The Official MMA Thread

[Kaius]

I love it when strong jiujitsu fighters show up big. Maia and Jacare both looked incredible n

[Stickman]

**Chris Weidman is off the UFC 199 card due to an injury, according to a report from Jeremy Botter at FloCombat. Michael Bisping has stepped in as a replacement and will fight middleweight champion Luke Rockhold at UFC 199. Weidman was scheduled to challenge Luke Rockhold in the main event of the show on Saturday June 4th in Inglewood, California in a rematch from their bout at UFC 194 this past December. The injury to Weidman was first reported by the @TalkMMA account. UFC President Dana White today announced the change while on ESPN’s “Sports Center.” The UFC executive said the title shot would’ve gone to Ronaldo Souza (23-4 MMA, 6-1 UFC), but “Jacare” is facing knee surgery following a first-round TKO win over Vitor Belfort (25-12 MMA, 14-8 UFC) this past weekend at UFC 198.

**Joe Rogan made a surprise cameo appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani on Monday afternoon. Rogan confirmed that his contract with the UFC expires in August and he has not decided if he will remain with the promotion or not. Rogan stated that if the UFC is sold then he will not be staying, but has not been given any clear indication if a sale is going to be happening.

**The UFC has confirmed that UFC 201 will be headlined by a welterweight title fight between Robbie Lawler and Tyron Woodley on Saturday July 30th. This will be Woodley’s first fight since January 2015, where he defeated Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 183. Lawler last fought this past January and defeated Carlos Condit but a narrow split decision to retain the title in one of the year’s best fights so far.

**Bellator has announced that the women’s featherweight fight between Marloes Coenen and Alexis Dufresne has been moved up from the preliminary card and will now air on the Spike TV card this Friday night. They have moved the lightweight fight between Marcin Held and Dave Jansen to the featured preliminary spot.

**The UFC 198 preliminary card averaged 786,000 viewers this past weekend on FS 1 and was headlined by Demian Maia and Matt Brown from Curitiba, Brazil.

**The Bellator 154 card from Saturday night in San Jose, California averaged 709,000 viewers

**Jordan Rinaldi will step in and take the spot of Carlos Diego Ferreira for the UFC’s upcoming Fight Night card on Sunday May 29th against Abel Trujillo. Ferreira was recently flagged for a possible USADA violation and taken off of the card in Las Vegas.

[Stickman]

Picture's got a point.

[Stickman]

**The UFC has added a flyweight title fight between Demetrious Johnson and Wilson Reis to the UFC 201 event on Saturday July 30th in Atlanta, Georgia. The winner of this fight is scheduled to defend the title in December on the TUF 24 Finale card against the season’s tournament winner. This means there will be two championship fights on the UFC 201 card as they join the previously announced Robbie Lawler vs. Tyron Woodley welterweight title fight.

**It was also announced on UFC Tonight that the UFC was working on putting together a fight between Cris “Cyborg” Justino and Germaine de Randamie for the same UFC 201 event. Justino was quick to deny this online, stating she would defend the Invicta FC featherweight title in her next fight and wants to fight at 145 pounds next.

**A bantamweight fight between John Lineker and Michael McDonald has been added to the UFC Fight Night card on Wednesday July 13th. Lineker was victorious this past weekend in a strong performance against Rob Font while McDonald returned to action this past January after a two-year layoff and defeated Masanori Kanehara by submission.

**The interview that Kenny Mayne conducted with Conor McGregor for ESPN’s “Sunday Conversation” aired yesterday with McGregor covering many topics. He appeared very open to the idea of fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr., but stated he would not be doing it for $7 million if it happened. He categorized his dinner with Dana White and Lorenzo Feritta from this past week as a good one and feels they are on their way to getting through the issues that took him off of UFC 200. McGregor stated he was always open to “reasonable media” for the recent UFC 200 promotional tour and was willing to come to New York and that part of him did regret his actions when he was watching the press conference he was scheduled to attend but that he also had to put his needs ahead of others at times.

**Joe Rogan spoke to Rolling Stone about a variety of topics and continued to state that he would be gone if the UFC was sold by the current ownership. Below is the answer he provided over his future with the UFC and not being sure if he will stay regardless of the ownership situation:

I’m not working for anybody else. If the sale goes through I’m outta there. I’m already wondering whether or not I can continue doing this as it is. I will always be a fan, I’ll always love it, but shit, I’ve been working for the UFC on and off for almost 20 years. And that’s more than I’ve done anything in my life. I’d like to move on. The only other thing I’ve done longer than that is stand-up comedy, but you know, with stand-up comedy I’m constantly writing new material, I’m traveling, I do it out of my schedule, I do it whenever I want. You know, it’s a very different thing calling fights rather than just being a fan. I’ll always be a fan, for sure, but as far as calling fights…boy, I don’t see that going on very much longer.

**The Bellator 155 card on Friday night featured one of the more egregious decisions of the year with Raphael Carvalho retaining his middleweight title over Melvin Manhoef by split decision. Color commentator Jimmy Smith had the fight 50-45 for Manhoef. The first round was one of the dullest rounds of the year and could have been a 10-10. There was a stunning reaction by Sean Grande when the cards were read and Jimmy Smith stated how disgusted he was and was in shock at the scores. Even worse, is that this wasn’t a very entertaining fight at all and there is going to be little demand for a rematch other than for those that feel Manhoef truly was robbed. The judges scoring the fight were Randy Anderson (48-47 Carvalho), Michael Bell (48-47 Manhoef) and Rob Hinds (48-47 Carvalho). Below are the main card results:
*Chase Gormley def. Joey Beltran by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Alexis Dufresne def. Marloes Coenen by triangle at 4:33 of Round 1 – this was a huge upset as Coenen was believed to be the star of the women’s featherweight division and was originally set to fight Julia Budd on this show to crown the first champion. When Budd was hurt, they made this a non-title fight as Dufresne had a less than spectacular run in the UFC. The reaction from Coenen to getting caught was something to watch.
*Dan Charles and August Sakai fought to a majority draw (30-26 Charles, 28-28, 28-28) – Sakai was deducted a point after two low blows.
*Pat Curran def. Georgi Karakhanyan by unanimous decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – Very good fight with Curran winning the first two rounds and losing the third.
*Raphael Carvalho def. Melvin Manhoef by split decision (48-47, 47-48, 48-47) to retain the Bellator middleweight title

[Stickman]

**The UFC card is this Sunday night from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas and below is the full card and weigh-ins taking place Saturday:

MAIN CARD (9pm ET on FS1, TSN5)
*Thomas Almeida vs. Cody Garbrandt
*Renan Barao vs. Jeremy Stephens
*Rick Story vs. Tarec Saffiedine
*Vitor Miranda vs. Chris Camozzi
*Lorenz Larkin vs. Jorge Masvidal
*Paul Felder vs. Josh Burkman

PRELIMINAY CARD (7pm ET on FS1, Fight Network)
*Sara McMann vs. Jessica Eye
*Abel Trujillo vs. Jordan Rinaldi
*Jake Collier vs. Alberto Emiliano Pereira
*Shane Campbell vs. Erik Koch

FIGHT PASS CARD (6pm Eastern)
*Aljamain Sterling vs. Bryan Caraway
*Chris De La Rocha vs. Adam Milstead

**Nate Diaz was a guest on The MMA Hour today with Ariel Helwani and discusses the details of his recent meeting with UFC president Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta in Stockton, California. Diaz stated he wants to be compensated appropriately for the possible rematch with Conor McGregor after the success of UFC 196 in March, which reportedly did 1.5 million buys. Diaz said the story that White stormed out of the meeting was exaggerated and said it wasn’t as bad as it was made out to me but said it wasn’t the best meeting either.

