**The UFC has announced that the welterweight title rematch between Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson will take place at UFC 209 on Saturday March 4th in Las Vegas. There had been lots of back-and-forth between the two since their majority draw at UFC 205 last November. Thompson posted a photo last week of his signed bout agreement and was pushing Woodley to sign his and take the fight. Woodley had been angling for big fights with the Diaz brothers and Michael Bisping among the names being thrown out.


**The discussion of a possible Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight is going to heat up again after Mayweather’s appearance on ESPN’s First Take on Wednesday. Mayweather stated they tried to make the fight with McGregor with an offer of $15,000,000 for McGregor and a percentage of the pay-per-view and Mayweather getting a guarantee of $100,000,000 and points on the pay-per-view. Mayweather was clear it would be a Boxing fight if it were to occur and challenged the UFC and Dana White to make the fight.

**This Sunday’s UFC Fight Night card in Phoenix will feature Jon Anik and light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier calling the event.

**The UFC was originally planning to run back-to-back cards in Las Vegas on Friday March 3rd and 4th but have opted to cancel the Friday night card, which would have aired on Fight Pass. The Friday night show didn’t have any fights announced and instead they will only run the UFC 209 pay-per-view that weekend.

**Bellator has announced they will be running a card in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Friday February 24th at the SSE Arena. The card will be headlined by a light heavyweight fight between Liam McGeary and Chris Fields and have also announced that featherweight James Gallagher will be fighting on the card against an opponent to be announced.

**The UFC has announced a women’s strawweight fight between former champion Carla Esparza and Randa Markos for the UFC Fight Night event on February 19th in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both were members of TUF Season 20, which Esparza won to become the inaugural women’s 115-pound champion in December 2014.

Well, after posting the story above I then read another story with Mayweather downplaying any sort of fight, saying he doesn't need to fight anymore, sighting Muhammed Ali's illness as someone who stayed in the game to long. He now wants to focus on promoting.

So looks like the fight won't happen.....unless

DANA WHITE MAKES REAL FIGHT OFFER TO CONOR MCGREGOR AND FLOYD MAYWEATHER

January 13, 2017

Dana White Makes Real Fight Offer to Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather
Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather has long been the most talked about mythological bout in combat sports history… until now.

UFC president Dana White on Friday said that a McGregor vs. Mayweather boxing match is no longer a simple dream, it has entered the realm of reality. White, on The Herd with Colin Cowherd on FS1, revealed that he has offered McGregor and Maeather $25 million each to fight under the UFC banner. If they actually entertain the fight, a split of the pay-per-view revenue would be negotiated.

Conor McGregor - Dana White - Floyd Mayweather“Would Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor be the best fight you’ve ever seen? Probably not, but it’ll be pretty damn exciting,” he declared. “But, I’m gonna build an entire card underneath it. I’ll have another title fight and I’ll stack the card like it was at Madison Square Garden, so you’re guaranteed that night to at least get your money’s worth, unlike the Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight.”

According to Business Insider, Mayweather’s year-in-the-making showdown with Manny Pacquiao generated more than $500 million in revenue, with Mayweather estimated to have taken home more than $200 million.

Would Mayweather and McGregor be able to generate the same level of interest? It’s difficult to tell. A crossover fight between two combat sports has never taken place with fighters of the ilk of the boxing legend and first UFC fighter to hold belts in two weight classes simultaneously.

The two, after pay-per-view, would make well above the $25 million guarantee that White is proposing, and Mayweather would like get the bigger cut of the two. This is just a toe in the water to see if anyone bites, but it is, as White said, “a real offer.”

Mayweather recently told ESPN that he had offered McGregor $15 million to fight him, but White said those claims were bogus. The UFC head honcho, however, declared that his offer was legitimate.

“Floyd is claiming that he made these offers. There was no offer ever made to anybody – ever – until two minutes ago. Now, a real offer has been made.”

**The NFL has adjusted their Sunday schedule and the playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs will now be airing at 8:20pm Eastern on NBC and will go directly against the UFC Fight Night card on FS 1. The idea behind the Sunday night UFC cards of the past two years was to send people from the NFL game on FOX over to FS 1 after the 4:40pm game and hopefully gain a big audience after the playoff game. The last two years have featured Conor McGregor vs. Dennis Siver in 2015 and T.J. Dillashaw vs. Dominick Cruz last year in the headlining position for the Sunday night card in January.

**UFC president Dana White went on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” to address the Floyd Mayweather Jr. offer he outlined to Conor McGregor to fight. Mayweather Jr. was on ESPN’s First Take earlier this week and stated that his team offered McGregor $15 million for the fight and a percentage of the pay-per-view for a boxing fight. White stated today that no offer was ever made and he made his own proposal of Mayweather and McGregor each getting $25 million for the proposed boxing fight and then would negotiate the backend of the pay-per-view. White said if that fight were to ever happen that they would stack the even similar to UFC 205 and include a championship fight as the co-feature.

**The lightweight fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson is now set for UFC 209 on March 4th in Las Vegas and the winner will be awarded the interim lightweight title. The news was first reported by Lance Pugmire of the L.A. Times after weeks of negotiation between the UFC and both fighters and Ferguson wanting to make the same amount of money as Nurmagomedov for the fight. This is an excellent fight and there is no argument they are the top contenders for Conor McGregor’s title. It is yet another interim title but you see the pattern that is forming where the UFC is not going to be shy in adopting interim titles to put on a bill and essentially it is a #1 contender’s title. This fight joins the welterweight title fight between Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson for the UFC 209 card. These are two strong action fights for the pay-per-view but it lacks the marquee star power to make this a blockbuster show. Presumably the winner of Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson will fight Conor McGregor, but you know how that goes.

**The UFC card in Halifax, Nova Scotia was dealt a major blow as Combate reported on Thursday that Stefan Struve is out of his main event heavyweight rematch with Junior dos Santos with a torn labrum and will require surgery. The card is still over a month away but the big issue is that just about all of the heavyweights are booked and it will be difficult to keep dos Santos on the card. The obvious choice is Fabricio Werdum, who trained for the UFC 207 bout with Cain Velasquez and didn’t get to fight and that would save this card but it’s a question if Werdum would take that fight on a month’s notice. Beyond Werdum you are looking at fighters outside the top ten as the only top ten fighter not booked is Ben Rothwell and dos Santos just beat Rothwell last April. The Halifax card is scheduled for Sunday February 19th.

**The weigh-ins for Sunday’s UFC Fight Night card in Phoenix will take place Saturday, below is the full card for the show:

MAIN CARD (10pm Eastern on FS 1, TSN5 in Canada)
*Yair Rodriguez vs. BJ Penn
*Joe Lauzon vs. Marcin Held
*Court McGee vs. Ben Saunders
*Sergio Pettis vs. John Moraga

PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm Eastern on FS 1, Fight Network in Canada)
*Augusto Mendes vs. Frankie Saenz
*Aleksei Oleinik vs. Viktor Pesta
*Alex White vs. Tony Martin
*Drakkar Klose vs. Devin Powell

FIGHT PASS CARD (6:15pm Eastern)
*Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger vs. Nina Ansaroff
*Walt Harris vs. Chase Sherman
*Bojan Mihajlovic vs. Joachim Christensen
*Cyril Asker vs. Dmitrii Smoliakov

**Invicta FC has a card on Saturday night in Kansas City and will stream on UFC Fight Pass at 8pm Eastern with Megan Anderson vs. Charmaine Tweet in the main event to crown an interim featherweight champion as Cris “Cybrog” Justino still holds the Invicta title.

**The NFL has adjusted their Sunday schedule and the playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs will now be airing at 8:20pm Eastern on NBC and will go directly against the UFC Fight Night card on FS 1. The idea behind the Sunday night UFC cards of the past two years was to send people from the NFL game on FOX over to FS 1 after the 4:40pm game and hopefully gain a big audience after the playoff game. The last two years have featured Conor McGregor vs. Dennis Siver in 2015 and T.J. Dillashaw vs. Dominick Cruz last year in the headlining position for the Sunday night card in January.

