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UFC 289 is rumored to take place in Canada on June 10th. This would be the first PPV in Canada since UFC 231 in Toronto, when Max Holloway handed Brian Ortega his first career loss. If the promotion is to return to Canada, the likely frontrunners for the card are Vancouver and Toronto.
Alex Pereira warns Drake not to bet against him again.
Glover Teixeira is open to box against someone his age.
Henry Cejudo believes a fight against Merab Dvalishvili would be easy money.
Dana White believes Jon Jones would have finished Francis Ngannou.
UFC 294 will take place in Abu Dhabi in October.
Francis Ngannou says Deontay Wilder is the frontrunner for his boxing debut.
Demian Maia practiced commentary on 1000 fights to prepare for his official commentary debut.
Alistair Overeem is suspended for 1 year by Glory Kickboxing for PED’s.
Justin Gaethje believes he’s the most exciting fighter in MMA history.
Canelo Alvarez will compete in Mexico for the first time in 12 years this May.
- Conor McGregor is beefing with USADA
- Merab Dvalishvili breaks a Cain Velasquez record
Conor McGregor made a surprise appearance on a prime-time version of the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani on Wednesday and confirmed that he’s still not in the USADA testing pool. McGregor dismissed the idea of needing to be in the testing pool for 6 months before returning to action.
He told Helwani that he has a meeting scheduled with USADA and he needed just 2 clean tests to return to action. McGregor exited the USADA testing pool to treat the leg break injury he suffered against Dustin Poirier in July of 2021. Though he dismissed having to partake in a 6 month testing period, USADA disagrees.
USADA confirmed to TSN Sports that they want McGregor in the testing pool for the full 6 month period before he can return to action against Michael Chandler. McGregor can only bypass this rule if the UFC exercises its right to make an exception. Brock Lesnar was previously granted an exception to this rule before he returned to action against Mark Hunt at UFC 200 in 2016. It's is a decision that will likely come down to the discretion of the UFC brass.
Merab Dvalishvili put on the best performance of his career last weekend when he drowned Petr Yan in a 5 round unanimous decision win. He smashed the all-time record for the most takedown attempts in a UFC fight, going 11 of 49. This broke Cain Velasquez’s previous record of 33 takedown attempts against Junior dos Santos at UFC 155. That’s a 48% increase by Merab and an average of almost 10 takedown attempts per round.
With a decisive win against Yan, Merab proved he might just be the best Bantamweight fighter in the world. The question now becomes, what’s next? He’s the #1 ranked Bantamweight and has no plans of challenging for the title anytime soon as his friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling holds the title. The only feasible option is to fight the winner of Marlon Vera vs. Cory Sandhagen, as the UFC wants Sean O’Malley to challenge for the title after Henry Cejudo. The problem with that is, if Vera wins, how can you give Sean O’Malley a title shot over Vera, considering Vera finished him by 1st round TKO? It’s interesting times in the most stacked division in the sport.
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