**BJ Penn has been removed from the UFC 199 card on June 4th for his featherweight fight with Cole Miller. It was announced on Monday that Penn disclosed to USADA that he had used an IV outside of competition back in March and that is banned year-round by USADA. Penn stated he was unaware that IV use was banned outside of competition and was only aware that it couldn’t be used after weigh-ins. It is unknown how long Penn will be suspended for. Penn and Miller were scheduled to headline the FS 1 preliminary card that night at UFC 199 and would have been Penn’s return fight after retiring in July 2014. Alex Caceres is taking the spot of BJ Penn against Cole Miller. After losing three fights in a row at bantamweight, Caceres moved back up to featherweight in his last fight and defeated Masio Fullen by unanimous decision in January.


**Paige VanZant ended up taking second place with dance partner Mark Ballas on this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” with the finale on Tuesday night. The series was won by Nyle DiMarco and Peta Murgatroyd but VanZant gained a lot of exposure thought this season, which routinely did over 10-12 million viewers each Monday night on ABC.

**A featherweight fight between TUF Season 22 winner Ryan Hall and Alex White has been added to the UFC Fight Night event on Wednesday July 13th in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

**The UFC has added a featherweight fight between Erik Perez and Francisco Rivera to the UFC 201 event on July 30th in Atlanta, Georgia.

**It was announced on Wednesday night that UFC 203 will take place Saturday September 10th from the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland and will be headlined by Stipe Miocic defending the heavyweight title in his hometown against Alistair Overeem. Miocic won the title earlier this month after stopping Fabricio Werdum and Overeem is coming off a stoppage win over Andrei Arlovski. Overeem was hoping to headline the Madison Square Garden card in New York City and challenge for the title on that show. Miocic has been all over the Cleveland sports scene since winning the title and has been an invited guest by the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Cleveland Indians.

**Paul Gift at Bloody Elbow reported a lawsuit that has been filed by former Bellator executive Zach Light against his former employer for wrongful termination and making a number of big allegations towards the promotion and the executive staff. Light served as the Talent Development Director under the Bjorn Rebney regime and remained in that position when Scott Coker took over in June 2014 with Light being let go earlier this year. Light is alleging that he was ignored when he believed that the medicals from a fighter were forged and another incident where Light states he was told to make present difficult fights for the fighters managed by Anthony McGann so that Bellator could cut them after they lost. The suit has been filed in Superior Court by Light and Bellator has yet to respond to the allegations. The lawsuit is broken in-depth by Gift at the Bloody Elbow website.

**KSW 35 will be airing on Fight Network. The card is headlined by Mamed Khalidov defending the middleweight title against Aziz Karaoglu and will also feature former middleweight champion Michal Materal taking on Antoni Chmielewski and heavyweights Mariusz Pudzianowski taking on Marcin Rozalski.

**Damon Martin at FOX Sports reported that Matt Brown has signed a new eight-fight contract with the UFC and he will be fighting Jake Ellenberger at UFC 201 on July 30th in Atlanta, Georgia. Brown is coming off a submission loss to Demian Maia earlier this month and Ellenberger is 1-5 in his last six fights.

[Stickman]

L'il late with this one
**The UFC Fight Night card from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas on Sunday night drew an announced crowd of 5,193 and a gate of $359,000, which is indicative of the market and while a good action card, this didn’t have the star power. Below are the results from the show:
*Adam Milstead def. Chris De La Rocha by TKO at 4:01 of Round 2 – Milstead was punishing him with shot-after-shot and the referee finally stepped in and stopped in with De La Rocha on his feet and it was the right call.
*Bryan Caraway def. Aljamain Sterling by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – This was a notable upset as most saw Sterling as being a big contender with a win here. Sterling dominated the first round after taking Caraway’s back but Caraway responded with a good second round and then out grappled Sterling in the third.
*Erik Koch def. Shane Campbell by rear-naked choke at 3:02 of Round 2 – Koch hasn’t fought since May 2014 and looked great in this fight both with his striking and later taking Campbell down and getting his back and submitting him. Koch was once scheduled to fight Jose Aldo for the featherweight title but injuries and losses have curbed his momentum.
*Jake Collier def. Alberto Uda by TKO at 1:06 of Round 2 – Uda won the first round and may have broken Collier’s nose with a knee. Collier responded in the second with a pair of spinning back kicks to the body, the second one stopped Uda.
*Abel Trujillo def. Jordan Rinaldi by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – Trujillo won the first and third rounds, Rinaldi was tough throughout the fight but Trujillo fought a smart fight and was the difference.
*Sara McMann def. Jessica Eye by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Both were coming off a pair of losses and Eye just didn’t show anything in this fight. The crowd was booing after the first round where both were inactive and then McMann got more aggressive by throwing strikes and getting takedowns as Eye just survived for the rest of the fight. McMann said she wanted to fight for the title again but after losing 3 of her last 4 before the Eye win and having losses to Miesha Tate, Amanda Nunes and Ronda Rousey, it’s going to be a bit of a path to get back to fighting for the title.
*Paul Felder def. Josh Burkman by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – This was an entertaining fight and when Felder let his hands go, the momentum shifted along with Burkman not being able to maintain his pace set in the first round. Burkman won the first and Felder the last two rounds.
*Lorenz Larkin def. Jorge Masvidal by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) –Larkin won the first two rounds and the third was a very close round and gave the slight edge to Masvidal.
*Chris Camozzi def. Vitor Miranda by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Not a very exciting fight as Miranda couldn’t deal with the strikes from Camozzi, who was just a better fighter on this night and no round was in doubt for Camozzi.
*Rick Story def. Tarec Saffiedine by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) – Story hadn’t fought since October 2014 and returned to form. Story can take a lot of shots, he has very good wrestling and his striking is relentless. The second round was the closest of the three but it was a volume game from Story, who put Saffiedine against the cage and was busy with his hands to the head and body.
*Jeremy Stephens def. Renan Barao by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – This was a great fight and easily the best of the night and a huge win for Stephens. Barao won the first as he was much quicker and was landing consistently. The tide changed in the second as Barao was much more tired and ate so many big shots in the second. The third was the closest round as both landed but Stephens had a strong finish to the fight. Barao will probably stick around at featherweight but he’s not the same fighter that dominated the bantamweight division for all those years.
*Cody Garbrandt def. Thomas Almeida by KO at 2:53 of Round 1 – Garbrandt was composed on his feet and started landing and it was two big rights that connected and the second sent Almeida down and he was done. Garbrandt improves to 9-0 and is now in the contender mix at bantamweight, which will no doubt be a big topic this week as his teammate Urijah Faber challenges for the title.

**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Jeremy Stephens and Renan Barao and the Performance bonuses went to Cody Garbrandt and Jake Collier for $50,000 each.

**It was announced on the UFC broadcast on Sunday night that former heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum will return on September 10th at UFC 203 and fight Ben Rothwell in the co-feature of UFC 203. That same card is headlined by Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem for the heavyweight title and gives a backup in case either of the main eventers are injured before the event. Werdum will look to rebound after dropping the title to Miocic earlier this month in Curitiba and Rothwell is coming off a loss to Junior dos Santos in April.

**The Sun in the U.K. was the first to report that the main event of the UFC Fight Night event on September 3rd in Hamburg, Germany will be between former champions Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett. These two almost surely would have fought over a decade ago as Barnett was the UFC heavyweight champion in 2002 but was stripped of the title after failing a drug test following his win over Randy Couture in March of that year (in fact, Arlovski fought on that same card, losing to Pedro Rizzo that night). Arlovski would become interim heavyweight champion after Frank Mir’s motorcycle accident and later the official champion and held it until 2006. Barnett returned to the UFC in 2013 and Arlovski returned in 2014 with Barnett last fighting Ben Rothwell and being submitted this past January and Arlovski is coming off a pair of TKO losses to Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem this year.