**UFC president Dana White went on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” to address the Floyd Mayweather Jr. offer he outlined to Conor McGregor to fight. Mayweather Jr. was on ESPN’s First Take earlier this week and stated that his team offered McGregor $15 million for the fight and a percentage of the pay-per-view for a boxing fight. White stated today that no offer was ever made and he made his own proposal of Mayweather and McGregor each getting $25 million for the proposed boxing fight and then would negotiate the backend of the pay-per-view. White said if that fight were to ever happen that they would stack the even similar to UFC 205 and include a championship fight as the co-feature.

**The lightweight fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson is now set for UFC 209 on March 4th in Las Vegas and the winner will be awarded the interim lightweight title. The news was first reported by Lance Pugmire of the L.A. Times after weeks of negotiation between the UFC and both fighters and Ferguson wanting to make the same amount of money as Nurmagomedov for the fight. This is an excellent fight and there is no argument they are the top contenders for Conor McGregor’s title. It is yet another interim title but you see the pattern that is forming where the UFC is not going to be shy in adopting interim titles to put on a bill and essentially it is a #1 contender’s title. This fight joins the welterweight title fight between Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson for the UFC 209 card. These are two strong action fights for the pay-per-view but it lacks the marquee star power to make this a blockbuster show. Presumably the winner of Nurmagomedov vs. Ferguson will fight Conor McGregor, but you know how that goes.

**The UFC card in Halifax, Nova Scotia was dealt a major blow as Combate reported on Thursday that Stefan Struve is out of his main event heavyweight rematch with Junior dos Santos with a torn labrum and will require surgery. The card is still over a month away but the big issue is that just about all of the heavyweights are booked and it will be difficult to keep dos Santos on the card. The obvious choice is Fabricio Werdum, who trained for the UFC 207 bout with Cain Velasquez and didn’t get to fight and that would save this card but it’s a question if Werdum would take that fight on a month’s notice. Beyond Werdum you are looking at fighters outside the top ten as the only top ten fighter not booked is Ben Rothwell and dos Santos just beat Rothwell last April. The Halifax card is scheduled for Sunday February 19th.

**The weigh-ins for Sunday’s UFC Fight Night card in Phoenix will take place Saturday, below is the full card for the show:

MAIN CARD (10pm Eastern on FS 1, TSN5 in Canada)
*Yair Rodriguez vs. BJ Penn
*Joe Lauzon vs. Marcin Held
*Court McGee vs. Ben Saunders
*Sergio Pettis vs. John Moraga

PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm Eastern on FS 1, Fight Network in Canada)
*Augusto Mendes vs. Frankie Saenz
*Aleksei Oleinik vs. Viktor Pesta
*Alex White vs. Tony Martin
*Drakkar Klose vs. Devin Powell

FIGHT PASS CARD (6:15pm Eastern)
*Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger vs. Nina Ansaroff
*Walt Harris vs. Chase Sherman
*Bojan Mihajlovic vs. Joachim Christensen
*Cyril Asker vs. Dmitrii Smoliakov

**Invicta FC has a card on Saturday night in Kansas City and will stream on UFC Fight Pass at 8pm Eastern with Megan Anderson vs. Charmaine Tweet in the main event to crown an interim featherweight champion as Cris “Cybrog” Justino still holds the Invicta title.

**UFC president Dana White announced on Friday night that Anderson Silva will be fighting on the UFC 208 card on Saturday February 11th against Derek Brunson in a middleweight fight. This will be Silva’s first fight since he stepped in on just a few days’ notice at UFC 200 to fight Daniel Cormier in a non-title fight at light heavyweight. Silva adds a lot of star power to a card that is lacking for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The card is headlined by Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie to crown the first UFC women’s featherweight champion.

**Below are the results from the Invicta FC 21 event from Saturday night in Kansas City:
*Christine Ferea def. Rachael Ostovich by TKO at 1:29 of Round 3
*Amy Montenegro def. Celine Haga by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – This was the most controversial fight of the night as Haga applied a rear-naked choke and Montenegro went out as the bell sounded to end the fight but the referee didn’t call an end to the fight, therefore they went to the judges and Montenegro won by unanimous decision.
*Andrea Lee def. Jenny Liou by KO at 1:14 of Round 1
*Aspen Ladd def. Sijara Eubanks by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Leah Letson def. Elizabeth Phillips by KO at 1:18 of Round 1
*Raquel Pa’aluhi def. Pannie Kianzad by rear-naked choke at 3:40 of Round 1
*Megan Anderson def. Charmaine Tweet by TKO at 2:05 of Round 2 to become the Invicta FC interim featherweight champion

**The next Invicta FC card is set for Saturday March 25th in Kansas City and will feature a rematch between bantamweight champion Tonya Evinger and Yana Kunitskaya.

**The UFC’s first card of 2017 took place on Sunday night from the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona and ended up going head-to-head with the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Kansas City Chiefs game, which was moved to Sunday night over the weekend. They announced an attendance figure of 11,589 and live gate of $913,372 with the following results:
*Cyril Asker def. Dmitri Smoliakov by TKO at 2:41 of Round 1 – Asker mounted him and finished with strikes
*Joachim Christensen def. Bojan Mihajlovic by TKO at 2:05 of Round 3 – Christensen dropped him with an uppercut in the third round and the fight was over
*Walt Harris def. Chase Sherman by KO at 2:41 of Round 2 – Harris connected with a knee and right-left combination to drop Sherman and finished with strikes, very impressive finish by Harris
*Nina Ansaroff def. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger by rear-naked choke at 3:39 of Round 3 – Ansaroff dominated this fight with her speed and control on the ground.
*Tony Martin def. Alex White by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Oleksiy Oliynik def. Viktor Pesta by Ezekiel choke at 2:57 of Round 1 – This could end up being submission of the year as Pesta mounted Oliynik and from underneath the mount, Oliynik applied an Ezekiel choke and Pesta tapped while on top. It is the first time an Ezekiel choke has won a fight in the UFC but is the tenth time Oliynik has won with one in his career. This was incredible to watch as it was pulled off.
*Augusto Mendes def. Frankie Saenz by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – This was the best fight on the card with Mendes winning the first and third rounds. Saenz is very good and was constantly able to get back to his feet when taken down. Saenz landed some big shots in the second round.
*Drakkar Klose def. Devin Powell by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Powell was seen by Dana White on “Lookin’ For a Fight” and was outmatched throughout the fight by Klose, who pressured him all fight with strikes.
*Sergio Pettis def. John Moraga by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) – Pettis said he wants to fight Jussier Formiga on March 4th at UFC 209 as Formiga was his original opponent for this card and then was injured.
*Ben Saunders def. Court McGee by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – Saunders won the first two rounds and relied heavily on body kicks as McGee fought him at distance. McGee won the third round.
*Joe Lauzon def. Marcin Held by split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28) – Held was stunned at the decision and said he lost the fight and disagreed with the decision. Lauzon cracked him with elbows to the side of the head in the first round. Throughout the rest of the fight, Held took him down a lot and was working for submission from the back. Held won the second and third rounds and this was a really bad decision.
*Yair Rodriguez def. BJ Penn by TKO at 0:24 of Round 2 – Rodriguez was at another level and it clear early on when Penn was slower and unable to clinch and eliminate the tools of Rodriguez. In the first, Rodriguez lit him up with a variety of kicks and left Penn reacting and was a 10-8 round. Penn continued and was immediately sent down and absorbed a bunch of shots before John McCarthy stopped the fight. If you were a big BJ Penn fan, this would have been a difficult fight to watch.

**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Augusto Mendes and Frankie Saenz and the two Performance bonuses went to Yair Rodriguez and Oleksiy Oliynik for $50,000 each.

**UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt and T.J. Dillashaw will be coaches on the next season of Ultimate Fighter. The upcoming season will premiere with a two-hour show on April 19th on FS 1 and will be called “Redemption” with past TUF contestants and at least one active UFC fighter on the show. Garbrandt and Dillashaw will fight at the end of the season, presumably during International Fight Week in July.

**The UFC announced on Sunday’s broadcast that the UFC 210 pay-per-view will be taking place from Buffalo, New York on Saturday April 10th at the KeyBank Center. This is the first time the UFC has run Buffalo since 1995 with UFC 7. It will also be the fourth card in the state of New York since the ban on professional MMA was lifted last year.

