MMA

11:30 PM ET UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski will serve as the backup to a vacant lightweight title fight at UFC 280 on Oct. 22, Volkanovski announced Monday. The 155-pound title fight features former champion Charles Oliveira (33-8) against Islam Makhachev (22-1). Volkanovski (25-1) will weigh-in at 155 pounds in Abu Dhabi, in the event

Oct 7, 2022 Marc Raimondi Brett Okamoto Close ESPN Staff Writer MMA columnist for ESPN.com Analyst for “MMA Live” Covered MMA for Las Vegas Sun Due to a grinding UFC schedule that features cards nearly every week of the year, it’s tough for every event to feature fighters the world clamors for. As a result

1:52 PM ET The UFC has added a key welterweight matchup between Geoff Neal and Shavkat Rakhmonov to an event on Jan. 14, sources told ESPN on Saturday. Contracts have not been signed but both welterweights have agreed to the three-round contest, sources told ESPN. The UFC Fight Night event is expected to take place

3:44 PM ET UFC lightweight fighter Bobby Green has been suspended six months for failing a drug test, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced Friday. Green, who went public about the adverse finding last month, tested positive for an anabolic androgenic steroid of exogenous origin in a urine sample collected May 16, according to the

7:25 PM ET Former UFC lightweight champion and future Hall of Famer Frankie Edgar has booked the final fight of his career. Edgar (24-10-1) will face Chris Gutierrez in a bantamweight contest at UFC 281 on Nov. 12, according to multiple sources. The pay-per-view event will take place at Madison Square Garden, just north of

10:57 AM ET The UFC has booked a welterweight main event between Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson and Kevin Holland on Dec. 3, officials announced on Wednesday. The 170-pound bout will headline UFC Fight Night at Amway Center in Orlando. Prior to the announcement, Holland (23-8) had spent the entire week announcing his “retirement” from MMA. The

7:56 AM ET Just like in previous seasons, Season 6 of Dana White’s Contender Series brought in MMA prospects from around the world, giving them a chance to make a name for themselves in UFC. After 43 of the competitors earned contracts, the most ever in a season, there are plenty of new names for

11:05 AM ET One week after being released by the UFC, Aspen Ladd has a new home with the PFL. Ladd (9-3) has signed on to compete in PFL’s 2023 regular season as a featherweight, she and the promotion announced Tuesday. The PFL’s season format has not previously included a female featherweight division, only lightweight.

10:19 PM ET The first-ever quadrilogy fight in UFC history will take place early next year in South America. Deiveson Figueiredo will defend his flyweight belt against former champion and current interim champ Brandon Moreno at UFC 283 on Jan. 21 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, multiple sources confirmed to ESPN on Monday. Figueiredo, who

9:00 AM ET Jeff WagenheimESPN Followers of MMA need no introduction to Anderson Silva. But for those combat sports fans who follow just boxing as well as those social media mavens drawn to boxing merely by the presence of YouTube personality Jake Paul, there is much to know about Silva, who will face Paul in

10:27 PM ET Jeff Wagenheim Yan Xiaonan put on a show for the fans — make that fan, singular — in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday in Las Vegas. Yan got the better of Mackenzie Dern in standup fighting and survived relentless grappling threats by her multiple-time jiu-jitsu world champion opponent

1:31 AM ET What were the biggest moments of Bellator 286? Jeff Wagenheim and Marc Raimondi offer up their takeaways from an action-packed event in Long Beach. AJ McKee will be just fine at lightweight, has options Coming off the first loss of his career and moving up to debut in a new weight class,

1:06 AM ET LONG BEACH, Calif. — Patricio “Pitbull” Freire‘s stranglehold on the Bellator featherweight division will continue. Freire beat Adam Borics via one-sided unanimous decision (48-47, 49-46, 50-45) in the main event of Bellator 286 on Saturday night at Long Beach Arena. “Pitbull” retained his 145-pound belt with the victory and now has a

2:05 AM ET Jingnan Xiong nearly finished Angela Lee several times in a dominant first round and then did enough the rest of the way to earn a unanimous-decision victory Saturday in the main event of a ONE Championship card in Singapore. With the victory, Xiong retained her ONE women’s 125-pound title and went to

11:31 PM ET Antonio Inoki, a combat sports trailblazer, influential politician and larger-than-life figure in his native Japan, died Friday at the age of 79. The announcement was made by New Japan Pro-Wrestling, the promotion he founded. The cause of Inoki’s death was not released, but he had fallen ill in recent years and was

8:22 AM ET Jeff WagenheimESPN It’s not easy being No. 2. You’re habitually overlooked, an afterthought, banished to the background. But every so often, the orchestra’s second fiddle gets to step under the bright lights at center stage and show their stuff. This autumn brings several opportunities for Bellator MMA to take more of the

Sep 28, 2022 The UFC has closed off Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card at its Apex facility in Las Vegas to the public as well as the media. The company declined to provide a reason for the closure at the time of the announcement earlier this week, but UFC president Dana White said Tuesday that

Sep 29, 2022 Dana White’s Contender Series has become a staple for the promotion in ushering rising talent into the Octagon. With fighters like Sean O’Malley, Alex Perez, Taila Santos and Marina Rodriguez all making their UFC debuts on the show, there is fair reason to believe that those who get a shot at a