Jordan Breen
Editorial: Win or lose, what does the future hold for Jose Aldo?
Iconic actress Lauren Bacall once remarked that “Legends are all to do with the past and nothing to do with the present.” This Saturday night, the words of “The Look” will be put to the test, as the greatest featherweight in MMA history, Jose Aldo, attempts to prove capable of a late career renaissance at […]
Editorial: Who exactly is Triller’s Triad Combat for?
This weekend is a brief recess for both the UFC and Bellator MMA, which offers another promotion an opportunity to step into the breach and grab the attention of fight fans. On this occasion, it’s the latest offering from Triller Fight Club, as the upstart company debuts its Triad concept, a series of bouts between […]
Valentina Shevchenko isn’t just complete, she’s complete MMA
After another utterly dominant defense of her UFC women’s flyweight championship against Lauren Murphy this past Saturday night at UFC 266, Valentina Shevchenko reaffirmed her position as one of the best fighters in the sport. She did it with an easy aplomb, dummying and nullifying Murphy in every way en route to a perfunctory fourth-round […]
Jake Paul generates revenue, but can MMA reap any of the rewards?
One of the biggest fight weekends is upon us. Is this on account of the UFC Vegas 35 card, headlined by a fantastic pairing of featherweight strikers in Edson Barboza and Giga Chikadze? No, of course not. Instead, it’s the return of former Disney Channel star turned internet shit-disturber turned prizefighter Jake Paul, as he […]
On the future of Kelvin Gastelum and his consistent inconsistencies
In sports, the relationship between talent and success is correlative, not causal. This past Saturday night, we were reminded of that fact once again, courtesy of Kelvin Gastelum’s loss to Jared Cannonier. In the UFC Vegas 34 headliner, Gastelum lost a competitive five-round unanimous decision, in a bout which figures to install Cannonier as the […]
Editorial: All eyes are on ‘Pitbull’ vs. McKee, but how many eyes is that actually?
A reigning two-division champion, the best fighter in Bellator MMA history. A dynamic 26-year-old prospect with a perfect 17-0 professional record. The Bellator featherweight championship and $1 million at stake. What fight fan wouldn’t want to see this? That is not the most important question, however. When Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire risks his 145-pound gold against […]
TJ Dillashaw vs. Cory Sandhagen or: How to spoil a violent delight
This past Saturday night’s de facto bantamweight title eliminator between TJ Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen was a damn good fight. The UFC Vegas 32 headliner was a back-and-forth, exciting, pitched battle between a former champion and a rising star. It reflected and further cemented the lofty, thrilling status the bantamweight division now occupies in this […]
Editorial: On interim titles and the UFC’s inflexible business machine
Interim championships have long been a constant source of irritation for MMA fans and understandably so. At best, they are a necessary evil, which usually suggests that a reigning champion has either been injured with an uncertain timetable for recovery or that they’re embroiled in a contractual dispute. At worst, they are wholly unnecessary and […]
More mania: Media misconceptions of the MMA-boxing relationship
If you’re an MMA omnivore, it’s an ideal weekend. In the span of less than 96 hours, you’ve got a UFC, Bellator, Professional Fighters League and three Cage Warriors cards. Yet, that’s not the dominant conversation this week. Instead, it’s one based on a misguided idea about the current relationship between MMA and boxing, which […]
Let there be ringers: Why the UFC needs a better backup fighter plan
Max Holloway and Yair Rodriguez is officially on the books. This past Thursday, the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced the tantalizing featherweight showdown as the main event for its July 17 card in Last Vegas. After fans’ immediate excitement subsided, the very real thought that the bout could somehow disintegrate led to the classic, contemporary cries […]
MMA’s Insecurity and Protectionism: It’s Every Day, Bro
It goes without saying that the biggest MMA story of the week is the Ultimate Fighting Championship finally going public on Thursday, an eventuality that was anticipated from the moment Zuffa sold the company to WME-IMG – now Endeavor – in July 2016. But, as is often the case now in the combat sports world, […]
Editorial: The UFC’s card shuffling and sleight of hand
MMA fans undoubtedly began Tuesday with a familiar disappointment, as it was announced that Darren Till had been forced out of his April 10th middleweight main event with Marvin Vettori at UFC Vegas 23. Before the day was over, that dejection had quickly turned to elation, as late in the evening, it was reported that […]
Editorial: Petr Yan, Aljamain Sterling and the historical idiocy of grounded fighter rules
UFC 259 might have witnessed Aljamain Sterling being crowned bantamweight champion, but it was anything but a bonafide coronation in the Octagon on Saturday night. Instead, it was a familiar, lamentable tune MMA fans have heard time and time again. Amidst a championship tripleheader, for many, no bout was more anticipated than the much-awaited showdown […]
What does MMA want out of a heavyweight champion anyway?