**The next UFC card is Saturday January 28th on FOX from Denver, Colorado with Valentina Shevchenko taking on Julianna Pena in the main event and Donald Cerrone meets Jorge Masvidal. The winner of Shevchenko and Pena should fight Amanda Nunes next for the bantamweight title, even though Shevchenko lost to Nunes last March.

**Bellator 170 took place from The Forum in Inglewood, California on Saturday night and came off as a very big event for the promotion. Bellator does a very good job of making their major shows feel as such with the combination of the high production value, the big entrances and also making lots of announcements for future cards and leaving the viewers with a few big fights to take notice of for later in the year.

The biggest component of Saturday’s show was the retirement of Tito Ortiz (who retired once before in 2012 at UFC 148 after his fight with Forrest Griffin but this one seems like the real retirement as Ortiz turns 42 today). You could not write a better send off as Ortiz defended a number of submission attempts from Chael Sonnen, worked to mount Sonnen and then took his back and secured a neck crank for the tap. Ortiz walked down to the cage with his son, Jacob and gave a great speech after the fight and the cameras followed Ortiz up the ramp with the big “Thank you, Tito” message on the screen and felt like a real retirement ceremony on a MMA broadcast.

The fight was a nice send off for Ortiz but Sonnen is one that has many fights left on this contract with Bellator and he did not look good in this fight. Sonnen was fighting at light heavyweight for the first time since 2013 and didn’t look in tremendous shape at the weight. Sonnen is such a great speaker and marketer that losses are not going to have the effect on him as compared to others and given his name value and fighting in Bellator, wins and losses are secondary to the “Chael Sonnen Show” that he provides in the buildup to all of his fights. The rating for this card will be a good barometer of what to expect for future Sonnen fights and he has stated that this is a long term game for him and does intend to fight many more times. The fight most discussed fight for Sonnen is Wanderlei Silva, who is almost at the end of his three-year suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission and would be eligible to fight by the end of May.

Below are the main card results from the Bellator 170 show:
*Derek Campos def. Derek Anderson by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Emmanuel Sanchez def. Georgi Karakhanyan by majority decision (28-27, 28-28, 28-27) – Sanchez was deducted a point in the second round for delivering an illegal knee when Karakhanyan was down
*Hisaki Kato def. Ralek Gracie by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) – This was a bad fight, Gracie won the final round and mounted Kato but there was minimal action throughout the three rounds
*Paul Daley def. Brennan Ward by KO at 2:27 of Round 1 – Daley was taking some strikes and his back was against the cage when he landed a spinning back elbow and then put Ward to sleep with a devastating flying knee and Ward was out cold. Daley said he wants to fight Rory MacDonald. This will be a knockout-of-the-year candidate.
*Tito Ortiz def. Chael Sonnen by submission at 2:03 of Round 1

**Bellator is back this Friday with another card and it is headlined by a 175-pound catchweight fight between Melvin Guillard and Chidi Njokuani from Mulvane, Kansas. Heavyweight prospect Tyrell Fortune is also fighting on the preliminary card on Spike.com against Will Johnson and if the fight is short, it will replay on Spike.

**It was announced on the Bellator broadcast that a rematch has been signed between Quinton Jackson and Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal for March 31st and will be at heavyweight this time. The two fought in May 2014 with Jackson winning by unanimous decision in a fight that many felt Lawal won. No location has been announced yet for the March 31st card.

**Dave Meltzer has a breakdown of the UFC’s record setting year on pay-per-view in 2016. Meltzer estimates that the UFC did approximately 8,370,000 buys for the year and is the first combat sport to do five shows in excess of 1,000,000 buys in a year (UFC 196, UFC 200, UFC 202, UFC 205, UFC 207). The year was obviously strengthened by the fact that Conor McGregor fought three times and you also got Ronda Rousey in for the year-end show. 2017 looks much more difficult at this time to have anything close to comparable as 2016. McGregor doesn’t have any return date set and it’s next to impossible that he fights three times this year, Ronda Rousey may be done after the Amanda Nunes loss and it's unlikely the WWE would allow Brock Lesnar to fight again while he is under contract (early 2018) even when Lesnar’s one-year suspension is up in July. In a year where the UFC needs may significant profits after the sale, there is a lot of leverage on the side of Georges St-Pierre, who is willing to fight for the right price and would be a major fight for the promotion.

**Combate has reported that flyweights Jussier Formiga and Ray Borg will be fighting on the Fight Night event in Fortaleza, Brazil on March 11th.

**Below is the UFC Road to the Octagon special for this Saturday’s FOX card in Denver, Colorado and is headlined by Julianna Pena and Valentina Shevchenko:


**Eric Winter has announced that he is leaving his position as Senior Vice President of the UFC and General Manager for UFC Fight Pass. Winter joined the company in August 2015 and had been instrumental in the development of Fight Pass and had a reputation for being very hands on with consumer issues online and reaching out to customers of the service. Winter previously worked at Yahoo and has a strong reputation in the digital space. He would certainly be an asset to many of the promotions that are expanding their streaming services such as the WWE, FloSports, New Japan World and others. Winter becomes the latest executive to leave the company as the company has seen a massive changeover in the past year.

**Newsday reported on Thursday that Chris Weidman and Gegard Mousasi will meet at UFC 210 on Saturday April 8th in Buffalo, New York in a middleweight bout. Weidman has lost his last two fights with his title loss to Luke Rockhold in December 2015 and then missing most of 2016 and returned in November and was stopped by Yoel Romero at UFC 205 in New York City. Weidman had been considering a move up to light heavyweight but this fight will be at 185 pounds. Mousasi has been a roll and won his last four fights and 6 of his last 7.

**The Pioneer Press out of Minneapolis reported on Thursday that former Elite XC, Strikeforce and Bellator fighter Brett Rogers is facing several charges of sexual misconduct and one of interfering with another person’s privacy. It was alleged in the complaints that Rogers groped a library employee while in an elevator, another incident alleged occurred earlier this month at a public bathroom where a man complained that Rogers approached him to engage in a sex act in the bathroom and when the man refused, Rogers grabbed his buttocks. Following these incidents, Rogers was placed in Ramsey County Jail and his cellmate later accused Rogers of fondling him while he was sleeping and woke up to find Rogers fondling him. Rogers won three fights while fighting for Elite XC, including a 61-second knockout on CBS over Jon Murphy in May 2008. In the Strikeforce organization, his highlight was a 0:22 stoppage of former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski and would go to fight Fedor Emelianenko and Alistair Overeem and was defeated by TKO in each of those fights. He was released by Strikeforce in 2011 after an assault incident with his wife. Rogers is denying the charges and stated he didn’t grope his cellmate but was tapping him on the leg per the reporting of Marc Raimondi at MMA Fighting.

**Following her most recent loss this past weekend, UFC strawweight Jocelyn-Jones Lybarger has announced her retirement at the age of 31. Jones-Lybager turned pro in July 2012 and has worked at The MMA Lab out of Arizona and was called on short notice to make her UFC debut in December 2015. Jones-Lybager suffered decision losses to Tecia Torres and Randa Markos before this past weekend’s submission loss to Nina Ansaroff.

**The UFC has added the following fights to their March 18th Fight Night card in London, England:
*Jimi Manuwa vs. Corey Anderson
*Joseph Duffy vs. Reza Madadi
*Lina Lansberg vs. Veronica Macedo
*Timothy Johnson vs. Daniel Omielanczuk

so great

**This past Saturday’s Bellator 170 card averaged 1,374,000 viewers and peaked with 1.8 million viewers for the main event fight between Tito Ortiz and Chael Sonnen. The number is one of the highest that Bellator has ever drawn. The peak number for the main event was at the same level that the fight between Ortiz and Stephan Bonnar drew in 2014, although this number almost surely would have grown as it was a short fight unlike the three-round fight that Ortiz had with Bonnar. It is the highest Bellator number since last February, which was Bellator’s all-time viewership record for Royce Gracie vs. Ken Shamrock and Kimbo Slice vs Dada 5000.

