MMA

Nov 22, 2022 New Zealand’s Kai Kara-France is adamant he has another run to the UFC flyweight title left in him, a process he will start against Alex Perez with the duo to face off at UFC 284 in Perth on Feb. 12. Kara-France has wasted little time dwelling on the “what ifs” following his

9:24 AM ET The PFL has a lot going on in its fourth year of operations, including Challenger Series and PFL Europe, but make no mistake: Its biggest night is still its season finals. The 2022 World Championship will take place on Friday inside Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. Two-time lightweight

8:28 PM ET Sean O’Malley isn’t sure who the next challenger is for the UFC bantamweight title. But he firmly believes that the next time he steps in the Octagon, it will be for the belt. The rising UFC star told ESPN on Monday that he sat down with UFC president Dana White and matchmaker

9:17 AM ET Kamaru Usman was winning the whole way, cruising to a unanimous decision victory until Leon Edwards caught him with a head kick that left him unconscious on impact. The fifth-round knockout earned Edwards the UFC welterweight title and snapped Usman’s incredible 15-fight winning streak. The second-longest such streak in promotion history. Nine

7:08 PM ET MMA coach James Krause was not allowed to corner UFC bantamweight fighter Miles Johns during a UFC Fight Night event Saturday in Las Vegas in the wake of an investigation into suspicious betting activity on a UFC bout earlier this month, sources told ESPN. Krause was scheduled to be in Johns’ corner

Nov 18, 2022 Khamzat Chimaev wants to fight the UFC’s newly crowned middleweight champion, Alex Pereira. UFC president Dana White has said he would like Chimaev to face welterweight contender Colby Covington. Why not both? Chimaev (12-0) told ESPN this week that he has asked UFC for a middleweight title fight against Pereira at UFC

4:02 PM ET LAS VEGAS — The UFC has lost a heavyweight main event between Derrick Lewis and Serghei Spivak just hours before it was scheduled to take place, officials announced Saturday. UFC commentator Brendan Fitzgerald alerted viewers of the cancellation during the preliminary portion of UFC Fight Night inside the Apex. According to Fitzgerald,

12:40 AM ET Add yet another championship to the remarkable Nurmagomedov team and family. The undefeated Usman Nurmagomedov, cousin of all-time MMA great Khabib Nurmagomedov, beat Patricky “Pitbull” Freire via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-44, 50-44) to win the Bellator lightweight title Friday night in the co-main event of Bellator 288 in Chicago. Usman is only

12:06 PM ET Fedor Emelianenko, one of the most iconic mixed martial artists of all time, will make the final walk of his career in 2023. Emelianenko, 46, will challenge Bellator MMA heavyweight champion Ryan Bader for the title at Bellator 290 on Feb. 4. The event will take place inside the Kia Forum in

9:15 AM ET The MMA calendar is at its home stretch for the year, with just four UFC events remaining in 2022, along with marquee fight cards in Bellator, ONE Championship and PFL. It would be easy to overlook these next seven weeks, considering we’re fresh off one of the best pay-per-view events of the

3:56 PM ET The Nevada State Athletic Commission is planning disciplinary action against MMA fighter Darrick Minner for failing to disclose an injury ahead of a Nov. 6 UFC bout that was flagged for suspicious betting. Jeff Mullen, executive director of the NSAC, told ESPN on Thursday that Minner will be on the agenda at

11:12 AM ET Corey Anderson got an unexpected text message last month. The sender was his friend and fellow Bellator MMA fighter Anthony “Rumble” Johnson. Anderson and Johnson had not spoken for a few months, but Rumble was known for checking in on his buddies when they were getting close to a fight. This particular

11:11 AM ET Popular heavyweight Derrick Lewis will be looking to get his career back on track when he faces well-rounded Serghei Spivac in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday in Las Vegas. The fights at UFC Apex are on ESPN+, with the 4 p.m. ET main card preceded by prelims at

7:00 PM ET Former UFC champion Israel Adesanya was arrested Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York for possession of “metal knuckles,” a spokesperson for the Port Authority Police Department confirmed with ESPN. The time of the arrest was 1:57 p.m., per police. According to Adesanya’s manager, Tim Simpson, the UFC star

1:54 PM ET The Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) set a new precedent in its monthly meeting Wednesday. The commission suspended UFC heavyweight fighter Ilir Latifi for three months for not disclosing an illness to commission doctors before his fight Oct. 1 in Las Vegas. Latifi beat Aleksei Oleinik via unanimous decision on the UFC

9:19 AM ET NEW YORK — A well-known MMA coach was sitting up against a locker room wall earlier this year with his fighter and other coaches as the fighter warmed up in preparation for his UFC bout later that evening. There were other fighters and teams in the room as well, a common occurrence

Nov 13, 2022 Just hours after a superfight was booked for the UFC 284 main event, another title fight has been added. Yair Rodriguez will fight Josh Emmett for the interim UFC featherweight title in the co-main event of the Feb. 11 card in Perth, Australia, the UFC announced Saturday night. The UFC is making

12:37 AM ET NEW YORK — Zhang Weili became China’s first UFC champion in 2019, when she took the strawweight title from Jessica Andrade. On Saturday, she also became China’s second UFC champion. Zhang (23-3) reclaimed her 115-pound championship by submitting Carla Esparza (19-7) in the second round of their strawweight title fight, which co-headlined