**This weekend’s UFC 199 card will be interesting from the standpoint of how the fighters respond to the earlier weigh-in option for this Friday. The California State Athletic Commission has adopted changes to the weigh-in procedure where fighters can weigh in as early at 10am on Friday morning and then the public weigh-in will largely be done for the media and fans with the fighters well above their weight limit by the time they come out in front of the public. The purpose of this change is to allow fighters more time to properly rehydrate before their fight with California being at the forefront of changes to curb extreme weight cutting in the sport. Fighters are also going to be subjected to gravity tests to ensure they are properly hydrated and goes along with USADA’s new guidelines that they want fighters to begin showing up on fight week at no more than 8% off their target weight for the weigh-in.

**Bellator 159 has been announced for Friday July 22nd in Mulvane, Kansas and have announced a main event between lightweights Melvin Guillard and Dave Rickels. They have also announced a bantamweight fight between Darrion Caldwell and Joe Taimanglo.

**The UFC has released the 16 fighters that will be part of the upcoming TUF Latin America Season 3 show with coaches Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin. The season will be airing on Fight Pass and premieres on August 20th with the following lightweight fighters listed: John Bedoya, Walter Zamora, Yasser Castillo, Santiago Cardenas, Miguel Villegas, Martin Bravo, Marcelo Rojo, Pablo Sabori, Juan Villaseca, Jose David Flores, Illanovic Chalo, Fabian Quintanar, Leonardo Rodriguez, Javier Ganin, Alejandro Martinez, Claudio Puelles.

**Below are the first three episodes of UFC Embedded ahead of this Saturday’s UFC 199 card:

[Stickman]

Here Comes the Pain: Brock Lesnar Returns to Octagon at UFC 200

WWE champion is back after announcing his retirement from MMA less than 15 months ago

By Mike Bohn June 6, 2016

It's not Conor McGreogor. Nor is it Ronda Rousey. But next month's UFC 200 mega-event will feature one of the biggest stars in MMA history: Former UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar is set to return to the Octagon.

Less than 15 months after officially announcing his retirement from MMA and re-signing a new multi-year contract with WWE, the shocking confirmation of Lesnar's UFC comeback was made during Saturday's UFC 199 pay-per-view broadcast.

His opponent will be Mark Hunt, the promotion said, but Lesnar's first UFC appearance since a December 2011 loss to Alistair Overeem is officially set for the co-main event of the landmark fight card on July 9th at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. A Light Heavyweight championship rematch between Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones headlines the event.

The possibility of Lesnar (5-3 MMA, 4-3 UFC) making a comeback has popped up in the news numerous times in recent years. His career was cut short due to a battle with diverticulitis, a colon issue that impacted his ability to perform effectively. Even with that ailment Lesnar thrived, making a record-tying two consecutive title defenses and holding the gold for 707 days.

Lesnar, 38, is a multi-time WWE champion and was a star for the company prior to his UFC career. He returned to WWE in April 2012 following the loss to Overeem and once again became a headlining act. He became a free agent again in 2015 and said he seriously considered another UFC run. Instead he announced his retirement in an interview on "SportsCenter."

"I'm officially closing the door on MMA," Lesnar said. "It was a very hard decision at this stage of my career. The fighter inside me wants to compete. The father and husband – I'm an older caveman now. I make wiser caveman decisions. So, I'm here to say my legacy in the Octagon is over.

"I could go back to the Octagon, but what am I going to gain? I was the UFC Heavyweight champion of the world. Due to my illness, my career got cut short. That's God telling you, 'It's time to move on.'"

Lesnar – who owns UFC wins over the likes of former champions Frank Mir, Randy Couture and Shane Carwin – has decided to re-open the door, to the surprise of many. That doesn't mean he's back for good, though. Shortly after the announcement was made, WWE released a statement labeling Lesnar's UFC fight as a "one-off opportunity."

"Brock Lesnar remains under contract to WWE, however, he has been granted a one-off opportunity to compete at UFC 200," the statement read. "Following this milestone event on July 9, Brock will return to WWE for SummerSlam on Sunday, August 21, live on WWE Network."

Lesnar's first UFC stint lasted less than four years, but he made a landscape-shifting impact on the sport during that period. His name value commanded massive mainstream media attention and his hulking physique paired with an aggressive and powerful fighting style made each of his fights must-see spectacles. Within three UFC appearances, he challenged Couture for the Heavyweight belt, making good on the opportunity by beating the UFC Hall of Famer by second-round TKO at UFC 91 in November 2008.

He would defend the belt for the first time with a dominant second-round TKO of Mir in the main event of UFC 100, an event that reportedly still holds the record as the UFC's all-time highest pay-per-view seller. He began to suffer the effects of diverticulitis shortly thereafter, however, sidelining him from competition for nearly a year.

Lesnar's final UFC win came in at UFC 116 in July 2010 when in his second title defense he was forced to rally from a brutal first-round beating from Carwin to win the fight by submission in the second. He would lose the title to Cain Velasquez later that year before health issues again forced him away from the sport for another 14 months prior to his final fight against Overeem.

One of the fiercest competitors in UFC history is not happy about the way in which his MMA run came to end and has more to prove. He'll get one last chance at closure on the biggest stage in the sport's history at UFC 200.

Lesnar was interviewed by ESPN about his upcoming bout

[Stickman]

Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz 2 set for UFC 202 in August

Conor McGregor will look to avenge his loss to Nate Diaz when the two rivals meet at UFC 202 in August.

The long awaited rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz is finally set after both sides agreed to the matchup at UFC 202 on Aug. 20.

The fight was confirmed by UFC officials on Saturday night at UFC 199.

The road to a rematch between McGregor and Diaz was anything but easy after the fight was scrapped from UFC 200 and contract negotiations broke down over the past few weeks.

UFC president Dana White traveled to Los Angeles to meet with McGregor and then to Stockton, Calif., for a sit-down with Diaz.

According to White, the meeting with Diaz didn't end well and as of just a few days ago, he actually was looking for a new opponent to face McGregor.

It appears cooler heads eventually prevailed and a deal was struck to get Diaz on board, and now he'll face McGregor for a second time with the matchup taking place in Las Vegas.

In the first fight, McGregor dominated the first round before running out of gas, and Diaz stung him with a series of hard punches in the second round before putting the Irishman away with a rear-naked choke. Ever since, McGregor has been clamoring for a rematch and now he'll get his chance.

McGregor and Diaz will meet again at welterweight as the outspoken UFC superstar looks to avenge his only loss inside the Octagon.

UFC 202 goes down Aug. 20 with more bouts expected to be announced for the card in the coming weeks.