**Kevin Iole at Yahoo was the first to report that UFC 211 will take place on Saturday May 13th in Dallas, Texas at the American Airlines Center.

**Chael Sonnen was eliminated from the current season of “The Celebrity Apprentice” after being accused of cheating and fired by host Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sonnen’s team was against the clock to finish their task and Sonnen took a pair of scissors and cut the wire for their computer because of the loophole that a team could have their time extended if there is a technical difficulty and they received ten extra minutes. The team came forward about Sonnen’s actions and he was fired in the boardroom segment. Sonnen was incredibly entertaining in his final show and had emerged as the most entertaining personality on the show because of the heel role and his confrontations in the boardroom. Sonnen had been stating publically that he won the show last week, which was a tipoff that he was lying as he would be violating the likely deep NDA that he would have to sign that prohibits the outcome being ruined, but you could get away with lying.

**Mike Goldberg spoke for the first time since his UFC departure when he appeared on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani on Monday. Goldberg said he was alerted that his contract would not be renewed at the beginning of December but still had to finish up the year with UFC 206 in Toronto, the FOX card in Sacramento and UFC 207 in Las Vegas. Goldberg said he didn’t have any conversation with Dana White before he left and did not have the opportunity to say anything at the end of his final broadcast beyond thanking a few people during the credit roll. Goldberg said he’s definitely open to calling fight for other MMA promotions and brought up the idea of working on the broadcast team for the new Las Vegas franchise in the NHL.

**The UFC has made a number of announcements for the Fight Night card on February 19th in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The new main event is a heavyweight fight between Travis Browne and Derrick Lewis (first reported by Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports), which was originally scheduled for UFC 208 in February. The Halifax card lost the heavyweight fight between Junior dos Santos and Stefan Struve after Struve suffered a shoulder injury that requires surgery. The UFC has also added a women’s bantamweight fight between Sara McMann and Liz Carmouche, a featherweight fight between Sam Sicilia and Gavin Tucker and a middleweight fight between Gerald Meerschaert and Ryan Janes.

Fight with Conor McGregor now 'likely to happen', admits Floyd Mayweather
Although Mayweather has retired, talks of a bout with UFC champion McGregor have persisted - largely due to the amount of money such a spectacle would generate



Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor's cross-sport showdown looks closer to being made after the two men talked up the prospect.

Five-weight boxing world champion Mayweather - who turns 40 next month - signed off his professional career in September 2015, retiring with a 49-0 record.

But talks of a bout with UFC champion McGregor have persisted - largely due to the amount of money such a spectacle would generate.

McGregor has obtained a boxing license as part of his pursuit of 'Money' Mayweather and in his own inimitable way has been calling the American out.

And despite several reservations from pundits about the legitimacy of such a fight, the two want it to happen.

"Most likely the fight between me and Conor McGregor will happen," Mayweather told Sky Sports 1.

"That's the only fight that will get me back in the ring. He's going to do a job on his side and we are going to do a job on my side and hopefully all the fans in the UK come over and support me.

"I don't know (when it will be), I need to communicate with my team, the fight hasn't been made yet, but it is all about entertainment so hopefully we can make it happen."



While Mayweather was talking at ringside during Carl Frampton's fight in Las Vegas, McGregor was holding a Q&A session with fans in Manchester.

"I believe this is the first billion fight. I think it will happen at the end of this year or the start of next year," he was reported as saying at the event.

McGregor has been linked with a switch to wrestling, too, but is currently taking time off as he prepares for the birth of his first child.

**The UFC on FOX card took place on Saturday night from the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado in front of an announced audience of 13,233 and a gate of $1,020,434 (this was a massive improvement over the last time they ran Denver for the UFC 150 card in 2012 where they drew a similar number but the gate was very low at $619,955). Below are the results from the card:
*Jason Gonzalez def. J.C. Cottrell by D’arce choke at 3:54 of Round 1
*Alexandre Pantoja def. Eric Shelton by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Marcos Rogerio de Lima def. Jeremy Kimball by TKO at 2:27 of Round 1
*Eric Spicely def. Alessio Di Chirico by triangle choke at 2:14 of Round 1 – Spicely is training in Montreal at Tristar now
*Jordan Johnson def. Luis Henrique da Silva by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Johnson looked very good in this fight and given he’s fighting at light heavyweight, there is a such a lack of depth and you can stand out a lot more in that division. Johnson had no desire to speak after the fight.
*Li Jingliang def. Bobby Nash by KO at 4:45 of Round 2 – This was a very good fight with both guys landing big strikes throughout the fight and ended with Jingliang landing a big right and stunned Nash and dropped him with a follow up left hand
*Raphael Assuncao def. Aljamain Sterling by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – This was not a fight that featured a lot of aggressiveness from either guy. There was a bad moment where Assuncao landed a second low blow on Sterling and the referee missed it and forced the fight to continue so Assuncao eased up and allowed Sterling a few seconds to recover. This is Sterling’s second straight loss in a very deep top ten at bantamweight.
*Sam Alvey def. Nate Marquardt by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – Nearly nothing happened in the first round until Alvey threw some knees from the Thai clinch.
Alvey wants to fight Jack Marshmann next.
*Jason Knight def. Alex Caceres by rear-naked choke at 4:21 of Round 2 – Caceres found his timing in the first and was on the verge of winning the round when Knight slammed him to the mat and locked on a rear-naked choke as the round ended. Knight got his back again in the second and eventually secured the choke. Knight recently lost his father and today would have been his birthday so he got down on his knees and prayed to his father after the fight. Knight wants to fight Dooho Choi next.
*Francis Ngannou def. Andrei Arlovski by TKO at 1:32 of Round 1 – Ngannou has incredible power and caught Arlovski with a counter left and then a right uppercut and Arlovski went down. This is Arlovski’s fourth straight loss and all have been stoppage losses.
*Jorge Masvidal def. Donald Cerrone by TKO at 1:00 of Round 2 – Masvidal looked great in this fight, he landed this outstanding combination near the end of Round 1 and then dropped Cerrone, who was in another area code when the bell rang and the fight probably should have been over because Cerrone looked out of it. Cerrone continued and was stopped shortly into the second round when Masvidal attacked the body with knees against the cage and dropped Cerrone again.
*Valentina Shevchenko def. Julianna Pena by armbar at 4:29 of Round 2 – Pena spent most of her time in the clinch trying to power Shevchenko to the mat and Shevchenko was able to counter and take Pena down or use her balance against the cage. In the second, Pena did take her down and then was caught from underneath with an armbar.

After the main event, Amanda Nunes entered the octagon and appears to be the obvious fight for the bantamweight title, even though Nunes has said she wants to fight the winner of Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie for the featherweight title. Nunes defeated Shevchenko last March at UFC 196 by unanimous decision. Nunes easily won the first two rounds but Shevchenko had her best round in the third and she appears to be a much improved fighter since that fight with her performances against Holm last July and now Pena.

**The four performance bonuses were given to Valentina Shevchenko, Jorge Masvidal, Francis Ngannou and Jason Knight for $50,000 each.

**Here are the results from the Bellator 171 show on Friday night in Mulvane, Kansas and aired on Spike TV:
*A.J. McKee def. Brandon Phillips by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Jessica Middleton def. Alice Yauger by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 29-28)
*David Rickels def. Aaron Derrow by TKO at 0:44 of Round 3 – Rickels did a great mannequin challenge inspired entrance. This was about as one-sided as fight as you will see on a major MMA card.
*Chidi Njokuani def. Melvin Guillard by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-25, 30-24) – This was one-sided as well with Njokuani so much bigger and repeated took down Guillard, who is a natural lightweight and this was a 180 pound catchweight fight.

**The UFC is running the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas next Saturday on the eve of the Super Bowl in the city. The main event features the return of Chan Sung Jung (who hasn’t fought since August 2013) and faces Dennis Bermudez in a featherweight fight.


