Record: 11-2
Age: 30
Height: 5’8″
Weight: Lightweight
Birthplace: Canada
Next fight: Sept. 6 def. David Briones (4-6) via unanimous decision at BFL 81 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (UFC Fight Pass)

The skinny:  Jamie Siraj needed an outlet away from a “rough” home life. That’s when he joined Revolution Martial Arts. Former UFC fighter Kajan Johnson, who served as one of the head coaches. Siraj had his first fight at age 15 and was immediately hooked. After a 7-2 amateur career, Siraj turned pro in 2014. Since a 3-2 start, Siraj hasn’t lost. In 2019, Siraj was on the doorstep for a UFC call, aligned for Dana White’s Contender Series. However, Siraj fell ill and doctors didn’t know why. After a long, grueling period of his body failing, Siraj was diagnosed with hyper IGE Syndrome, an immunodeficiency disorder. It rendered him largely unable to function, septic, and near death. Through treatment, Siraj is now back to a largely normal life. In June 2023, for the first time in four years, Siraj fought and won for Battlefield Fight League. He was offered a spot on “The Ultimate Fighter 32,” but was one of the final cuts from the roster – a move that surprised him, considering he flew all the way out to Las Vegas. In May, he finished then-8-1 Tariel Abbasov by submission. In September, he defeated David Briones by unanimous decision.

In his own words: “I think this fight was 10 days notice or something like that. I was actually joking, but it was kind of how I felt. I was like, ‘Well, I’m not doing anything else that weekend, so I might as well. I have been training.’ After my last fight, I was just a little mentally burnt out from not getting a call to the Contender Series. I was just like, ‘Man, am I ever going to get in the UFC? Holy f*ck this just feels like I have to physically kill someone in a ring for them want to sign me.’ … Then, I took the fight on short notice, just for the f*ck of it. Thank God it all worked out and paid off, but it wasn’t my favorite performance of my career.

“… There’s no 145 fights on the card. But I’ve been working slowly on getting back down to 135, so if that way there is a short-notice pullout, I can jump in at 135. Unfortunately, there’s no fights at my division. But yeah, if that’s my opportunity to jump in at 135, then that’s kind of where my mindset is at being able to jump in and make weight at 135. I know there are quite a few 135ers on the card. A lot of them are kind of entry level guys, guys you’d be getting on your first fight or two in the UFC. I kind of have my eye on everyone that’s at 135 from top to bottom. There’s a lot of good 135 matchups. Physically, when I was at 135, I just felt so much stronger and so much faster and bigger than everyone. So if I can make that division again and make weight, yeah I feel like I’d be such a problem at 135, too.”

He busted the nose of Cerrone in the fight’s first skirmish before finishing him in a first-round TKO.

McGregor had not won  since November 2016 when he stopped Eddie Alvarez, the lightweight, to become the first fighter in UFC history to hold two championship belts at the same time.

McGregor then fought his only boxing match with Floyd Mayweather in 2017 before losing a one-sided UFC bout to lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018.

UFC President Dana White has already said McGregor is next in line for a title shot at the winner of lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov’s bout with Justin Gaethje this summer.

The UFC’s schedule is in upheaval due to the coronavirus pandemic, but McGregor was expected to get his title shot later this year, and he recently had been talking to White about taking another fight even earlier. Earlier this week, McGregor posted photos and videos of himself training for fights.

White was still willing to take McGregor’s retirement announcement at face value – at least publicly – when he learned about it at his news conference following UFC 250 in Las Vegas.

“If Conor McGregor feels he wants to retire, you know my feelings about retirement,” White said.

“You should absolutely do it. And I love Conor.

“There’s a handful of people that have made this really fun for me, and he’s one of them.”

Retirements are a time-honoured device for gathering attention and increased bargaining power in combat sports. From Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather to Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell, countless champions of boxing and MMA have gone back on their solemn announcements whenever need or ego brought them back to the sport.

The 31-year-old retires with a 22-4 record.

This new ‘league phase’ – instead of lots of groups all containing four teams – is going to take some getting used to.

One big table with 36 teams is something we do not even see in league football, and taking it all in involves some serious scrolling. You can check out the full thing here.

Remember, teams who finish in the top eight will qualify automatically for the last 16, while those who place ninth to 24th will compete in a two-legged knockout play-off for the chance to join them.

Whoever finishes 25th or lower will be eliminated. So only one-third of teams actually go out after everyone plays eight games.

According to Opta, 16 points from a possible 24 gives a 98% chance of a top-eight finish.

Ten points is 99% likely to lead to a top-24 finish, so teams who won this week only need two more wins and a draw for a chance of reaching the last 16.

Fifteen teams won their opening games (meaning 15 teams lost) which leaves six clubs in between on one point.

In a nutshell, if you won you’ve got a great chance of going through. If you lost… you’ve still got a great chance of going through.

We are officially on the road to UFC 307.

On Monday, the UFC released its official poster for the upcoming pay-per-view event which takes place on Oct. 5 at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. In the main event, Alex Pereira defends his light heavyweight title against Khalil Rountree Jr., while in the co-main event, Raquel Pennington puts her bantamweight belt on the line against former champion Julianna Peña, and the UFC 307 fight poster puts the focus on both fights.

Pereira is the current front-runner for 2024 Fighter of the Year, with successful title defenses against former champions Jamahal Hill and Jiri Prochazka at UFC 300 and UFC 303 respectively. Rountree is on a five-fight winning streak but has not competed since last December, in part due to a suspension for failing a drug test.

Pennington won the vacant women’s bantamweight title by defeating Mayra Bueno Silva at UFC 297 back in January. This will be her first title defense. Peña, meanwhile, won the title by defeating Amanda Nunes at UFC 269 in one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. She then dropped the title back to Nunes in their rematch seven months later and has not competed since.

UFC 307 also features a number of other marquee matchups, including a bantamweight bout between Jose Aldo and Mario Bautista, a featherweight contest between Movsar Evloev and Aljamain Sterling, a women’s bantamweight battle between Kayla Harrison and Ketlen Vieira, and a welterweight clash between Stephen Thompson and Joaquin Buckley, among other fights.