UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira is crossing over to Hollywood with his first major acting role booked in upcoming film directed by Adam Wingard, who is also responsible for Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

Pereira is expected to portray the villain in the movie Onslaught, which is described as a “gonzo action horror thriller” with DNA similar to some of Wingard’s early films such as You’re Next and The Guest. The Hollywood Reporter first reported the casting news with additional sources confirming Pereira’s casting to MMA Fighting on Thursday.

Pereira is expected to star alongside Adria Arjona (Hit Man) playing “a mother who falls back on a particular set of skills in order to protect her loved ones after she runs afoul of a threat that has escaped a secret military base,”

Pereira plays that threat as a character called The Butcher and he’s expected to incorporate some of his fighting skills in the featured role for the project.

Wingard is set to direct Onslaught with a script from longtime collaborator Simon Barrett, who just recently penned the screenplay for the Samara Weaving led horror film Azrael. The film is being produced by A24, Lyrical Media and Ryder Picture Company.

The role is a first for Pereira, who has quickly become one of the biggest stars on the entire UFC roster after he conquered both the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions in record time. Most recently, Pereira dispatched Khalil Rountree Jr. at UFC 307, which was the third defense of his title in 2024.

Following the fight, Pereira said he had some commitments to fulfill but hoped to return to action in early 2024. It appears playing a villain in the upcoming film Onslaught is one of those obligations now.

It’s tough to stand out in combat sports for the right reasons. Yet, with so much going on, Franco Tenaglia left his mark on 2024.

Tenaglia, along with Tony Soto, put on one of the wildest fights of the year as they went toe to toe for the vacant lightweight title in the BKFC Marbella main event in Spain. After a thrilling and destructive affair, Tenaglia got his hand raised to be crowned champion.

“It’s almost like a religious experience,” Tenaglia told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “It’s something extremely energetic. Every fighter has their own life. Every fighter has their own thing they fight for. I respect all fighters. I respect everyone in general; I’m a very respectful person and very humble, but I obviously have a maximum respect for him.

“Obviously, after what we shared, he’s going to be part of my life forever. For me, it was an incredible experience and people saw the battle of who wants it more, which made it insane. This was better than ‘Rocky’ because this was without gloves, real, and even more punches.”

Tenaglia impressed many, including BKFC co-owner and UFC star Conor McGregor who was in attendance. After the fight, McGregor jumped in and grabbed the microphone, not only to announce that Tenaglia and Soto were getting bonuses, but also double their base pay.

“That, to me, meant more. I don’t care about the money,” Tenaglis said. “That Conor McGregor, your idol, tells you that you’re incredible and congratulates you on the fight and tells you that the world is yours, someone that’s an icon in MMA telling you something like that, it’s priceless. It’s worth more than the double pay, but obviously I’m happy about it because, as you know, us fighters don’t make as much compared to other athletes.”

As far as what’s next, the Argentine fighter, who trains out of Climent Club with UFC champion Ilia Topuria, wants to remain as active as possible.

“I”ve done it my whole career. I usually fight six or seven times a year because I combine it with MMA, bareknuckle MMA, and bareknuckle boxing,” Tenaglia explained. “So I fight at least seven times a year, and I want to keep it that way, This is therapy for me. If I don’t have a fight, I sometimes feel like I’m training for nothing. I want to defend the belt many times and make it clear that I’m the best bareknuckle boxer in the world.”

European governing body Uefa are bound to be in touch – which is where we probably should start.

In 2023, Mourinho was given a four-match touchline ban for his behaviour around the Europa League final when his Roma side were beaten by Sevilla in Budapest. Premier League referee Anthony Taylor was abused in the airport on his way home after footage emerged of Mourinho waiting in an underground car park after the match to question the official about his performance.

So, as he reflected on being red carded by another leading official in French referee Clement Turpin in Istanbul, Mourinho made reference to the previous incident.

“If I appeal I will get six months,” said Mourinho, when asked by an English journalist if he would appeal against his dismissal. “Since the Sevilla-Roma final there is nothing to do. That is why the future is better without European competition, so I don’t get upset.”

This was a follow-up to his first answer, to the man from another broadcaster who he knows exceptionally well, which in itself built on something he said in the lead-up to the game which suggested after spells with Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham, his time in the Premier League may not be over.

“The best thing I have to do is when I leave Fener is that I go to a club that doesn’t play in Uefa competition,” he said. “So a club at the bottom in England who needs a coach in two years, I’m ready to go.

“I don’t want to speak anymore about it. I want to speak about the game.”

Except this is Jose, so speaking about the game comes with loaded answers – including, at one point, suggesting the local media would be unhappy with the outcome of the game because they would have preferred Fenerbahce to lose.

Dana White was more than ready on Thursday to respond to a few statements made by PFL co-founder Donn Davis during a town hall session held on MMA Fighting just 24 hours earlier.

During the hour long question and answer period, Davis addressed numerous inquiries from fans including the success of the recent PFL: Battle of the Giants pay-per-view capped off by Francis Ngannou’s return to MMA where he bludgeoned Renan Ferreira with punches for a first-round finish in the main event. While Davis couldn’t reveal how many pay-per-view buys the card generated, he did make one dubious claim when comparing PFL to UFC.

“This event by our research beat every viewership number of every UFC event this year and was very, very close to Ring of Fire,” Davis said.

It’s safe to say, White isn’t buying it.

When asked to address that claim following a Power Slap event in Abu Dhabi, the UFC CEO gleefully pulled out a sheet of paper filled with metrics comparing PFL to his slap-fighting league rather than the UFC.

“The PFL should keep the UFC out of their mouth,” White said. “They can’t even deal with Power Slap. Power Slap destroys PFL. It’s weird that you asked me that question because I just happened to have some papers here.

“So first of all let’s start with followers — Power Slap has 19.2 million followers, PFL has 10 [million]. Video views, PFL fight week did 326 million. Power Slap 8 did 690 million. PFL fight week Instagram views: 76 million. So if you look at PFL, fight week and the aftermath, these guys had 76 [million]. Just the week of [the event] they had 68 million on Power Slap and we hadn’t even had a fight yet. PFL’s Instagram reel with Francis and Ronaldo did 14 million views. Power Slap 9’s Instagram reel with contender Isaih [Quinones] had 22 million views. That was a repost of an old fight. The repost of the old fight beat Francis and Ronaldo.”

While he didn’t spend much time pitting the UFC against PFL, White did toss out one claim that a UFC Fight Night card held back in January actually pulled in bigger viewership numbers than the PFL pay-per-view.

“I could keep going on for a f*cking month here,” White said. “Then if you want to get into what he said about the UFC, I have a laundry list here but let me just start with this: UFC Vegas 84 at the APEX beat them.

“I love the stuff that he said. He sounds like Kamala [Harris], talks a lot but says nothing. I would hate to be one of that guy’s investors. [He said] ‘I don’t watch MMA. I’ve worked seven years and haven’t taken a vacation.’ You should probably take a vacation. You’re out of your f*cking mind. You should probably take a vacation.”

White rarely misses an opportunity to dunk on anybody attempting to come after him or the UFC but he reveled in the opportunity to fire back at Davis following his statements on Wednesday.

“That guy shouldn’t even mention the UFC,” White said. “He’s not even in Power Slap’s [league]. Then he was talking about ‘there’s all kinds of combination packages and how all this works.’ He doesn’t beat Power Slap in revenue. He doesn’t beat Power Slap in ticket sales. He doesn’t beat Power Slap in sponsorship. He doesn’t beat Power Slap in anything let alone the UFC.

“It’s obvious this guy isn’t an MMA fan. He’s acting like he’s some f*cking great businessman. He does not sound like a guy that I would want to invest my money with. But good luck to his investors.”

White also addressed the recent statement made by current Bellator champion Usman Nurmagomedov, who said that he planned to eventually join the UFC roster after his friend and teammate Islam Makhachev was done with fighting.

That didn’t come as a surprise to White, who expects Nurmagomedov and every other major fighter in the PFL would prefer competing in the UFC minus one person in particular.

“I mean all their good people want to be over here anyway so I would imagine that eventually yes, they will be here,” White said. “Nobody wants to fight in the f*cking PFL except for Francis.”

ABU DHABI – It appears Francis Ngannou’s return to MMA didn’t change Dana White’s mind about his departure from the UFC.

Days after Ngannou (18-3) pounded out Renan Ferreira (13-4) at PFL: Battle of the Giants, White was asked his impressions of the fight during a Power Slap 9 post-event press conference Thursday.

“(His performance) was better than Donn Davis’ – way better,” White said with a laugh when speaking to MMA Junkie and other reporters. “Listen, man, I’m going to tell you what I think about Francis: Francis is all about the money. Francis left because he knew if he fought Jon Jones and didn’t win, it would hurt his chances of making the money he wanted to make. But realistically his deal was bigger here. His deal was bigger here if he stayed in the UFC. I think I told this story a million times. They can deny it all they want. Why the f*ck would I lie? What do I care? It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”

While White’s claims of Ngannou leaving the UFC to avoid fighting Jon Jones are notthing new, the UFC CEO mentioned an additional detail. White said that, after Ngannou suffered consecutive losses to Stipe Miocic and Derrick Lewis in 2018, he wanted to cut the future UFC heavyweight champion.

“I was going to cut Francis when he lost two in a row,” White said. “I was going to cut him. Somebody around here begged me not to do it. It wouldn’t have mattered to me one way or the other. There’s a much deeper story to this whole thing. He would’ve made more money if he would’ve stayed in the UFC. He didn’t want to fight Jon Jones. That’s a fact, my friend. We’re moving on.”

“I was going to cut Francis when he lost two in a row. Somebody around here begged me not to do it.”

Dana White hurls another round of criticism at Francis Ngannou and is not interested in a fight vs. Jon Jones. pic.twitter.com/IZjeNgq06M

— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) October 24, 2024

Ngannou’s 2023 departure from the UFC was an unprecedented move, as he vacated the promotion’s heavyweight title to venture into free agency. Ngannou competed in lucrative boxing crossover fights vs. Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua before his MMA return Saturday in Saudi Arabia.

Ngannou has disputed White’s claims that he would’ve been paid more had he stayed, even going as far as to say he would provide the numbers if need be. White has remained unwavering in his counterclaims, however.