**Conor McGregor did a one-hour sit down interview with Ariel Helwani on Saturday night in Manchester, England with the interview airing on iPPV through “An Experience With”, which has done events like with other celebrities. A lot of ground was covered in the interview with the major focus on the discussions with Floyd Mayweather Jr. about a potential fight between the two. McGregor noted that he has recently formed McGregor Promotions and believes that under the Muhammad Ali Act that he would be allowed to participate in a boxing fight with McGregor without the permission needed from the UFC, which is something the UFC will obviously fight and Dana White stated as much after the Denver card. McGregor added that if he had been asked to defend his featherweight title this March that he would have done it and fought Max Holloway before they decided to create an interim title and strip McGregor. McGregor added that he believes the next fight he will have will be a boxing fight and is willing to sit out all year to get the large purse for the hypothetical Mayweather Jr fight. It outs the UFC and McGregor at opposite ends of a major power play as the UFC’s major fights for the year are contingent on McGregor fighting for the promotion and if you eliminate McGregor and Ronda Rousey from the mix, this will be a massive drop from last year’s pay-per-view revenue, which was record setting for the UFC.

**MMA Junkie reports that the main event for the UFC Fight Night event in London, England on March 18th is expected to be a light heavyweight fight between Corey Anderson and Jimi Manuwa.

**Spike released updated numbers from the Bellator 170 card from this past weekend. With the inclusion of DVR numbers, the Tito Ortiz vs. Chael Sonnen was watched by 2.2 million people according to Spike and 2 million watching the welterweight fight between Paul Daley and Brennan Ward.

**MMA Junkie confirmed that the UFC not offered new contracts to flyweights Ali Bagautinov and Zach Makovsky. Bagautinov challenged Demetrious Johnson for the flyweight title in June 2014 and then failed a drug test with the results coming back after the fight took place and he was suspended. He returned in October 2015 and lost two of his last three fights and most recently lost to Kyoji Horiguchi last November. Makovsky just lost his third straight fight at UFC 206 last month to Dustin Ortiz by split decision.

Amanda Nunes apologizes to Ronda Rousey for disrespecting her after UFC 207
By Des Bieler January 31


Perhaps the news Tuesday that Ronda Rousey’s MMA career may well be over made Amanda Nunes want to offer some kind words for her defeated rival. Or maybe, with a month passed since she made short, violent work of Rousey, the UFC bantamweight champion had arrived at a place of deeper perspective.

In any event, Nunes saw fit to issue an apology to Rousey via social media. The Brazilian fighter called Rousey “an amazing athlete” and praised what the former champion had done for women’s MMA.



Nunes clearly was feeling some regret over the image she posted to social media within an hour or so of defeating Rousey at UFC 207 in late December, a bout called after just 48 seconds as Nunes landed punch after punch to her opponent’s face. The post showed a doctored image of Rousey in a stroller, being pushed by the reigning champ.



hat post followed some sharp words for Rousey offered by Nunes right after their match. “Forget Ronda Rousey,” Nunes said in her post-fight interview. “She’s going to go make movies now and retire.”

At the time, Nunes was upset because of the vastly greater promotion Rousey had received before their fight, despite the fact that she was coming off a loss to Holly Holm over a year earlier while the Brazilian had won the bantamweight crown. She also felt that the UFC had coddled Rousey by letting her have very few media sessions leading into their fight.

“I feel like UFC want to make it easy for her, so she doesn’t feel like she’s not the champion anymore,” Nunes told reporters before UFC 207 (via USA Today). “They want to do this to make her feel strong or something. They try to promote her so she can see that — ‘Ronda, Ronda, Ronda.’ . . .

“They want to make things more soft for her.”

By Tuesday, Nunes had vastly changed her tune. “I might have said or posted some things at the time that I now realize was not the right thing to do,” she wrote, offering this explanation: “I was overwhelmed with adrenaline, emotion and hurt at the time. I held so much in during the weeks prior to my fight with Ronda.”

Nunes, though, may have been prescient in one of her post-fight remarks, when she predicted that Rousey would retire. Earlier on Tuesday, UFC President Dana White had said a “conversation” he’d had with Rousey led him to conclude that her MMA career was “probably done.”

“She’s so competitive that, her career and record meant everything to her,” White said of Rousey. “And then once she lost, she started to say to herself, ‘What the [expletive] am I doing? This is my whole life. This is it? I want to experience and start doing other things.’ ”

Nunes has shown herself to be extremely competitive, as well, both in word and deed. Since her win, and following the doctored image, she used social media to revel in her rough treatment of Rousey in the Octagon.




In other UFC news, White also revealed a plan for Jon Jones, for when he comes off a year-long suspension in July, to fight the winner of April’s Daniel Cormier-Anthony Johnson battle for the light heavyweight crown at UFC 210 (via Fox Sports). Jones was banned for violating the company’s anti-doping policy, but White said he believed the former light heavyweight champ deserved an immediate chance to “try to get [his] belt back.”

**The UFC Fight Night card from the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas drew an announced crowd of 8,119 and a gate of $611,133 on the eve of the Super Bowl in the host city. This wasn’t a strong card on paper and the Toyota Center is a major venue to run. The card featured perhaps the best fight this year so far between Jessica Andrade and Angela Hill, who had an outstanding striking battle for three rounds with Andrade winning by unanimous decision. In terms of pure action, it was one of the best female fights ever and was the kind of fight that puts some momentum behind Andrade as she seems the likely candidate to fight Joanna Jedrzejczyk next for the strawweight title.

Below are the results from the card:
*Khalil Rountree def. Daniel Jolly by KO at 0:52 of Round 1 – Jolly was shooting in and ate a knee to the face and Rountree followed with a knee to the chest and he was out.
*Niko Price def. Alex Morono by KO at 5:00 of Round 2 – Morono was controlling this fight and looked really good and then out of nowhere, Price ended the second round with a combination and it was a right uppercut that sent Morono down and he was in no condition to continue and the fight was halted in between rounds.
*Tecia Torres def. Bec Rawlings by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Torres was just quicker and loaded up with combinations and frequently incorporating kicks to those combinations and Rawlings had trouble adapting. Torres won all three rounds.
*Ricardo Ramos def. Michinori Tanaka by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) – Ramos is only 21 years old and is a great grappler and shows the level of talent entering the division. Ramos won the first two rounds and then Tanaka had a big third round and ended strong. Ramos nearly stopped him in the first round and if you went 10-8 you could make that argument.
*Chas Skelly def. Chris Gruetzemacher by rear-naked choke at 2:01 of Round 2 – Skelly had always had a solid grappling base and wearing down his opponent but now he’s working with Henri Hooft and has added striking as a big part of his game. He dominated the first round and then got to the back of Gruetzemacher and used a neck crank to get the tap.
*Curtis Blaydes def. Adam Milstead by TKO (knee injury) at 0:59 of Round 2 – The first round was as one-sided as you will see in the UFC. Milstead injured his knee when Blaydes scored one of his seven takedowns in this round and mixed in strikes. Seriously, under the new scoring (which Texas has not voted on yet and were not in effect on this card) you could say 10-7 for the first. Milstead’s knee gave out in the second and he verbally submitted.
*Jessica Andrade def. Angela Hill by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Unbelievable fight as Hill took a lot of strikes to the body and chin and kept coming at Andrade. At the start of the third, they did the Frye-Takayama exchange and the crowd was going wild. Hill will benefit from this even in defeat.
*Marcel Fortuna def. Anthony Hamilton by KO at 3:10 of Round 1 – Fortuna was called two-weeks ago about the fight and lied to the UFC that he was 230 pounds and came in at 210. Fortuna knocked Hamilton silly with a right and Hamilton crashed down to the mat with his head and was a brutal knockout.
*Volkan Oezdemir def. Ovince Saint Preux by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*James Vick def. Abel Trujillo by D’arce choke at 0:49 of Round 3 – Vick nearly had him in the second with the D’arce and then went right back to it in the third and got the tap. Vick is gigantic for a lightweight.
*Felice Herrig def. Alexa Grasso by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
*Chan Sung Jung def. Dennis Bermudez by KO at 2:49 of Round 1 – Bermudez stunned him with a right hand but Jung recovered. Jung had great balance to avoid a single leg takedown and then Bermudez missed with a jab and allowed Jung to put him down with a short right uppercut and finished Bermudez with follow up strikes. Jung hadn’t fought since August 2013 after being required to perform military service in South Korea. His wife was shown in tears after the fight.