[Stickman]

Wow
MMA Star Kimbo Slice dead at 42

[Stickman]

**Saturday night was one of the most surreal evenings ever with an incredible high coming off UFC 199, which could be the card-of-the-year in 2016 and coupled with all the news during the show, the stories told from the fights and an excellent tribute to Muhammad Ali, it showcased the very best of the UFC. The high quickly dissolved when Ariel Helwani reported that he had been escorted out of The Forum in Los Angeles alongside his MMA Fighting colleagues, E. Casey Leydon and Esther Lin and their credentials were pulled by the UFC. Helwani had reported the news of Brock Lesnar and the UFC in the midst of finalizing an agreement for Lesnar to return at UFC 200 and broke the story during the preliminary card of the show last night. The news spread rapidly and was officially announced during the UFC 199 pay-per-view with an excellent commercial shot for 200 and the closing shot of Lesnar and the reveal he would fight at the show on July 9th. Helwani later stated he was escorted out for reporting a story and did nothing unethical .
Helwani did a lot of media yesterday to discuss the events and losing his UFC credentials, along with his colleagues. Helwani went on his own program, The MMA Hour, and discussed his entire tenure with FOX Sports, various incidents over the past years and outlining what led to Saturday’s incident. You're encouraged to listen to the entire show for the back story of what led up his credentials being pulled. To summarize his side of Saturday’s events, he was informed by a member of the UFC staff prior to the main event that Dana White wanted to speak with Helwani in the back and he asked if they could speak after the main event and led to a higher ranking official coming out and stating that Helwani had to come to the back now. Helwani went backstage along with Leydon and was instructed by White to get his things and leave, that he is no longer welcome there, to go cover Bellator instead, that he is too negative and also words were used, which Helwani would not get into. Helwani, Leydon and Lin were escorted out of the building to the parking lot and left The Forum at that time.

John Morgan from MMA Junkie brought up the removal of the media members to Dave Sholler at the post-fight press conference and Sholler declined to comment at the press conference, but did speak further to Lance Pugmire at the L.A. Times and provided the following statement:

I’m not saying you don’t have a job to report, but in this case [with Helwani], the professional standards are to reach out [to the UFC] for comment on a story you’re about to report, even if you get a no-comment.

**Onto the UFC 199 card itself, this was honestly one of the best UFC shows ever and featured everything you could ask for out of a show. The show did an announced crowd of 15,587. Below are all of the results from the show:
*Marco Polo Reyes def. Dong Hyun Kim by KO at 1:52 of Round 3 – This fight was insane and was fight-of-the-night and will be a contender for best fight of 2016. These two withstood so many shots from one another that it was concerning and not the type of fight you are going to go aspiring fighters as far as what type of fight to have for career longevity but the crowd loved it and these two put themselves on the map with this fight.
*Kevin Casey vs. Elvis Mutapcic fought to a split draw (29-28, 28-29, 28-28) – This was a close fight.
*Henrique da Silva def. Jonathan Wilson by TKO at 4:11 of Round 2 – da Silva was able to mount him in the second and finish him with strikes on top, it was a good fight.
*Sean Strickland def. Tom Breese by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – The two stood for the entire fight and was close throughout. Strickland apologized for the fight after, which was a stalemate for a lot of the duration and felt that Breese backed up too much throughout the fight.
*Alex Caceres def. Cole Miller by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) –This was probably the best Caceres has ever looked in the UFC with outstanding speed and varied combinations. Miller nearly caught him with an armbar in the final round but Caceres escaped and was a very exciting three-round fight.
*Jessica Andrade def. Jessica Penne by TKO at 2:56 of Round 2 – This was a one-sided beating by Andrade, who was cutting down from 135 pounds to 115. Andrade was always an aggressive fighter but now she’s fighting smaller women and didn’t tire at all with relentless flurries that Penne absorbed. It was a 10-8 first round and the second round was well on its way to being the same when the stoppage occurred and Andrade got a lot of attention at her new weight class with this performance.
*Beneil Dariush def. James Vick by KO at 4:16 of Round 1 – There were a pair of eye pokes by Vick. Dariush rocked him with a counter left and Vick was wobbly and another left ended the fight for Dariush.
*Brian Ortega def. Clay Guida by TKO at 4:40 of Round 3 – Guida was doing well standing in the first two rounds. Much like his win over Diego Brandao, Ortega turned it on in the third round with strikes and landed a picture-perfect knee and put Guida down and won the fight with 0:20 left in the fight.
*Dustin Poirier def. Bobby Green by TKO at 2:53 of Round 1 – Poirier looked excellent and his striking was fluid, stunning Green a number of times and getting the finish. Poirier is not 4-0 since returning to lightweight.
*Dan Henderson def. Hector Lombard by KO at 1:27 of Round 2 – Lombard landed some huge blows in the first that Henderson withstood. Henderson got an incredible reaction from the crowd and chants throughout the fight. In the second he landed a head kick and followed with an elbow to the side of the head that put Lombard out and was an incredible reaction. This was the last fight on Henderson’s UFC contract and stated after the fight that this may have been his last fight and will have to think about whether or not he will continue to fight.
*Max Holloway def. Ricardo Lamas by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) –Lamas had some moments in the third and they ended the fight by just throwing everything each had for an exciting finish. Holloway continues to improve fight-by-fight and has now won nine straight and has to be close to a title fight but is in a division where the main title is tied up with Conor McGregor.
*Dominick Cruz def. Urijah Faber by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 49-46) to retain the UFC bantamweight title – The only close round was the first and you could go either way on that round. Cruz was way too fast, got out of the way of Faber’s strikes and Cruz landed some big strikes of his own, which led to Faber tempering his output. After the fight, Faber noted for the first time that he is going to have consider if he’ll continue to fight.
*Michael Bisping def. Luke Rockhold by KO at 3:36 of Round 1 to win the UFC middleweight title – One of the biggest upsets the UFC has ever seen. Bisping landed an overhand left and followed with another left as Rockhold went down against the fence and Bisping followed with more strikes for the stoppage. The upset, the title win, the long journey and speech with his family in the cage afterwards was something out of a movie and capped off an excellent card.

**The Fight of the Night deservedly went to Polo Reyes and Dong Hyun Kim and the Performance bonuses went to Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson, all for $50,000.

**The post-fight press conference featured Bisping and Rockhold continuing to go at it with one another and having to be separated by officials after the presser concluded and Bisping used a gay slur to describe Rockhold. Bisping immediately realized he had made a mistake and joked to the media members at the stage area that he shouldn’t have said that, but video did surface online of the incident.. There is no doubt there is a lot of money in the rubber match between the two, but you also have Chris Weidman in the mix as he was being ear marked for the Madison Square Garden card in November, providing his neck heals properly.

**It was also announced at UFC 199 that Don Frye will be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame this year in the “Pioneer Wing” and joins Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Bob Meyrowitz in this year’s class (they will also announced a fight that will be inducted). Frye is one of the legendary personalities in the sport and won the UFC 8 and Ultimate Ultimate ’96 tournaments in the SEG era. He has deep ties in professional wrestling as well, having worked Antonio Inoki in Inoki’s retirement match in April 1998 on one of the biggest drawing wrestling cards in Japanese history. He is also synonymous with one of the best fights in Pride and MMA history with his fight against Yoshihiro Takayama from June 2002 and was a major player for both Pride and K-1 during that era in Japan. He last fought in December 2011 and had to retire as his injuries caught up to him and in particular, took a lot of damage during a fight with Ken Shamrock in February 2002. The induction ceremony will air on UFC Fight Pass on Sunday July 10th.

**The UFC’s next card is Saturday June 18th in Ottawa with Stephen Thompson vs. Rory MacDonald in the main event and Donald Cerrone fighting Patrick Cote.

**As a closing point, the UFC really came out of this Conor McGregor saga as the clear-cut winner in this public standoff. Hard to know the timeline of when the Brock Lesnar talks began, but it would have been too much to put Lesnar and McGregor on the same card if both were available for July 9th. Instead, the UFC gets a major number with UFC 200 and now McGregor-Diaz will make UFC 202 a major card as well, and probably does no less than 1.5 million buys again because the rematch is so much bigger today than it was two months ago. It was also a small window that the UFC would have been able to coordinate a card for Lesnar to fight on with 200 being the best one possible. UFC could have had him for 201, but by the end of July, the WWE would probably want him doing television to build SummerSlam and there was no way he could do 202 on the eve of SummerSlam and work that card as well.