You read the headline, so with any luck or basic reading skills, you’ve already figured out the central question and thesis of this little – or heavy – essay. Really, It’s a question anyone could pose at any given time in the larger cycle of MMA happenings, never going out of fashion, never being anything […]
Opinion: Nobody needs Bellator rankings
This past Thursday, Bellator MMA President Scott Coker announced that – in the coming weeks – the promotion would be releasing its first edition of their own fighter rankings. I think I speak for a vast majority of MMA onlookers when I say nothing, but rather shrug my shoulders instead. Bellator has rankings now? OK. […]
Anderson Silva’s ‘last fight’ and giving way to his ‘Make-a-Wish’ moment
Headed into UFC Vegas 12 on Saturday night, few believed it would be Anderson Silva’s last fight—and almost assuredly, it won’t be. If anything, fans were simply hoping the 45-year-old wouldn’t fail in an ignominious fashion and ignite those all-too-familiar pangs of disappointment, regret, and even guilt that so often come when combat athletes fight […]
Editorial: Eagles, GOATs and a pragmatic look at Khabib Nurmagomedov’s legacy
Khabib Nurmagomedov is the best lightweight, perhaps the greatest fighter on the planet. However, after his brutally businesslike dispatching of title challenger Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 on Saturday in Abu Dhabi, Khabib is gone, retired, resolving to ride off into the sunset with his 29-0 career record at just 32-years-old. We all know that […]
Feature: ‘Gamebred’ and playing the political game
If Tuesday night’s first US presidential debate birthed or exacerbated an annoyance with the 2020 election season, things are only going to get more irritating, especially if you’re an MMA fan. In a sight both surreal yet unsurprising, the first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Cleveland, Ohio, featured a […]
One Final Run: Alistair Overeem’s title dream and recurring nightmares
This past Saturday’s UFC card in the APEX bubble didn’t promise an awful lot on paper and the event was held true to that prediction, capped by a lackluster and limp main event, a prosaic unanimous decision win for Aleksandar Rakic over former light heavyweight title challenger Anthony Smith. BE SURE TO WATCH ‘UFC VEGAS […]
Rakic-Smith and Baby Stepping Into the Light Heavyweight Future
It’s now been 15 years since the final Pride 205-pound grand prix. It’s one of those sobering bits of trivia that makes you realize how screwy MMA’s inherent sense of time is, how this sport twists the temporal plane. These kinds of realizations can be helpful, though. Case in point: this Saturday night’s UFC main […]
Middleweight’s slow, steady and strange journey into the MMA spotlight
Last Saturday night, the Ultimate Fighting Championship bid farewell to Fight Island in Abu Dhabi, hoping to make its own UFC Apex back in Las Vegas its home for the foreseeable future during the COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, the UFC said adios in style, with a largely entertaining albeit 15-fight card, topped by a fantastic […]
Glover Teixeira proves the importance of knowing your opponent
Wednesday night in Jacksonville, perennial light heavyweight contender Glover Teixeira scored an upset victory over Anthony Smith in their UFC Fight Night headliner. For the better part of 16 minutes, he battered and bashed Smith—after handily losing the first round. How did things go so wrong, so quickly, for the one-time title contender fighting out […]
Dana White and the cult of ‘getting it done’
We are now less than three weeks away from UFC 249. Supposedly, that is. Despite the ongoing havoc wreaked by COVID-19, ensuing travel bans, and the fact that the promotion has yet to secure a venue for the card, UFC President Dana White remains adamant he’s going to “make this thing happen.” Even as the […]
Jon Jones is still MMA’s unfortunate problem and the UFC’s desperate solution
This is MMA, the misfit’s toybox of sports. It only stood to reason that Covid-19’s ghastly ascent to a global pandemic, resulting in worldwide social distancing and quarantining, would somehow create an environment for one of this sport’s notables to do something lamentable; idle hands to the devil’s work. Apparently, Ashlee Evans-Smith’s bizarre protective equipment […]
UFC 248 and the thrills and ills of high stakes prizefighting
UFC 248 wasn’t an instant classic, but the event certainly entrenched itself as instantly memorable, for better and for worse. It exalted UFC women’s strawweight champion Weili Zhang and reaffirmed the elite status of former queen Joanna Jedrzejczyk, even in defeat, as the pair put on arguably the best fight between two women in the […]
The old man and the scale – A reflection on Yoel Romero
Yoel Romero is at a prizefighting precipice. He has spent seven years competing in the UFC, is 42-years-old, and now has a fortuitous fourth chance to capture the UFC middleweight title on Saturday night in Las Vegas when he meets unbeaten divisional kingpin Israel Adesanya. Even recognizing Romero’s unique athleticism and apparent agelessness, it ostensibly […]
Editorial: UFC Norfolk and the numbing nature of questions, new & old
Not every major MMA event leaves us with definitive outcomes that give a clear vision of future, or a notion of what comes next—organically jumpstarting the hype-making process. Sometimes, a fight card can leave us with more questions than answers. As such, this past Saturday’s UFC card in Norfolk, VA, wound up feeling like an […]
Editorial: The impending emptiness of a Joseph Benavidez title reign
On Friday morning, on the eve of the biggest fight of his career, Deiveson Figueiredo came in two and a half pounds overweight for his would-be UFC flyweight title fight against Joseph Benavidez. As a result, come Saturday night in Norfolk, only Benavidez will be eligible to win the vacant 125-pound title. And on top […]
Cejudo vs Aldo: Losing all the way to the bank, an MMA tradition
An Olympic gold medalist and two-division champion squaring off with one of the greatest fighters – and the greatest featherweight – in MMA history? Sounds like a historic, can’t miss kind of fight that that would titillate any fight fan. Of course, the architecture of marquee fights is profoundly informed by context and timing, so […]
Editorial: Tyson Fury’s (and fight fans’) fortune, fancy and fate
Saturday night in Las Vegas, Tyson Fury affirmed his status as the best heavyweight boxer in the world, blowing out previously unbeaten Deontay Wilder for the better part of seven rounds en route to a merciful corner stoppage. Fury gave us everything we could have hoped for and more with a virtuoso performance. Now, can […]