**Here are the results from the UFC Fight Night card from Saturday night in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Vivent Smart Home Arena in front of 6,689 and a gate of $481,033:
*Justin Ledet def. Chase Sherman by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Cub Swanson def. Tatsuya Kawajiri by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Teruto Ishihara def. Horacio Gutierrez by KO at 2:32 of Round 1 – Ishihara caught him with a counter left and stunned Gutierrez and followed with a series of follow up strikes for the win.
*David Teymur def. Jason Novelli by KO at 1:25 of Round 2 – After the fight, Teymur challenged Sage Northcutt.
*Marcin Tybura def. Viktor Pesta by KO at 0:53 of Round 2
*Court McGee def. Dominique Steele by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) – McGee nearly stopped him in the first round, the next two rounds were very close.
*Maryna Moroz def. Danielle Taylor by split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28) – I felt Moroz won 29-28, Taylor was giving him a huge amount of reach and this was not a very entertaining fight with Moroz throwing a lot but landing very little.
*Trevor Smith def. Joe Gigliotti by unanimous decision (30-26 all) – I scored it 30-25 for Smith, he dominated this fight and the final two round should have been 10-8 rounds. Gigliotti was an unbeaten prospect making his UFC debut.
*Santiago Ponzinibbio def. Zak Cummings by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) – A good fight but Ponzinibbio was faster with his striking and really pulled away in the third round.
*Thales Leites def. Chris Camozzi by rear-naked choke at 2:58 of Round 3 – Leites totally dominated this fight with his grappling and when getting the back he was landing lots of strikes to prevent any stand up. The crowd booed but Leites had a great performance.
*Dennis Bermudez def. Rony “Jason” Bezerra by unanimous decision (30-27 30-27, 30-26) – Jason had not fought since May of last year after failing a drug test for a banned diuretic. Bermudez looked great in this fight, easily winning the first two rounds and then Jason had a competitive round in the third but was sliced open during the fight from a Bermudez short elbow. After the fight, Bermudez challenged Frankie Edgar to fight on the Madison Square Garden show.
*Yair Rodriguez def. Alex Caceres by split decision (48-47, 46-49, 48-47) – The score card from judge Derek Cleary for Alex Caceres is impossible to justify as most would have given Rodriguez the fight 4-1 or 3-2 at worst. Rodriguez is something else to watch with his high level of Tae Kwon Do but couldn’t keep the pace he set in the first two rounds. Caceres capitalized in the third round and won the round with his striking and then had a close fourth round and Rodriguez definitely won the fifth.

**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Yair Rodriguez and Alex Caceres and the Performance bonuses went to Marcin Tybura and Teruto Ishihara, all for $50,000.

**The UFC has next weekend off (which is their last Saturday without a show until…October 22nd). Their next card is the big UFC 202 pay-per-view on August 20th with the rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz.

**The UFC middleweight title fight between Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson is now official for the main event of UFC 204 on Saturday October 8th in Manchester, England. Henderson has stated that he will be retiring after this fight regardless of the outcome and is a rematch from UFC 100 in July 2009, where Henderson stopped Bisping in the second round.

**Sean Strickland has suffered an injury and he is off of the UFC 202 card where he was to fight Tim Means and the UFC is now seeking a replacement.

**The Los Angeles Daily News reported that Ian McCall will get his chance to fight at UFC 203 on September 10th in Cleveland, Ohio against Ray Borg in a flyweight bout. McCall was scheduled to fight Justin Scoggins last weekend at UFC 201 but the fight was scrapped when Scoggins alerted the UFC that he would not be able to make the weight for the fight and is moving up to bantamweight.

Conor McGregor calls WWE superstars "messed up pussies"

The UFC rankings have taken a major hit. Over the weekend, the promotion removed three of their stars from the rankings due to those fighters being flagged by USADA for failed tests. One of them was Jon Jones, the UFC interim light heavyweight champion. Another was heavyweight Brock Lesnar. The final one was former UFC light heavyweight champion and perennial middleweight contender Lyoto Machida.