**Jeremy Botter of FloCombat is reporting that the UFC is targeting UFC 202 to feature the debut of Phil “CM Punk” Brooks against Mickey Gall. This would fall on the same card as the rematch with Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor on August 20th.

[Stickman]

**There is more news coming out regarding the sudden passing of Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson, who died last monday evening in Florida. Ferguson’s manager, Mike Imber spoke to Brett Okamoto of ESPN and stated that Ferguson had gone to Germany back in March and fell ill while visiting the country. He went to the hospital this past Friday with chest pains and he remained in hospital over the weekend and stopped breathing at one point. The South Florida Sun Sentinel has reported that Ferguson was informed he was in need of a heart transplant and was suffering from congestive heart failure and a liver mass was also discovered. They were in the midst of preparing to transport Ferguson to Cleveland, Ohio when he died on Monday. TMZ has also reported that all of Ferguson’s pre-fight medicals before his February fight with Dhafir “Dada 5000” Harris in Texas showed no signs of a heart condition and an unnamed Bellator representative told TMZ they would have never allowed him to fight if a condition was discovered.

Ferguson was one of the most popular fighters in MMA history and helped get Elite XC onto network television on CBS in May 2008, where he headlined the inaugural network event with James Thompson and drew 6.5 million viewers for their fight. Ferguson was also involved in the final Elite XC card in history in October 2008, losing to last-minute replacement Seth Petruzelli, who took the spot of an injured Ken Shamrock on the day of the event. Following the fight, Petruzelli did an interview suggesting that there was a knockout bonus and no submission incentive with the idea the promotion wanted him to keep the fight standing with Ferguson. This caused a big controversy and CBS was not happy about this story, which Petruzelli backed off of after it became a big story.

The promotion went under and Ferguson next went to the UFC and was a member of the tenth season of the Ultimate Fighter with all heavyweights. Ferguson’s drawing power was not hurt at all with the Petruzelli loss as many predicted at the time, and his taped fight with Roy Nelson did 5.3 million viewers on Spike and peaked with more 6 million watching a fight that was taped months prior. The UFC put Ferguson in two more fights with a TUF 10 Finale fight against the popular Houston Alexander with the idea it would end quickly with one of them knocking the other out, instead it was a dull 15-minute decision win for Ferguson. He would only fight one more time for the UFC, where he was stopped by Matt Mitrione at UFC 113 in May 2010 and was cut after the one loss.

He then took a sabbatical from MMA and went into professional boxing and was promoted by former Elite XC promoter Gary Shaw. He rang up a record of 7-0 with six knockouts but never was able to gain the same attention that he received in MMA. He was brought back to MMA in 2015 under the Bellator banner with Scott Coker serving as the president of the promotion. His first fight with the organization was against Ken Shamrock, with the fight that was originally to happen in 2008. The fight was not pretty and Shamrock took the back of Ferguson but failed to lock on a proper rear-naked choke and Ferguson got back to his feet and stopped the fight with strikes. Despite the heavy criticism for the fight, it broke the Bellator viewership record with 2.3 million watching the fight. That record would be broken this past February when he and Dada 5000 did 2.5 million for their fight, which was a way worse fight than the Shamrock one. Ferguson would also fail his post-fight drug test after the Dada 5000 fight with an elevated T/E ratio and the anabolic steroid Nandrolone found in his system. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation gave him a soft suspension of 90 days and allowed Bellator to book him for a July 16th fight against James Thompson in London, England. His manager noted to ESPN that he was either about to contact Bellator to cancel the Thompson rematch or had already canceled it by the time he was in the hospital over the past week.

Ferguson leaves behind six children and was only 42 years old.

**The ban that was issued to Ariel Helwani and MMA Fighting by the UFC was officially lifted on Monday night. Following two-days of mainstream criticism for the UFC’s handling of the situation by banning Helwani and his team from obtaining credentials to future events, the UFC reversed their decision and released the following statement:

Following a conversation with the editorial team at SB Nation, UFC will not prevent MMAFighting.com from receiving media credentials to cover live UFC events. We respect the role the media plays in our sport and beyond, including MMAFighting’s ability to report news. However, in our opinion, we believe the recurring tactics used by its lead reporter extended beyond the purpose of journalism. We feel confident our position has now been adequately communicated to the SB Nation editorial team.

UFC’s goal as the world’s leading mixed martial arts promotion is to cultivate interest in its world-class athletes and events, and deliver for the fans. We will continue to introduce this sport and its athletes to new fans across the world, and we will do so by working alongside media across all platforms.

**There was an interesting aspect regarding Brock Lesnar’s return to the UFC and how it would be handled by USADA with a retired athlete making his return. The policy states that a retired fighter must make their intention to return known to USADA and then be subjected to four-months of testing before they fight again. The UFC does have the right to exempt certain fighters for “exceptional circumstances”. The UFC issued a statement and explained that Lesnar will not be subjected to four-months of testing because he retired long before the USADA policy came into effect with Lesnar last fighting in December 2011 and the USADA policy taking effect in July 2015. They added that talks had been going on for some time, but that the deal with Lesnar was not signed until this past Friday. Lesnar will be subjected to all of the anti-doping policies from USADA but the four-month testing period is being waived for him.

**Josh Koscheck is off of the Bellator 158 card on July 16th, where he was scheduled to have a rematch with Paul Daley in London, England. ESPN reported that Douglas Lima will be taking the spot of Koscheck on the card. The reason for Koscheck withdrawing from the fight was not disclosed.

**UFC welterweight Tim Means joins Yoel Romero as the latest fighter to be able to prove they had a tainted supplement, which resulted in failing a drug test under USADA. Means was flagged for a violation this past January when a drug test he took revealed the banned substance Ostarine in his sample. Means was removed from his upcoming fight the following month with Donald Cerrone. Today USADA announced that Means had provided a sample of a supplement he took, which didn’t list Ostarine on the label, they tested the supplement and found that Ostarine was found in the supplement. Means was facing a two-year suspension from the sport and the suspension was reduced to six-months and is retroactive to February 3rd.

**Former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis has announced that he will be cutting down to fight at featherweight in his next fight. Pettis has lost his last three fights in the lightweight with a title loss to Rafael dos Anjos in March 2015, followed by a close decision loss to Eddie Alvarez this past January and then dropping a decision to Edson Barboza in April.

**On Friday, the UFC issued a statement that featherweight Chad Mendes had been flagged for a possible drug violation by USADA after an out-of-competition drug test. Mendes has yet to comment on the story and last fought in December of last year, where he was stopped by Frankie Edgar in the opening round of their bout.

[Stickman]

**The UFC announced today that they will return to Vancouver, British Columbia for their next FOX event on Saturday August 27th. The event will be headlined by Anthony Pettis as he moves down to featherweight for the first time and meets Charles Oliveira. Pettis lost his last three fights at lightweight and the former lightweight champion announced his move down to 145 recently. This is the fourth time the UFC has run a card at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver and their first since UFC 174 in June 2014. The UFC has also added that Garreth McLellan and Alessio Di Chirico will fight on the Vancouver card in a middleweight bout.

**MMA Junkie was the first to report that former Bellator lightweight champion Will Brooks has signed with the UFC and will fight Ross Pearson on Friday July 8th at the TUF 23 Finale card in Las Vegas. Brooks had one fight remaining on his Bellator deal and when it became apparent a new deal was not going to be reached, he was stripped of the title and let out of his deal. Brooks won the interim version of the Bellator title in May 2014 and became the full champion later that year, defeating Chandler in a rematch in November 2014. Since then, Brooks successfully defended his title with decisions over Dave Jansen and Marcin Held.