**The Fight of the Night was awarded to Jessica Andrade and Angela Hill and the two performance bonuses went to Chan Sung Jung and Marcel Fortuna. On a regular night you would have thought it was a lock that James Vick, Curtis Blaydes and Khalil Rountree would all receive performance bonuses but this card had a lot of big performances and one really excellent fight.

**The UFC returns to pay-per-view next weekend with UFC 208 from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York with Holly Holm vs. Germaine de Randamie for the vacant UFC featherweight title and Anderson Silva returns and fights Derek Brunson at middleweight.

**UFC president Dana White was a guest on the UFC Unfiltered podcast last week with Matt Serra and Jim Norton. White stated on the show that if he had to guess, he didn’t believe Ronda Rousey would fight again but doesn’t know that for a fact yet. He added that Yoel Romero will be the next challenger for Michael Bisping’s middleweight title and that Jon Jones would likely fight the winner of Daniel Cormier vs. Anthony Johnson for the light heavyweight title. Jones is under suspension until July from the drug test failure last year, which took him off of the UFC 200 card just days before the event.

**ESPN’s Brett Okamoto was the first to report that Rashad Evans is scheduled to return and fight Dan Kelly on Saturday March 4th at UFC 209 in Las Vegas. This will be Evans’ first fight at middleweight after a pair of delays last year due to a medical issue on his pre-fight MRI in the state of New York. The MRI results prompted the New York State Athletic Commission to remove Evans from the UFC 205 card in November just days before his fight was scheduled to take place with Tim Kennedy. Evans was then moved to the UFC 206 card in Toronto and the Ontario Athletic Commission also removed him. Evans last fought in April of last year, where he was stopped by Glover Texieira in the opening round of their light heavyweight bout.

**Bellator has added a fight between Josh Koscheck and Mauricio Alonso at the Bellator 172 event on February 18th at the SAP Center. Koscheck signed with Bellator and has had a pair of fights delayed and this will be his debut with the promotion. The card is headlined by a heavyweight fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Matt Mitrione.

**Ariel Helwani reported at MMA Fighting that the UFC is scheduled to hold a total of 41 events in 2016, which would be the same as the last two years from the promotion. The 41 shows breakdown to 13 pay-per-view events (this includes the January pay-per-view being moved to the summer), four events on FOX, 16 FS1 cards, two TUF Finale events and six cards that would be exclusive to UFC Fight Pass. Helwani added that the company is planning to run three consecutive nights in Las Vegas for International Fight Week with a Fight Pass card on July 6th, the TUF Finale on July 8th and July 8th would be the big pay-per-view.

**Combate was the first to report the news that Stipe Miocic will defend the UFC heavyweight title against Junior dos Santos in the main event of the UFC 211 card on May 13th in Dallas, Texas. This is a rematch from December 2014 where Dos Santos defeated Miocic by unanimous decision in war that went five rounds in the main event of a FOX card. Since that fight, Miocic has won his last four fights and became champion by defeating Fabricio Werdum last May and defending the title against Alistair Overeem last September at UFC 203.

**UFC president Dana White has stated that the company will not match Bellator’s offer to light heavyweight Ryan Bader and it is expected that Bader will be heading to Bellator. Bader became a free agent after his last fight and has won his last two fights over Ilir Latifi and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Bader had some tough losses at the wrong time that cost him title opportunities such as his September 2013 loss to Glover Texieira and then losing to Anthony Johnson in January 2016. He isn’t a superstar level signing but given the lack of depth in the UFC’s light heavyweight division, it is somewhat surprising to see him leave. In the event of an injury to either Daniel Cormier or Anthony Johnson prior to their UFC 210 title fight, Bader would realistically be the next available guy to step in and fight either one. Bader does hold a win over the current Bellator light heavyweight champion Phil Davis. Bader is 33 years of age and won Season 8 of the Ultimate Fighter in 2008.

**Below is the full Countdown to UFC 208 special that focuses on the top three fights for this Saturday’s pay-per-view in Brooklyn:

**One fight has been scrapped from the UFC 208 card following today’s weigh-ins from Brooklyn. Heavyweight Justin Willis was deemed “medically unfit” for his fight with Marcin Tybura and the fight is off. Willis just accepted the fight a few days back and was cutting to make the 265 pound limit and had problems with the cut and the commission stopped Willis from proceeding. This is the second fight in a row that Tybura has missed out on as his last scheduled fight was against Derrick Lewis for the Manila card in October and that entire card was scrapped.

**Below is the full card for Saturday’s UFC 208 show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn:

MAIN CARD (10pm Eastern on pay-per-view)
*Holly Holm vs. Germaine de Randamie for the UFC women’s featherweight title
*Anderson Silva vs. Derek Brunson
*Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Tim Boetsch
*Jared Cannonier vs. Glover Teixeira
*Dustin Poirier vs. Jim Miller

PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm on FS 1, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Randy Brown vs. Belal Muhammad
*Wilson Reis vs. Ulka Sasaki
*Islam Makhachev vs. Nik Lentz
*Ian McCall vs. Jarred Brooks

FIGHT PASS CARD (7pm Eastern)
*Rick Glenn vs. Phillipe Nover
*Ryan LaFlare vs. Roan Carneiro

**Bellator has announced that Rory MacDonald will make his promotional debut against Paul Daley at Bellator 179 on Friday May 19th in London, England. MacDonald hasn’t fought since June of last year where he dropped a decision to Stephen Thompson while Daley is coming off a contender for knockout-of-the-year over Brennan Ward.

**Viacom announced this week that Spike TV will be going through a re-branding in early 2018 and will become The Paramount Network. The current incarnation of the network launched in 2003 after previously incarnations as The Nashville Network and later The National Network. Under the Spike branding, the company geared their programming around their centerpiece of Monday Night Raw, which they acquired the rights to and began airing in the fall of 2000 when the program was on fire. It was in 2005 that Spike launched the Ultimate Fighter with Raw serving as their lead in on Monday nights with WWE programming serving as a key reason why TUF took off to the level it did. Viacom was very public announcing in early 2005 they were withdrawing from negotiations with the WWE and led to the promotion striking a less favorable deal with the USA Network and returned to USA in October 2005. Spike TV became the unofficial UFC network during that time with their schedule revolving around UFC from 2005 up until their exit from Spike at the end of 2011. Spike was able to air UFC programming from their library for the following year providing they didn’t air any other MMA programming as they began running Bellator on MTV 2 and in 2012 moved Bellator to Spike with Viacom purchasing a majority stake in the promotion.

**The Bloody Elbow website has obtained a portion of Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson’s pre-fight medicals from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. These medicals were done prior to his fight with Dhafir “Dada 5000” Harris last year. The site noted that they did not receive EKG results from the Texas commission but a physician did rule the results as “normal”. On Ferguson’s form, he noted having high blood pressure but after being tested was deemed to be within a normal range. The results of Bloody Elbow’s findings can be read at http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2017/2/8/145 ... 0-mma-news.

**Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card Houston did a strong average of 1,158,000 viewers for the main card with Chan Sung Jung defeating Dennis Bermudez in the main event. The preliminary card averaged 834,000 viewers with Curtis Blaydes defeating Adam Milstead in the featured bout and the post show did 355,000 viewers on FS 1.

**Bellator has announced a combination MMA / Kickboxing event for Friday April 14th in Budapest, Hungary. The Bellator 177 card will be headlined by Eduardo Dantas defending the Bellator bantamweight title against Darrion Caldwell and will air at 9pm Eastern. The Bellator Kickboxing 6 event will air immediately afterwards at 11pm and will feature Zoltan Laszak vs. Karim Ghajji for the welterweight title.

**Bellator will also be doing a combined MMA / Kickboxing event on Friday April 8th in Torino, Italy with Bellator 176 and Bellator Kickboxing 5.

**Below are the first two episodes of UFC Embedded for this Saturday’s card in Brooklyn:

Georges St-Pierre and UFC agree to terms, close to finalizing new contract

by Ariel Helwani@arielhelwani Feb 15, 2017

At long last, Georges St-Pierre appears headed back to the UFC.

St-Pierre, the former UFC welterweight champion, is on the verge of signing a new multi-fight contract with the promotion, multiple sources confirmed with MMA Fighting.

