsteter/status/1764989677738569886
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Mar 5, 2024 15:19
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I don't blame someone for having an exit plan from a business but doing this after banging the  sUpPoRt iNdEpEnDeNt jOuRnAlIsM drum for the last eighteen months or whatever would have Dante contemplating whether the ice should be up to his waist or his chest.
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Mar 5, 2024 15:22
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He's been posting about how he was broke and had to sell the site to make payroll for the last time and did the best he could. but then he also retweeted Glenn Greenwald signalboosting Jack Posobiec, so
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Mar 5, 2024 20:38
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kid nate is a land of contrasts
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Mar 5, 2024 20:45
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It’s poo poo that BE died that way but it’s been in a slow decline for a long time. I used to be a BE regular, but the community mostly died and the attempt to resuscitate it was to drop the moderation standards that made it somewhere I wanted to spend my time to begin with. The engagement first model devolved into a bunch of hateful assholes brigading anything remotely political and never commenting on anything that had to do with the sport otherwise. The thread here has been more fun to hang out in now, and the live threads on SA replaced the live threads on BE for me. I don’t have time to organize one while traveling but the Bloody Elbow Clan War was legendary and it would be cool to do something like that here.
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Mar 5, 2024 23:07
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:It’s poo poo that BE died that way but it’s been in a slow decline for a long time. I used to be a BE regular, but the community mostly died and the attempt to resuscitate it was to drop the moderation standards that made it somewhere I wanted to spend my time to begin with. The engagement first model devolved into a bunch of hateful assholes brigading anything remotely political and never commenting on anything that had to do with the sport otherwise. What is the bloody elbow clan war
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Mar 6, 2024 01:15
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Looking forward to the AI articles "Remember Cheick Kongo? He looks incredible at 54." and the thumbnail is Rodney Dangerfield
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Mar 6, 2024 06:51
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