**The UFC sale news is being closely monitored with news coming out that bids have been submitted and ESPN and others reporting that there was a bid placed by WME/IMG in conjunction with the Dalian Wanda Group out of China and another bid from China Media Capital and both bids in the neighborhood of $4.1 billion, according to ESPN’s report. Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter had previously reported that the bids are for 100% of the company. In Darren Rovell’s report for ESPN, he stated that WME was looking for additional investors and one could be the Kraft Group, that owns the New England Patriots, but the group declined to comment on the story. The UFC is obviously staying very quiet on the subject with Dana White providing a “no comment” to ESPN on their report.

**Brock Lesnar received his BJJ blue belt this past week from Rodrigo Comprido. Lesnar received his bluet belt along with Marty Morgan and former Bellator heavyweight Cole Konrad.

**The UFC has announced that Alexander Gustafsson will be returning on September 3rd and fighting Jan Blachowicz in Hamburg, Germany. This will be Gustafsson’s first fight since last October, where he was defeated Daniel Cormier in the main event of UFC 192 for the light heavyweight title. The Hamburg card will be headlined by Josh Barnett vs. Andrei Arlovski. They have also added a bantamweight fight between Brad Pickett and Henry Briones to the Germany event.

**Miesha Tate will be a guest on Conan O’Brien this Monday night on TBS.

**The UFC officially announced the following fights for the August 6th Fight Night card in Salt Lake City, Utah on this week’s UFC Tonight show:
*Cub Swanson vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri
*Court McGee vs. Dominique Steele
*Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Zak Cummings
*Viktor Pesta vs. Marcin Tybura
*Thales Leites vs. Chris Camozzi

**The UFC returns to Canada tonight with a Fight Night event from Ottawa, Ontario and their first show in the city at the TD Place Arena. All fighters weighed in earlier in the day on Friday and only Randa Markos missed weight for her strawweight bout.
MAIN CARD (10:30pm ET on FS 1, TSN 4 and 5 in Canada)
*Rory MacDonald (170.5) vs. Stephen Thompson (170.5)
*Donald Cerrone (171) vs. Patrick Cote (170)
*Steve Bosse (205) vs. Sean O’Connell (205)
*Olivier Aubin-Mercier (155) vs. Thibault Gouti (156)
*Valerie Letourneau (125.5) vs. Joanne Calderwood (125.5)

PRELIMINARY CARD (8:30pm ET on FS 1, Fight Network in Canada)
*Jason Saggo (155) vs. Leandro Silva (155.5)
*Misha Cirkunov (205.5) vs. Ion Cutelaba (202.5)
*Krzysztof Jotko (184.5) vs. Tamdan McCrory (185)
*Joe Soto (135) vs. Chris Beal (134)

FIGHT PASS CARD (6:45pm ET)
*Elias Theodorou (186) vs. Sam Alvey (185.5)
*Randa Markos (117.5) vs. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger (115)
*Colby Covington (170) vs. Jonathan Muenier (170.5)
*Ali Bagautinov (125.5) vs. Geane Herrera (125)

**Fedor Emelianenko narrowly got past Fabio Maldonado on Friday in the main event of the EFN 50 event that streamed on Fight Pass from Russia. The first round was insane with Emelianenko nearly stopped and was so wobbly on his feet. It was amazing the referee allowed it to continue. Emelianenko recovered and fought a close second round and won the third. Emelianenko was given the majority decision victory on scores of 29-28, 29-28 and one judge had it 28-28. Emelianenko only had a one-fight deal with EFN and there is a strong belief he wants to finally go to the UFC but he hardly looked like a fighter that can contend with the top heavyweights in the UFC in this fight with Maldonado, who is really a light heavyweight.

**Here are the main card results from the Bellator 156 event on Friday night from Fresno, California and airing on Spike TV:
*Chris Honeycutt def. Mikkel Parlo by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*John Salter def. Brandon Halsey by triangle choke at 4:03 of Round 1 – Salter connected with a head kick early and sliced open a cut by the eye of Halsey and resulted in a bloody fight before the submission.
*Chidi Njokuani def. Thiago Jambo by KO at 2:39 of Round 3
*Eduardo Dantas def. Marcos Galvao by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-44, 50-43) to win the Bellator bantamweight title – Dantas was excellent and this was a one-sided fight. There was easily one and possibly two 10-8 rounds in this fight and Galvao was never in it and his face was a mess by the end of the fight.

**They had a special tribute for Kimbo Slice on the Spike broadcast and will be airing a special on the late fighter next Friday before the Dynamite II card.

[Stickman]

**In what could be the biggest MMA story ever, FloCombat’s Jeremy Botter is reporting that a bid of $4.2 billion has been accepted by the UFC for purchase of the company. The winning bid comes from the group that consists of WME/IMG, the Dalian Wanda Group from China, the Kraft Group and Tencent Holdings. It had previously been reported that the bids were for 100% ownership of the company. Bids were submitted last week and it was believed that Zuffa would be making a decision shortly after receiving them. Botter has further information on the FloCombat site, stating that Dana White is expected to remain on and what the future could be for the C.E.O. position in the company.

**USADA has updated their website with the number of random drug tests that have been administered. In the span of two-weeks, Brock Lesnar has already been drug tested five times by USADA.

**Here's a rundown of the UFC card from Saturday night, which had an announced crowd of 10,490 at the TD Place Arena in Ottawa and a gate of $1,278,250 with the following results:
*Ali Bagautinov def. Geane Herrera by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Colby Covington def. Jonathan Muenier by rear-naked choke at 0:54 of Round 3
*Randa Markos def. Jocelyn-Jones Lybarger by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Elias Theodorou def. Sam Alvey by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Joe Soto def. Chris Beal by rear-naked choke at 3:39 of Round 1
*Krzysztof Jotko def. Tamdan McCrory by KO at 0:59 of Round 1
*Misha Cirkunov def. Ion Cutelaba by arm-triangle choke at 1:22 of Round 3 – Cirkunov has a lot of promise and he’s in a division that doesn’t have a ton of depth in contenders.
*Jason Saggo def. Leandro Silva by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Joanne Calderwood def. Valerie Letourneau by TKO at 2:51 of Round 3 – This was a weird fight and it should have been stopped earlier when Letourneau turned her back to Calderwood and referee Jerin Valel called a break in the action, Letourneau later turned her back again and Calderwood attacked her and Letourneau took more shots than was necessary and it should have been over as soon as she turned. Calderwood did look great in this fight and this was first women’s fight at 125 pounds in the UFC.
*Olivier Aubin-Mercier def. Thibault Gouti by rear-naked choke at 2:28 of Round 3
*Steve Bosse def. Sean O’Connell by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-27) – This was a fight-of-the-year contender and probably will be the fight that these two are linked to for the rest of their careers. O’Connell won the first, Bosse the second and it was a close third round but I had O’Connell winning 29-28. It really was irrelevant who won as both made their careers with this fight and was a fight you should definitely watch if you missed it.
*Donald Cerrone def. Patrick Cote by TKO at 2:35 of Round 3 – A stellar performance from Cerrone and a smart game plan, he used takedowns early and then out struck Cote throughout the fight, dropping him on a number of occasions. Cote is a real guy at welterweight and I hope Cerrone sticks to 170 as he looked good at the weight and this was one of his best performances to date.
*Stephen Thompson def. Rory MacDonald by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 48-47) – This was a tactical fight and there were boos from the audience, but this is what happens with elite level strikers at the top of their division and Thompson fought a very good fight and never allowed a brawl to take place. I scored it 50-45 for Thompson with the first round being very close and could have gone to either fighter. The win likely earns Thompson a title fight and for MacDonald, this was the final fight on his UFC deal.

There was no question that the Fight of the Night bonus went to Steve Bosse and Sean O’Connell and the Performance bonuses went to Donald Cerrone and Krzysztof Jotko, all for $50,000.