Jones had been listed as the interim champion on the rankings, and his removal could indicate that he has been stripped of that title by the promotion. The UFC has not publicly commented on that though. Jones was set to fight in a title unification bout against Daniel Cormier in the UFC 200 headliner, but was forced out of the bout just days before the July 9th event due to testing positive for two estrogen blockers.

Lesnar, the WWE superstar, returned to the cage for the first time in five years to take on Mark Hunt at the same UFC 200 event. He defeated Hunt by decision, but it came out after the fight that he failed a test for a similar estrogen blocker in pre-fight testing. Due to the time needed to actually conduct the tests, the failure wasn't discovered until after the fight according to USADA and the UFC. Lesnar also failed his fight night test for the same substance. He had been in the eight spot in the heavyweight rankings.

Estrogen blockers are banned by WADA because they can be used to mask steroid use. Jones has implied that his failure came from a tainted supplement. Lesnar, who is back with WWE, has only said that he will get to the bottom of the issue.

The final removal was Machida, who admitted to using a banned substance (though he didn't know it was banned) way back in April. It's unclear why he is just being removed now, but he was. He had been ranked in the eight spot at 185 pounds.

**A group called the Professional Fighters Association announced their formation today via press release with the effort designed to unionize fighters in the UFC. The group is led by agent Jeff Borris, Lucas Middlebrook, Callie Mendenhall and Andrew Zimbalist. In the press release, they state that their goal is organize the fighters and in an effort to establish collective bargaining as per the National Labor Relations Act. They stress in the press release that one of their biggest objectives is to address the current revenue split between the UFC and its fighters, which the PFA is claiming is 85-15 split in favor of the UFC.

The consistent language from the PFA indicates that they are only addressing UFC fighters and forming an association with the one promotion and would not be inclusive to other fighters. There have been a number of attempts to start a fighter’s union or association with the MMAFA (MMA Fighters Association) being another that has been working on this for over a year and are currently supporting the Muhammad Ali Act being expanded to include MMA.

**Jon Jones has accepted a plea agreement in regards to his alleged drag racing incident from this past March. TMZ was the first to report that Jones was in court in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Thursday morning and plead guilty to unlawful use of modification of exhaust systems and improper display of a registration plate with the other charges thrown out. Jones was given 60 hours of community service to complete and orders to attend an aggressive driving course. A UFC official spoke to TMZ and stated that Jones has already completed 51 hours of community service and completed the driving course.


**Georges St-Pierre is currently in Israel and spoke to Ram Gilboa of Bloody Elbow. In the interview, St-Pierre stated that he is set on returning to fight and has recently entered into the drug testing pool by USADA and is opting to get tested prior to any return. St-Pierre never officially retired and also stopped fighting well before the USADA era took effect last summer and would likely be afforded the exemption from a four-month testing process, just as Brock Lesnar was. It is worth noting that because of this, even though St-Pierre is volunteering for the testing, this likely wouldn’t keep him from fighting before the end of the year if such an option presented itself. St-Pierre also revealed that the fight with Michael Bisping was presented to him for a possible card in Toronto this December (the UFC is expected to run Toronto on December 10th) but that Bisping is now fighting Dan Henderson and that fight is off the table. He stated that talks with the UFC halted after the news of the sale to WME-IMG but are heating up again. He addressed the comments that Dana White made to us last month about St-Pierre never returning and St-Pierre believes it’s a negotiation tactic to get St-Pierre to sign to fight for less than he believes he is worth.

**Bellator has announced that former champion Joe Warren will fight Sirwan Kakai on Friday September 16th at Bellator 161 in Cedar Park, Texas. The bantamweight fight will serve as the co-feature on the card with Cheick Kongo fighting Tony Johnson in the main event.

**FS 1’s four-part series on Phil “CM Punk” Brooks will premiere this Monday night at 9:30pm Eastern (going head-to-head with Raw). The series is called “Evolution of Punk” and documents the last year-and-a-half of his life since signing with the UFC, going to Rofusport, the injury setbacks and getting prepared to fight Mickey Gall next month at UFC 203 next month in Cleveland. The series will be premiere in Canada beginning next Tuesday on Fight Network.

Below is the trailer:


**MMA Junkie was the first to report that Ben Rothwell has suffered an injury and been forced to withdraw from his fight with Fabricio Werdum at UFC 203 on September 10th in Cleveland, Ohio. Travis Browne is being reported to take the spot of the injured Rothwell and would set up a April 2014 rematch between Werdum and Browne, which Werdum won at the time. The card is headlined by Stipe Miocic defending the heavyweight title against Alistair Overeem and will also feature the debut of CM Punk against Mickey Gall on the pay-per-view portion.

**UFC president Dana White spoke to UFC.com and stated that Stephen Thompson will get the next welterweight title fight and not Nick Diaz. This has caused a lot of outrage when newly crowned champion Tyron Woodley stated he wasn’t interested in fighting Thompson and wanted to fight either Diaz or Georges St-Pierre next.

**Bellator has added a lightweight fight between Derek Campos and Djamil Chan to their Bellator 161 event on Friday September 16th in Cedar Park, Texas.

Love seeing Diaz get under McGregor's skin

Can't wait to see Conor win this fight.

It really didn't take much. And Diaz didn't even have a mic!

**Nick Diaz posted a series of Snapchat videos where he appears to be on the phone with a representative from USADA and Diaz being told they need to drug test him and Diaz wanting to go to sleep. Diaz was requesting they hold off the test for 5-6 hours so he can get some sleep and the woman on the phone is stating they cannot wait that long. Diaz posted some follow up videos where is apparently awaiting the drug testers to show up as he is going on no sleep.


**UFC President Dana White was a guest on the Jim Rome Show yesterday and gave an interesting statement regarding Jon Jones. He said that “it’s coming back now that it looks like he did not take the supplement that everybody thought he took” and couldn’t really go any deeper as he cannot talk about medical issues. It was stated at Jones’ Nevada Athletic Commission hearing last month that the two substances found in his out-of-competition test were Hydroxy-clomiphene and Letrozole metabolite, which are both estrogen blockers. The test that came up with the banned substances was administered on June 18th and came back the week of UFC 200 and removed Jones from his fight against Daniel Cormier for the light heavyweight title. Jones did post a video this past weekend and indicated that he will be back in the cage very soon and sounded optimistic about a resolution to his issues with USADA and the Nevada Athletic Commission.

**Taffy Brodesser-Akner of GQ has an engaging story up on Conor McGregor and his preparation for the rematch with Nate Diaz this Saturday at UFC 202. In the piece, McGregor states that UFC 200 was a “bust” without him and outlines all of the changes he has made during this camp and spending $300,000 on this fight camp.

**The UFC has officially announced that UFC 204 will take place on October 8th from Manchester, England will be headlined by Michael Bisping vs. Dan Henderson for the UFC middleweight title. There will be a press conference this Friday at 5pm Eastern from Manchester. The card will also feature a middleweight fight between Vitor Belfort and Gegard Mousasi and a light heavyweight bout between Jimi Manuwa and Ovince Saint Preux. The card will be tailored to the North American market so that the pay-per-view card begins at 10pm Eastern and will mean that the main event will take place around 5am local time in Manchester.

**The UFC’s Fight Night card from Portland, Oregon on October 1st will be headlined by bantamweights John Dodson and John Lineker. Both are former flyweights with Dodson moving up in weight after his second loss to champion Demetrious Johnson last year and defeated Manny Gamburyan in 0:37 this past April. Lineker had numerous issues making weight at flyweight and has gone 3-0 since returning to bantamweight with wins over Francisco Rivera, Rob Font and most recently stopping Michael McDonald in July.

**MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani was the first to report that BJ Penn is scheduled to return and fight Ricardo Lamas on October 15th from Manila in the Philippines. This is the latest attempt for Penn to return as he had a series of setbacks this year that have prevented him from fighting with the most recent being a disclosure by Penn to USADA that he used an IV outside of competition and it is not allowed to be used. Penn last fought in July of 2014, where he was soundly defeated by Frankie Edgar and announced his retirement after the fight. Penn has been training in Albuquerque, New Mexico throughout this year with the Jackson-Wink MMA team in preparation for his return at 145 pounds. Lamas last fought at UFC 199 and dropped a decision to Max Holloway.

**It was first reported by FloCombat that Rashad Evans will be making his middleweight debut on the November 12th UFC 205 card from Madison Square Garden against the returning Tim Kennedy. Evans won season two of the Ultimate Fighter, competing at heavyweight on the show and then dropping down to light heavyweight and has fought at that weight during his tenure with the promotion and won the championship in December 2008. Evans is coming off back-to-back losses to Ryan Bader and Glover Teixeira as he drops down a weight class. Kennedy last fought in September 2014 and was defeated by Yoel Romero at UFC 178, which Kennedy was very upset over because of a delay between the second and third rounds, after nearly finishing Romero during the second round.

**Mike Bohn has an in-depth story on Nate Diaz for Rolling Stone after meeting with Diaz last month and discussing how his life has changed since the UFC 196 win over Conor McGregor and this Saturday’s rematch.

**Below are Episodes 1,2 and 3 of this week’s UFC Embedded series going into UFC 202:

**Below is UFC Embedded 4 and 5

I've never really followed UFC but I kinda want to watch this fight I just don't want to pay for it.

It's 40 bucks or so if you stream it on the PlayStation.

Illegal streams are pretty easy to find. Just check reddit.

I'm far from a big MMA fan, but last night's fight seemed to me pretty epic.

The build up was huge but something of a letdown when it goes to a decision like that. McGregor's strikes were way more effective than Diaz. Leg kicks especially. Diaz could have taken Connor out in the later rounds but be was gassed out too. With them being besties at the end, it pretty much kills off a grudge match.

I was disappointed it went to a decision, and I'm not sure I would have scored it the same as the judges, but I'm no judge - what do I know. The fight itself was pretty epic though - can't say I thought Diaz was too gassed by the end.

Don't get me wrong, he was still reelin' off punches at a high rate but there wasn't much behind em.

McGregor's strategy of kicking and working the body might've had something to do with Nate "gassing out", no?

**UFC 202 was a big card from the promotion and featured Conor McGregor avenging his loss to Nate Diaz with a majority decision victory. The fight was very close and the pivotal round was the third and whether or not you scored it 10-9 or 10-8 for Diaz as McGregor was in a lot of trouble as the round concluded. The consensus was McGregor won three of the five rounds and the only debate is whether it was a draw or a 48-47 score for McGregor. The fight was excellent and one of the best of the year because there were a number of shifts of momentum as McGregor started strong and then got tired as Diaz came on near the end of the second and throughout the third and McGregor got a second wind in the fourth to win solid and then they had a very close fifth round that Diaz won. Below are all of the results from the show with an announced crowd of 15,539 and gate of $7,692,010 (to compare to UFC 200, it did 18,202 and $10.7 million):
*Marvin Vettori def. Alberto Uda by guillotine at 4:30 of Round 1
*Colby Covington def. Max Griffin by TKO at 2:18 of Round 3 – Griffin was exhausted by the second and was just surviving until it was stopped.
*Lorenz Larkin def. Neil Magny by TKO at 4:08 of Round 1 – It was a minor upset that Larkin won but the fashion in which he destroyed Magny with his striking was very surprising as Magny is a legitimate guy at welterweight. This was the last fight on Larkin’s UFC contract and couldn’t have had a better performance to enter free agency on.
*Cortney Casey def. Randa Markos by armbar at 4:34 of Round 1 – Markos took her down with a judo throw and applied a head lock and was landing strikes but Casey got a hook in and eventually took her back and set up an armbar and gfot the verbal submission.
*Artem Lobov def. Chris Avila by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Lobov trains with Conor McGregor and Avila with Nate Diaz and that’s why this was booked. Lobov badly needed a win but this wasn’t a great fight as Avila seemed to be stationary all fight long and either the big stage got to him or he just couldn’t adjust to Lobov’s strikes to the leg.
*Raquel Pennington def. Elizabeth Phillips by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Not a very good fight as Pennington did enough each round to win towards the end of each with a well-times slam and strikes. This was also Phillips’ birthday on Saturday.
*Cody Garbrandt def. Takeya Mizugaki by TKO at 0:48 of Round 1 – Garbrandt has so much power at 135 and drilled Mizugaki with a right hand and followed up with strikes and it was stopped quickly. Garbrandt is campaigning for a title fight against Dominick Cruz, which will be a massive step up for Garbrandt.
*Tim Means def. Sabah Homasi by TKO at 2:56 of Round 2 – Means was just a better striker but Homasi did well in taking the fight on such short notice and getting his foot in the door.
*Mike Perry def. Hyun Gyu Lim by TKO at 3:38 of Round 1 – Perry has a lot of power and was constantly dropping Lim with shots and finally rocked him and finished him with follow up shots. Perry has a unique charm as well as a personality and this was a strong debut for him.
*Donald Cerrone def. Rick Story by TKO at 2:02 of Round 2 – Cerrone has looked excellent at welterweight. He caught Story with an incredible combination with a jab, a body shot and ended with a right head kick and Story was done and went down against the cage.
*Anthony Johnson def. Glover Teixeira by KO at 0:13 of Round 1 – This was something else to see as Johnson landed a right uppercut and Teixeira was launched into another time zone. Johnson respectfully challenged Daniel Cormier after the fight and seems the only logical direction for the two.
*Conor McGregor def. Nate Diaz by majority decision (48-47, 47-47, 48-47)

**Conor McGregor was dealing with pain in his shin after the fight from all the leg kicks. He also noted he had a minor knee issue coming into the fight from his camp. McGregor also stated he was 167 pounds just before the fight on Saturday. McGregor did not seem all that interested in a rematch with Jose Aldo for the featherweight title and reiterated after the fight that if Nate Diaz wants to fight a third time it will be at 155 pounds.

**The UFC is back next Saturday with a FOX card from Vancouver, British Columbia at the Rogers Arena with Carlos Condit and Demian Maia in the main event (which was originally scheduled for UFC 202 and then moved to the main event slot on that card).

**Kevin “Baby Slice” Ferguson Jr. informed MMA Fighting that he has suffered a MCL injury and is out of his fight against Johnny Tomasian this Friday at Bellator 160. Ferguson Jr. was scheduled to make his professional debut on the undercard of the Bellator card this Friday in Anaheim after making his amateur debut earlier this year. The Bellator 160 card is headlined by a lightweight fight between Benson Henderson and Patricio “Pitbull” Freire.

**WSOF lightweight champion Justin Gaethje will defend his title against Ozzy Dugulubgov in the main event of the WSOF 33 card on October 7th in Kansas City, Missouri and will air on NBCSN in the U.S.

**Below is the full Road to the Octagon special for this Saturday’s FOX card from Vancouver, which is headlined by a welterweight fight between Carlos Condit and Demian Maia:

**The Nevada Athletic Commission issued a temporary suspension to Brock Lesnar today after his testing positive for two banned substances in an out-of-competition test prior to his UFC 200 fight in July. Lesnar will receive a formal hearing at a later date where Lesnar will have a chance to put forth a defence. It is likely that Lesnar’s win over Mark Hunt will be changed to a no contest as a result of the failed test.

**USADA confirmed to Marc Raimondi at MMA Fighting that they are looking into the situation involving Nate Diaz from Saturday’s UFC 202 post fight press conference. Diaz showed up for the press conference with a vape pen and when asked what was in it, stated it was CBD (cannibidiol oil). It is fine for a fighter to have marijuana in their system outside of competition but in this instance, the six-hour period after a fight is still considered “in competition” and could lead to a violation by USADA and/or the Nevada Athletic Commission.

**The UFC 202 preliminary card averaged 1,300,000 viewers for Saturday’s night prelim bouts, which were headlined by Cody Garbrandt and Takeya Mizugaki. The post-fight show on FS 1 did 320,000 viewers.

**Ariel Helwani at MMA Fighting was the first to report that Canadian fighter Alex Ricci has taken the spot of the injured Josh Emmett on this Saturday’s UFC on FOX card in Vancouver and will be fighting Jeremy Kennedy. Ricci is a 10-3 bantamweight and last fought in April of this year for Triumph FC as he makes his UFC debut on less than one weeks’ notice.

**A bantamweight fight between Marlon Vera and Ning Guangyou that was set for the same FOX card in Vancouver this weekend is off, according to the UFC. Guangyou has had a problem with his visa and will be unable to fight this weekend.


**Over the past 24 hours, Rory MacDonald’s name was removed from the UFC rankings and it has since been reported by MMA Fighting and other outlets that a deal with Bellator is imminent and could be finalized by the time you are reading this. According to the MMA Fighting story, the UFC informed MacDonald and his team on Wednesday night that they would not be matching Bellator’s offer and it’s expected MacDonald will be officially signing a deal to go to Bellator. MacDonald began with the UFC in 2010 and compiled a 9-4 record with the promotion and was part of the 2015 fight of the year with Robbie Lawler at UFC 189 where Lawler stopped MacDonald in the fifth round to retain his title. MacDonald is coming off a decision loss to Stephen Thompson from this past June and just turned 27 years old a month ago.


**TMZ is reporting that Nick Diaz was jumped at the Hyde Nightclub in Las Vegas by a number of guys on Tuesday night. Diaz told the outlet that he was accidentally knocked into one of the guys and immediately apologized. The guy he knocked into was then joined by some other guys with Diaz defending himself and led out to the casino floor of the Bellagio. Security eventually escorted the other guys out, who began using chairs. Diaz has stated he is not looking to press charges.

**UFC President Dana White was on the “UFC Unfiltered” podcast with Matt Serra and Jim Norton on Tuesday and discussed a number of topics coming off UFC 202. White stated that he isn’t looking to do the third fight between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz next and wants to see McGregor either fight Jose Aldo for the featherweight title and also stated that a fight between McGregor and lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez “makes sense”. He also said he would be interested in putting a fight together between Anthony Johnson and Jon Jones with the winner fighting Daniel Cormier, which would be contingent on Jones escaping any punishment from USADA. White added that they are looking to hold a card in Russia with Khabib Nurmagomedov on the card and that during the recording of the podcast, Donald Cerrone texted White to fight in Brazil next month when Cerrone had heard that Brandon Thatch was out of his fight with Erick Silva for the September 24th card.


**One major note from the podcast in addition was Dana White stating that Ronda Rousey would not be fighting in New York this November. White said he is sitting down this week to construct the UFC 205 card.

**Bellator President Scott Coker spoke to ESPN and has stated that Alexander Shlemenko will return to the promotion in October and is expected to fight Kendall Grove

**Ariel Helwani has noted that it will be Brian Stann calling this Saturday’s FOX card with Mike Goldberg with Dominick Cruz on the FOX desk. Helwani added this is not a one-off and appears to be the new FOX team with Joe Rogan’s one-year deal calling for only UFC pay-per-view events and no more international events.

**On Tuesday the UFC announced that Li Jingliang had been flagged for an out-of-competition test that was taken on May 18th with clenbuterol found in his test sample. USADA is not opting to provisionally suspend Jingliang because there has been a rash of contaminated meat with the substance in the meat. The tricky part is that Jingliang went ahead and was allowed to fight on July 8th during International Fight Week and defeated Anton Zafir and in the wake of this announcement, the Nevada Athletic Commission has issued a temporary suspension for Jingliang and he will have a hear at a future date. This is an instance of USADA and the NAC approaching this from different angles and not appearing to be on the same page regarding punishment. As Marc Raimondi wrote on MMA Fighting, the timing is very strange as the OOC test was taken back in May and should have been plenty of time to make a ruling on whether he was free to fight or not back in July.