It’s taken more than 16 years in the fight game, but Anthony Smith thinks he’s finally learned some more effective mental prioritization methods ahead of Saturday’s fight at UFC 301. After unsuccessfully challenging then-champ Jon Jones for the light heavyweight belt in March 2019, Smith (37-19 MMA, 12-9 UFC) has been trying to regain his
Day: May 1, 2024
A pair of lightweights will look to get back on track in the desert this summer. Kurt Holobaugh (20-8 MMA, 1-5 UFC) is set to take on Kaynan Kruschewsky (15-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) at the UFC’s July 20 Fight Night event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. A person with knowledge of the booking
Ilia Topuria rejects the notion that he turned down a rematch with Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 305 in Australia. With the octagon headed back to Perth for a pay-per-view event on Aug. 18 and Topuria (15-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) not having a fight scheduled for his first featherweight title defense, longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan
Ex-UFC fighter Ali Alqaisi will defend his UAE Warriors featherweight title in May. Alqaisi (15-7), the UAE Warriors and UAE Warriors Arabia 145-pound champion, meets Samuel Bark (9-2) in the UAE Warriors 50 main event May 18 in Abu Dhabi. In the co-main event, undefeated Russian Shakhban Alkhasov (8-0) meets former title challenger Tahir Abdullaev (16-2)
Like many Brazilian fighters, Alessandro Costa’s career has been heavily influenced by Jose Aldo. And being days away from sharing a card with the MMA legend, Costa has no problem fanboying over this moment. Costa (13-4 MMA, 1-2 UFC) fights Kevin Borjas (9-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) on Saturday in the opening bout of UFC 301
Flyweight HyunSung Park won’t fight at UFC 302 after he suffered an injury during a recent training session. Tuesday, Park (9-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) announced his withdrawal from the June 1 event at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. and shared a video of how he sustained the injury in the gym. Park revealed he suffered
Robert Whittaker won’t be thrilled if Jiri Prochazka makes an eventual move down to the UFC middleweight division. Former light heavyweight champion Prochazka (30-4-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) recently revealed one of the long-term career goals is to drop to 185 pounds. He first intends to recapture the belt at his current weight class, but is
Steve Erceg’s title shot opportunity at UFC 301 was definitely unexpected – even for him. After less than a year in the promotion, Erceg (12-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) got the call to challenge flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja (27-5 MMA, 11-3 UFC) in Saturday’s main event at Rio Arena in Rio de Janeiro (Pay-per-view/ESPN/ESPN+). Erceg recalls
On this week’s episode of “Spinning Back Clique,” our panel reacted to the results of UFC on ESPN 55 this past Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. In the main event, Alex Perez picked up his first win since 2020, putting away Matheus Nicolau with a brutal second-round knockout. Bogdan Guskov also made
Although it was a low-profile event by UFC standards, this past Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 55 event created some movement in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings. Two main card winners in particular gained attention. Former UFC flyweight title challenger Alex Perez snapped a three-fight losing skid with a blistering knockout of Matheus Nicolau
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best knockouts from April 2024: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Knockout of the Month award for April. At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by