**The UFC is now off until International Fight Week and then will hold four events in the span of a week with shows on July 7th card (Rafael dos Anjos vs. Eddie Alvarez), July 8th (TUF 23 Finale), July 9th (UFC 200) and July 13th (Michael Chiesa vs. Tony Ferguson in South Dakota).

**The UFC has announced that the lightweight bout between Diego Sanchez and Joe Lauzon will be the Fight Pass featured bout at UFC 200 on July 9th.

[Rangi Guy]

So word around the camp-fire is that Georges St-Pierre is ready to make his return and wants a shot at Bisping - that's a fight I'd get excited about

[Stickman]

**Jeremy Botter of FloCombat is now reporting that the sale of the UFC has gone through with the group led by WME/IMG (which also includes the Dalian Wanda Group out of China, the Kraft Group and Tencent Holdings). Botter had reported earlier this week that the bid has been accepted but cautioned that the sale was not final. This led to an internal memo being drafted by the UFC and sent to employees, stating the UFC had not been sold and the UFC’s legal team contacting Botter about his report. Botter though has stood by his reporting and updated the story this morning with the sale going through.

TMZ has come out with a story this afternoon denying that the sale has gone through.

**Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card from Ottawa averaged 964,000 viewers on FS 1 for the main card, which had a later than usual start and was delayed on FS 1 due to NASCAR and didn’t begin until 10:53pm Eastern. The card was headlined by Stephen Thompson defeating Rory MacDonald by unanimous decision after a five-round fight. The preliminary portion averaged 312,000 viewers on FS 2.

**This past Friday’s Bellator 156 card averaged 482,000 viewers for the live broadcast on Spike and was headlined by Eduardo Dantas defeating Marcos Galvao to regain the bantamweight title.


**CM Punk (Phil Brooks) will make his UFC debut on September 10th at UFC 203 in Cleveland, Ohio against Mickey Gall.

Brooks appeared on the “Unfiltered” podcast on Thursday morning with Jim Norton and Matt Serra to announce the news.

Brooks walked out of the WWE in January 2014 (in an interesting note, he walked out prior to Raw in Cleveland at the same arena he make his UFC debut in) and was later released by the company and served his release in June of that year.

In December of 2014, it was announced on the UFC 181 pay-per-view that Brooks had signed with the UFC and would begin training at Roufusport in Milwaukee in January 2015.

Gall earned the chance to fight Brooks after he defeated Mike Jackson this past February and has a 2-0 professional record. Gall will be a sizeable favorite in this fight and trains throughout the Northeast with various gyms, including with Jim and Dan Miller in New Jersey.

**For those seeking out more information on the UFC sale, I’d encourage you to catch Jeremy Botter’s appearance on Josh Nason’s show on the Wrestling Observer site. Botter added more details to his reporting, the response he has received from the UFC since the initial report about the company accepting the winning bid, the impact of sale for the UFC in China and more.

**Bellator will hold their second “Dynamite” card on Friday night from St. Louis and will feature the MMA portion beginning at 8pm Eastern and the kickboxing immediately after at 11pm on Spike TV. The MMA card is headlined by Quinton Jackson vs. Satoshi Ishii in a 215 pound catch weight fight along with a rematch between Michael Chandler and Patricky “Pitbull” Freire for the vacant lightweight title. The kickboxing card features a rematch between Joe Schilling and Hisaki Kato, a bout between Raymond Daniels and Stefano Bruno and Keri Anne Melendez (the wife of Gilbert Melendez) taking on Sarah Howell. Weigh-ins took place this morning with Missouri adopting the earlier weigh-in procedures that other commissions of late have been implementing.

**Paige VanZant announced on ESPN SportsCenter this morning that she will be fighting Bec Rawlings on August 27th on FOX from Vancouver, British Columbia. VanZant is coming off of the most recent season of “Dancing with the Stars” and did very well on the show and was performing in front of 10-12 million viewers each week. VanZant last fought in December, where she was defeated by Rose Namajunas and stopped in the fifth round. Rawlings has won her last two fights with wins over Lisa Ellis and Seo Hee Ham.

**A number of UFC fighters have been nominated for ESPY Awards, which will be airing on ABC next month and will be hosted by John Cena. Conor McGregor has been nominated for Best Breakthrough Athlete, Holly Holm has been nominated for both Best Play of the Year (stopping Ronda Rousey) and Biggest Upset and both McGregor and Robbie Lawler have been nominated for Fighter of the Year.

**The UFC has announced a card for Manila in the Philippines for October 15th and will be their second card in the country with the first taking place in May of last year.

**UFC president Dana White gets dunked during the coaches’ challenge on Ultimate Fighter:

[Stickman]

**During Paige VanZant’s appearance on ESPN on Thursday, she not only announced her fight with Bec Rawlings on August 27th on the UFC on FOX card from Vancouver. VanZant confirmed during her interview with Hannah Storm that she would not be doing SummerSlam, after her management had stated a few weeks ago that the WWE was interested in using her for the August event. VanZant stated that she was open to doing something with the WWE down the road but it focused on the fight with Rawlings and also added she will no longer be doing the “Kickboxer” movie because of her focus on the August 27th bout.


**A week after it was reported that Anthony Johnson was off the July 23rd UFC on FOX card due to personal reasons, the UFC has announced that a new opponent will not be sought out for Glover Texeira and the fight will be booked on a future card. The light heavyweight bout was going to serve as the co-feature on the FOX event from Chicago and the main event pits Holly Holm against Valentina Shevchenko.

**Below are the results from the Bellator 157: Dynamite II event from Friday night at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis with a mixture of MMA and kickboxing fights:
*Matt Mitrione def. Carl Seumanutafa by KO at 3:22 of Round 1 – Mitrione was dropped with a shot and was able to recover and was standing with Seumanutafa on his back and Mitrione dove down and drilled him for the stoppage.
*Gloria Peritore def. Denise Kielholtz by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) in a kickboxing bout
*Ilima Lei MacFarlane def. Rebecca Ruth by rear-naked choke at 3:00 of Round 2
*Kevin Ross def. Justin Houghton by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-27) in a kickboxing bout
*Michael Chandler def. Patricky “Pitbull” Freire by KO at 2:14 to become the Bellator lightweight champion
*Quinton Jackson def. Satoshi Ishii by split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28) – There is NO WAY that Jackson won the first round and that score was nuts. Many had Jackson winning 29-28 and you could go either way on 29-28 scores but there was no question that Ishii won the first round.
*Keri Anne Melendez def. Sarah Howell by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Raymond Daniels def. Stefano Bruno by TKO at 1:45 of Round 1 – this was a tremendous finish with a kick to the liver and Daniels pointed out Georges St-Pierre, who was in his corner and working at Tristar for this fight.
*Hisaki Kato def. Joe Schilling by KO at 2:59 of Round 2 – Outstanding knockout with Kato hitting a perfect spinning back fist to Schilling, which looked brutal in slow motion for the replay. Kato has now defeated Schilling in both MMA and kickboxing.

**Immediately after Matt Mitrione’s win on the card, they announced he will be fighting on July 16th in London, England against Oli Thompson. This was crazy as Mitrione had clearly been rocked by a shot and regardless of a possible concussion, will probably have a medical suspension and the idea that he’s going to come back in three-weeks seems awfully crazy. If Mitrione had suffered no damage, it would still be pushing it, but with a near knockout blow that he went through, it just seems like a bad idea all around to be rushing guys back so quick and a commission should be stepping in to stop that kind of practice.

**Spike TV ran a special one-hour tribute for the late Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson on Friday and it was very well done. It featured interviews with his manager “Icey” Mike Imber, his brother and children and also an interview was done with Dana White and appeared to be a new one, which would be the first time White has done something with Spike TV since they left Spike at the end of 2011. There were also messages sent in from people such as Rashad Evans, Bill Goldberg, Mick Foley and others.

**A women’s bantamweight fight between Jessica Eye and Bethe Correia has been added to the UFC 201 card on July 30th in Atlanta, Georgia.

**Below is the full and complete UFC 200 card for Saturday July 9th and where all the fights are being positioned:

MAIN CARD (10pm ET on pay-per-view)
*Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones for the UFC light heavyweight title
*Brock Lesnar vs. Mark Hunt
*Miesha Tate vs. Amanda Nunes for the UFC women’s bantamweight title
*Jose Aldo vs. Frankie Edgar for the interim featherweight title
*Cain Velasquez vs. Travis Browne

PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm ET on FS 1)
*Cat Zingano vs. Julianna Pena
*Johny Hendricks vs. Kelvin Gastelum
*T.J. Dillashaw vs. Raphael Assuncao
*Sage Northcutt vs. Enrique Marin

FIGHT PASS CARD (6:30pm ET)
*Diego Sanchez vs. Joe Lauzon
*Thiago Santos vs. Gegard Mousasi
*Jim Miller vs. Takanori Gomi

[Stickman]

**News broke on Sunday night that former UFC and MFC fighter Ryan Jimmo was killed late Saturday night after a hit-and-run incident in Edmonton, Alberta. The incident took place in a parking lot where Jimmo allegedly approached the driver and as Jimmo was walking back to his own car, the driver accelerated and hit Jimmo, who was treated and later pronounced dead from the attack. The driver took off . Jimmo began to fight professionally in 2007 and would fight the majority of his early career with the Alberta-based Maximum Fighting Championship and became the promotion’s light heavyweight champion. Jimmo joined the UFC in 2012 and debuted at UFC 149 in Calagry with a 7-second KO win over Anthony Perosh. Jimmo had a 3-4 record during his tenure in the UFC and added wins over Igor Pokrajac and Sean O’Connell and was cut following back-to-back losses.

The Edmonton Journal reported that the Edmonton Police have found the truck that is believed to be the truck that hit Ryan Jimmo this past weekend. A description was put out for a “dark coloured, older model single-cab truck with a bed cover, oversized tires on chrome and clear tail lights” with the truck in question being located this past Monday night. An autopsy was performed this week on Jimmo and it was ruled that he died from blunt force trauma.

**BJ Penn has been given a six-month suspension from USADA for use of an IV back in March, which is not allowed at any time by a fighter under the new guidelines. Penn admitted to using the IV to USADA and was unaware it was banned outside of competition. The suspension is retroactive to this past March and he will be eligible to fight as of September 25th. Penn was pulled from the UFC 199 card earlier this month after the USADA violation was announced and Penn was replaced by Alex Caceres on the show to face Cole Miller.

**The Bellator 157 card from Friday night averaged 601,000 viewers for the first portion of the card that ran from 8-11pm Eastern and was headlined by Quinton Jackson vs. Satoshi Ishii. The Bellator Kickboxing event that immediately followed averaged 418,000 viewers on Spike TV.

**Michael Chiesa announced on Tuesday night that he has been forced to withdraw from his fight with Tony Ferguson on July 13th due to a back injury. The lightweight fight was scheduled to headline the card in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and now they will be moving the bantamweight fight between Michael McDonald and John Lineker into the main event slot. Ferguson will remain on the card and will now be fighting Landon Vannata, who is 8-0 and will be making his UFC debut.

**The Fight Night card on July 13th has also lost a featherweight fight between Ryan Hall and Alex White. The UFC announced that White suffered an injury and there will not be a replacement.

**Bellator has added a featherweight fight between Daniel Weichel and Emmanuel Sanchez to their July 22nd event in Mulvane, Kansas. The same card will be headlined by Darrion Caldwell taking on Joe Taimanglo and Melvin Guillard taking on Dave Rickels.

**The UFC 202 card grown with a numbers being added to the August 20th card in Las Vegas card. The show is headlined by the rematch between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor and will also feature he following fights:
*Anthony Johnson vs. Glover Teixeira – this was originally scheduled for the July 23rd card on FOX but Johnson had to withdraw due to a personal issue
*Carlos Condit vs. Demian Maia – a great fight at welterweight and Condit’s first fight since his loss to Robbie Lawler this past January
*Donald Cerrone vs. Rick Story – this will be Cerrone’s third straight fight at welterweight
*Neil Magny vs. Dong Hyun Kim
*Hyun Gyu Lim vs. Sultan Aliev
*Alberto Uda vs. Marvin Vettori

[Stickman]

**The CBC has an interview with Roxie Reece, who was Ryan Jimmo’s girlfriend and was with Jimmo in their car when Jimmo was struck and killed last weekend by a truck. Reece noted they had just got engaged hours earlier and were out when a truck was following them very closely and Jimmo pulled over, he approached the truck and then the guys allegedly said something back to Jimmo and he returned, Jimmo left again and this time the truck hit Jimmo and he died shortly thereafter. Reece got out to check on Jimmo and was yelling for someone to call 911 as she didn’t have a phone and Jimmo’s phone was locked.

**The UFC has announced that middleweight Ricardo Abreu has been flagged for a potential drug violation for an out-of-competition drug test. Abreu was a fighter on Ultimate Fighter Brazil Season 3 and has had two fights with the UFC and coming off a split decision loss to Jake Collier in June 2015.

**UFC heavyweight Daniel Omielanczuk recently tested positive for the drug Meldonium, which has received a lot of attention this year because of tennis star Maria Sharapova being suspended over the drug. WADA put it on its banned list on January 1st but there has been evidence it can remain in your system for a long period of time and it is possible an athlete could have taken it before it was banned and it is still present in their system. As a result of the questions over Meldonium, Omielanczuk is not going to be suspended and will remain on the July 13th Fight Night card in South Dakota against Alexey Oleinik.

**The new USADA stance on Meldonium also affects lightweight Islam Makhachev because that was the drug he was flagged for back in April and pulled from his fight with Drew Dober just after he weighed in for the fight. Makhachev will not be suspended and will be available to fight now.

**Bellator has announced that the heavyweight bout between Matt Mitrione and Oli Thompson is official for the July 16th card in London, England. This will be a three-week turnaround for Mitrione, who defeated Carl Seumanutafa last weekend in St. Louis but was dropped by a shot and recovered during the fight. There was concern over Mitrione fighting again so quickly after the knockdown and stating he didn’t remember it when being interviewed by Jimmy Smith after he came back and won the fight.

**An interesting featherweight fight between Artem Lobov and Chris Avila has been added to the UFC 202 card on August 20th in Las Vegas, which is headlined by the rematch between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor. Lobov is a teammate of McGregor’s and Avila trains with Diaz.

**Below is this past week’s UFC 200 conference call and featured Brock Lesnar on the call:


**Below is the full UFC 200 “It’s Time” special with a preview of the top four fights at UFC 200.


**Below is the first episode of this week’s UFC Embedded series and features Jon Jones weighing himself and being at just over 216 pounds with a relatively easy cut coming up it appears:

[Rangi Guy]

Reece got out to check on Jimmo and was yelling for someone to call 911 as she didn’t have a phone and Jimmo’s phone was locked.

You can still call emergency services from a locked phone - she wanted him taken out!

[Rangi Guy]

Jon Jones dropped from UFC200 due to potential doping

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-spor ... or-ufc-200

Kiwi Mark Hunt's heavyweight showdown with Brock Lesnar at UFC 200 has been elevated to the sole main event after Jon Jones was pulled from the card due to a potential doping violation.