After months of on-and-off negotiations, both sides have agreed to terms on a new deal, MMA Fighting has learned.

While St-Pierre's return fight has yet to be finalized, the current plan is for him to compete later this year. A return in the third quarter of 2017 is currently being targeted, sources say.

UFC officials declined to comment on the impending deal, though, UFC president Dana White, and others, have dropped some clues as of late.

First, in a recent SI.com interview, White said he recently met with Freddie Roach, the legendary boxing trainer who works with St-Pierre, but he didn’t reveal the reason for the meeting. Then, last week in Brooklyn, White told TSN that the UFC has “been talking to GSP” and that “me and GSP got everything straight between us.”

In addition, on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour, Michael Bisping said one of St-Pierre’s trainers told him “the deal is almost done and he wants to fight me.”

Both the UFC and St-Pierre have yet to decide which division he'll compete in upon returning. Last year, St-Pierre, considered the greatest welterweight champion of all time, expressed interest in fighting Bisping for the UFC middleweight title, and that is still a possibility.

St-Pierre's return will provide a much-needed shot in the arm for new UFC owners, WME|IMG. With Conor McGregor currently pursuing a boxing match against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Ronda Rousey's uncertain future, Brock Lesnar's retirement and Jon Jones' suspension, the organization needs a star like St-Pierre now more than ever.

The new deal will put an end to a three-year saga between the UFC and St-Pierre that dates back to UFC 167 in Nov. 2013.

Immediately following a controversial split decision victory over Johny Hendricks in Las Vegas, St-Pierre said he was considering vacating his title and taking a break from MMA. Then, at the post-fight press conference, a visibly frustrated UFC president Dana White, who said he did not score the fight for St-Pierre, told the media St-Pierre had been taken to the hospital. However, midway through the press conference, a battered St-Pierre showed up.

Two years later, on The MMA Hour, St-Pierre discussed a tense meeting with White and then-CEO Lorenzo Fertitta following the press conference.

"I'm not going to tell you exactly what was said," St-Pierre said. "But I was very pissed off and I used a lot of F words. ... I was very angry. They did not support me because of the testing issues for the doping, they did not support me for the anti-doping. And I told them, why they didn't support for this, and I didn't understand it. I said, ‘You guys need to wake up, because a lot of people are cheating, and stuff, and it's a freaking joke. You guys are kind of protecting these guys, and it shouldn't be like that.' I was very angry."

A month after UFC 167, in a joint conference call, St-Pierre relinquished the title and walked away from the sport indefinitely, though he always refused to categorize his departure from MMA as a "retirement."

Over the next two-plus years, St-Pierre popped in and out of the MMA news cycle. Skeptics, including both St-Pierre and White, viewed St-Pierre's issues with the UFC's anti-doping policy, as well as its Reebok uniform deal, among other differences, as massive stumbling blocks preventing his return.

Nevertheless, in June, St-Pierre announced that he was finally ready to resume his career. But after a deal offered by Fertitta was pulled following the sale of the company in July, the two sides were once again at an impasse.

Even after his announcement, White maintained St-Pierre did not want to fight.

"Georges St-Pierre will not fight again," White told The Fight Network prior to UFC 200. "I've said that before, and I'll say it again. Georges St-Pierre is done. He is retired. He will not fight again."

In October, St-Pierre declared himself a free agent, after his lawyer, James Quinn, terminated his UFC contract. UFC publicly disagreed with that assessment.

Days later, St-Pierre finally made “peace” with White over dinner in Las Vegas. Later that week, he also met with WME|IMG co-owner Ari Emanuel to discuss a new deal and a fight at UFC 206 in Toronto, however, the two sides could not come to terms.

Recently, talks heated back up, and a deal is close to being finalized.

St-Pierre, 35, left the sport riding a 12-fight winning streak. In addition to being considered the greatest welterweight champion of all time, the Québec native is also widely-regarded as one of the best fighters in the history of MMA.

'No Deal Is Even Close to Being Done' on Conor McGregor, Floyd Mayweather Fight
Social media squabble between the UFC and boxing superstars continues


By Scott Rafferty
4 hours ago

This game of cat and mouse between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather may never end and it's turning into the most confusing soap opera in sports.

Mayweather reportedly told ESPN's Stephen A. Smith at the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder game over the weekend that they are "getting very, very close" to making the superfight happen.

The timing seemed to add up since McGregor arrived in Las Vegas on Monday to presumably meet up with Mayweather and hammer out the details once he was done doing business with the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Not long after the story went live, UFC president Dana White texted ESPN's Brett Okamoto to shoot that down, saying that "no deal is even close to being done." Mayweather then killed the rumors himself by telling his Instagram followers "there has been no deals made on my behalf in regards to a bout with any fighter at this time" and that he is "happily retired and enjoying my life."

McGregor's response? "I am in Las Vegas. Floyd has retired on my arrival."



Mayweather took to Instagram yet again on Wednesday morning to address McGregor's comments, telling McGregor he needs to take care of his business with the UFC and then "have your people get in touch with my people." Even though the money and egos involved seem to be the perfect combination for this fight to happen, this is just another example of why it might actually be too good to be true.

**It was reported by MMA Fighting on Wednesday that Holly Holm has filed an appeal over her loss to Germaine de Randamie this past weekend at UFC 208 in Brooklyn. Holm and her team are requesting that the New York State Athletic Commission review the actions of Todd Anderson at the end of Rounds 2 and 3 and whether a point or two should have been deducted (all three judges scored the fight 48-47 and therefore the point would make a major different in the outcome). As explained earlier this week by a number of referees, the horn sounding at the end of the round is a signal for the round’s expiration but it is the requirement of the official to step and notify that the round is over and that is an action that Holm could press was not enforced properly and therefore allowed de Randamie to land additional and unnecessary strikes after those two rounds. There was a statement from de Randamie put out on Monday stating she is willing to give Holm a rematch, which given the questions surrounding the status of Cris “Cyborg” Justino, could be the outcome from this controversy.

**The UFC announced the list of welterweights that will compete on the next “Redemption” themed season of TUF with past members of the show competing. The names included: Seth Baczynski, Mehdi Baghdad, Justin Edwards, Tom Gallicchio, Eddie Gordon, Hayder Hassan, James Krause, Julian Lane, Dhiego Lima, Ramsey Nijem, Gilbert Smith, Joe Stevenson (the winner of Season 2 in 2005), Jesse Taylor and Hector Urbina. The season premieres on April 19th on FS 1 and will feature Cody Garbrandt and T.J. Dillashaw as coaches.

**Coach Brandon Gibson noted on Tuesday that he was informed by the UFC that the company will no longer be providing tapes of previous fights for coaches and fighters and that they will have to subscribe to Fight Pass to get footage. Gibson added that it’s difficult to study using Fight Pass because of the inability for slow motion and rewinding making it more difficult.

**UFC strawweight Carla Esparza added that she was informed that legally she cannot come out to Metallica as her walkout song for her fight against Randa Markos this Sunday in Halifax.

**The UFC made it official on the weekend that Jose Aldo will face Max Holloway to unify the featherweight title at UFC 212 on Saturday June 3rd in Rio de Janiero. Aldo has not fought since UFC 200 last July where he defeated Frankie Edgar to become the interim champion with Conor McGregor holding the official title at the time. After McGregor won the UFC lightweight title at UFC 205 and Daniel Cormier had to pull out of his main event fight with Anthony Johnson at UFC 206, the UFC announced that McGregor was stripped of the title and Aldo was now the official champion. At the same time, they announced that Max Holloway and Anthony Pettis’ fight at UFC 206 would now be for the interim title and Holloway won that fight by stopping Pettis in the third round in December.

**The next UFC on FOX show will be headlined by female strawweights Rose Namajunas and Michelle Waterson on April 15th in Kansas City, Missouri (which is the first time the UFC is running Kansas City and has been the primary home of Invicta FC since the promotion launched in 2012). Waterson headlined on FOX against Paige VanZant in December with 4.8 million people watching the main event. Given that Waterson is now booked for a fight, it seems like a lock that Joanna Jedrzejczyk will defend her title against Jessica Andrade next.

**The UFC has also announced that a featherweight fight between Cub Swanson and Artem Lobov will headline the UFC Fight Night event on Saturday April 22nd in Nashville. They have also announced the following fights for the Nashville card: Diego Sanchez vs. Al Iaquinta, Thales Leites vs. Sam Alvey, Jessica Penne vs. Danielle Taylor, Dustin Ortiz vs. Brandon Moreno, Hector Sandoval vs. Matt Schnell and Scott Holtzman vs. Michael McBride.

**Sunday night’s UFC Fight Night event from Halifax, Nova Scotia averaged 907,000 viewers on FS 1 for the main card that was headlined by Derrick Lewis and Travis Browne. The prelims did 760,000 with Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Nordine Taleb in the feature prelim slot.

**USADA has announced that they have granted Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino a retroactive TUE (therapeutic use exemption) for the banned substance Spironolactone. Justino tested positive for the substance following a December 5th out-of-competition urine test. The retroactive TUE will close this case between Justino and USADA without any penalty and will open the doors for the UFC to book her in an upcoming fight.

**The Bellator 172 main event between Fedor Emelianenko and Matt Mitrione fell apart hours before the show on Saturday. Mitrione was taken to hospital when he fell ill and it was discovered that he was passing a kidney stone and taken off the card. Ariel Helwani reported that Bellator was attempting to salvage the main event and fight a replacement for Emelianenko with Oli Thompson’s name brought up and Chael Sonnen offering to fight Emelianenko, which did not happen and the plan appears to have the fight between Emelianenko and Mitrione later this year. Below are the results from the main card at the SAP Center in San Jose, California on Saturday:
*Mauricio Alonso def. Josh Koscheck by TKO at 4:42 of Round 1 – This wasn’t a good outing for Koscheck, who was rocked and then Alonso followed up with another big shot and Koscheck was rocked again.
*Veta Arteaga def. Brooke Mayo by TKO (doctor’s stoppage) at 4:04 of Round 3 – This was a really entertaining fight and was stopped in the third due to heavy swelling above Mayo’s eye. Mayo was adamant she could still see but may have had a broken orbital bone, her eye was similar to that of Matt Mitrione’s after he fought Travis Browne last year.
*Anatoly Tokov def. Francisco France by TKO at 2:24 of Round 2 – Emelianenko was in Tokov’s corner and was the fight placed on the main card as a replacement and allowed Emelianenko to be featured on the broadcast.
*Cheick Kongo def. Oli Thompson by unanimous decision (30-25, 30-25, 30-27) – One-sided win by Kongo, who took down Thompson repeatedly and smothered him against the fence. Most would agree with the 30-25 scores.
*Patricky “Pitbull” Freire def. Josh Thomson by KO at 0:40 of Round 2 – Pitbull dropped him with a brutal right hand in the first round and won that round. In the second, they accidentally hit heads but then it was Thomson shooting into a right uppercut that put him down and Pitbull followed with a hammer fist for the stoppage. After the fight, Pitbull made it clear he wanted Michael Chandler again.

**Bellator has had to make a series of changes to their main event for this Friday in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The light heavyweight main event was first scheduled to feature former champion Liam McGeary taking on Chris Fields but Fields had to withdraw due to injury and was replaced by Vladimir Filipovic. The latest from Severe MMA is that Filipovic is off due to a visa issue and now Brett McDermott is in to fight McGeary.

**A lightweight fight between Andrew Holbrook and Gregor Gillespie has been added to the UFC 211 card on April 8th in Buffalo, New York.

**Former M-1 and Invicta FC fighter Cindy Dandois has signed with the UFC and will meet Alexis Davis in a bantamweight fight on the April 22nd Fight Night event in Nashville, Tennessee. Dandois has won her last three fights, including submitting Megan Anderson, who is now Invicta’s interim featherweight champion. Davis returned to action last December and was submitted by Sara McMann.

**It was made official earlier this week that Joanna Jedrzejczyk will fight Jessica Andrade for the strawweight title at UFC 211 on May 13th in Dallas, Texas. Andrade cut down to the strawweight division last year after fighting in the women’s bantamweight division. She has won three straight fights over Jessica Penne, Joanne Calderwood and most recently defeating Angela Hill earlier this month in Houston. This is the second title fight announced for the Dallas event with Stipe Miocic defending his heavyweight title against Junior dos Santos in the main event.

**Gian Villante has become the second UFC fighter to be issued an retroactive therapeutic use exemption (TUE) after being flagged for a banned substance during an out-of-competition drug test conducted on January 18th of last month. Villante required an inhaler for asthma but the inhaler contains Vilanterol and is banned. Villante did disclose his use of his inhaler when he was tested and then applied for a TUE and it has been granted with Villante not receiving any penalties from USADA. Villante is currently scheduled to fight Mauricio “Shogun” Rua on March 11th in Fortaleza, Brazil.

**Dana White announced on ESPN today that Georges St-Pierre will make his return and fight UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping later this year. No details were provided regarding a date or venue for the championship fight but a press conference is scheduled for Friday at 5pm Eastern and will air on Fight Network. St-Pierre has not fought since November 2013 where he narrowly took a decision over Johny Hendricks at UFC 167 and vacated the welterweight title shortly thereafter. This will be St-Pierre’s first fight at middleweight and will definitely draw some criticism for receiving a title fight immediately at a weight he has never fought at and putting Yoel Romero on the sidelines for his championship fight. St-Pierre does have to complete several months of USADA testing before he can fight and the fight is expected to take place in the summer or fall.

**White was also on TSN’s Sportscentre on Wednesday and announced that the promotion has come to terms with light heavyweight Misha Cirkunov on a new contract. White had stated the Cirkunov “flaked out” regarding a new deal but since that time the two sides sat down and have worked out a new agreement. Cirkunov last fought at UFC 206 in Toronto with a victory over Nikita Krylov.

**MMA Junkie was the first to report that Demian Maia and Jorge Masvidal will fight at UFC 211 on May 13th in Dallas, Texas. Maia has won his last six fights at welterweight with submission victories over Matt Brown and Carlos Condit in 2016. Masvidal has won his last three fights over Ross Pearson, Jake Ellenberger and Donald Cerrone dating back to last July.

**The New York State Athletic Commission has turned down Holly Holm’s appeal regarding her decision loss to Germaine de Randamie earlier this month at UFC 208 in Brooklyn. Holm was contesting the result on the grounds that de Randamie landed a number of strikes after the horn to signal the end of Rounds 2 and 3 with referee Todd Anderson not properly signalling an end to the rounds. The NYSAC found that were was no clear error or violation by Anderson. Holm’s manager Lenny Fresquez provided a statement to MMA Fighting that they respect the decision by the NYSAC and won’t seek anything further except for a rematch with de Randamie.

**The UFC has announced a return to Stockholm, Sweden for Sunday May 28th for a Fight Night event. The show will be headlined by a light heavyweight bout between Swedish fighter Alexander Gustafsson and Glover Teixeira. They have also announced Chris Camozzi vs. Magnus Cedenblad, Jack Hermansson vs. Alex Nicholson and Christian Colombo vs. Damian Grabowski.

**Bellator announced on Monday that Melvin Manhoef will get his rightful chance to rematch Rafael Carvalho for the middleweight title on April 8th in Torino, Italy. Carvalho defeated Manhoef by split decision last May with one of the worst decisions I’ve seen in a long time and a fight that Manhoef clearly won and left broadcaster Jimmy Smith stunned at the result. The card will take place the same day as UFC 210 in Buffalo, New York.

**The UFC has announced a strawweight fight featuring two of the division’s top contenders as Claudia Gadelha and Karolina Kowalkiewicz will fight at UFC 212 on June 3rd in Rio de Janiero. Both women were defeated by current champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in 2016. The UFC 212 card is headlined by Jose Aldo and Max Holloway to crown the undisputed featherweight champion.

**The UFC has added a bantamweight fight between John Dodson and Eddie Wineland to the Fight Night event on April 22nd in Nashville, Tennessee.

**Below are the first two episodes of UFC Embedded prior to this weekend’s UFC 209 pay-per-view in Las Vegas: