Alex Pereira didn’t impress Jamahal Hill at UFC 307.

This past weekend, Pereira picked up his third win of 2024, successfully defending his light heavyweight title with a fourth-round TKO of Khalil Rountree Jr. After the fight, Hill — who was in attendance — was caught on camera with a mocking yawn, which prompted Pereira to clown Hill in his post-fight press conference. But Hill stands by it.

“It’s crazy how y’all see a clip with no context, no nothing, and y’all just be ready to talk shit and just attack and come disrespectful as ever,” Hill said on his YouTube channel. “It’s hilarious… I never said the fight was boring…

“It was an entertaining fight. You saw some adversity, you saw adjustments and game plan. That’s one thing I will give Alex credit for, he adjusted his game plan a few times in that fight until he ultimately found his way to the finish and to the victory. So I will give him credit for that.

“Now, to the yawn at the end. Was it entertaining? Yes. Was I impressed? No. I’m not impressed… Did I see anything in the cage that scares me or that I didn’t expect to see? No.”

Pereira knocked Hill out in the first round at UFC 300 back in April, and since then the former light heavyweight champion has continuously tried to pick a fight with “Poatan.” And Hill still seems committed to that plan.

“To be honest with you, I’m glad Alex won,” Hill said. “I’m happy Alex won, because I want him to be as big of a giant in your minds as possible the next time I face him.

“At this point, I don’t care, he can go Magomed [Ankalaev] next, if he fights him, and he can lose. That’s the fight that I want. I don’t want the belt. I want that fight.”

Since UFC 300, Pereira has added two more knockout wins to his resume, with successful title defenses against Jiri Prochazka and now this recent victory over Rountree. In contrast, Hill has yet to step back into the cage since his loss, but “Sweet Dreams” promises that’s coming soon enough.

“As far as what’s next, a contract is already on the way, name is already hit the desk,” Hill said. “Touch-Em-Up University will be in session, class will be in session soon.”

LAS VEGAS – After almost three years and two high-profile boxing matches, former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou makes his long-awaited return to mixed martial arts Saturday when he takes on reigning PFL heavyweight champ Renan Ferreira in the main event of the promotion’s “Battle of the Giants” (ESPN+, pay-per-view).

Before Ngannou steps inside the cage, we take an “Inside Look” at Xtreme Couture with Ngannou’s longtime head coach, Eric Nicksick, who gave us an all-access pass to the gym that UFC legend Randy Couture founded in 2007. The gym has served as the home base for Ngannou, former UFC champions Sean Strickland and Miesha Tate, as well as a host of more big names from the UFC, PFL and Bellator.

“There’s something about this gym and what happens inside these walls that builds character, builds men, turns people into better individuals,” Nicksick said. “That’s always what has kept me here at Xtreme and why I love this place so much.”

You can watch the full video above and on our YouTube channel.

We don’t have to tell lies, it was an underwhelming week of MMA as UFC Vegas 98 was not exactly a banner event. Nevertheless, the main event between Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira delivered, and we got some pretty big news about UFC 310. On top of that, we’re now on the road to PFL: Ngannou vs. Ferreira a.k.a “Battle of the Giants” in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

So, with a smattering of topics to discuss this week, let’s touch on them all.

Tatsuro Taira

“How do you think a fight between Taira and Mokaev would have played out?”

If you missed it, Brandon Royval took a hard-fought decision over Tatsuro Taira in the main event of UFC Vegas 98 this past Saturday. The fight was one of the best of the year but now that Taira has suffered his first career loss, there’s already been some questioning of how good he is. But that’s a bit crazy.

Taira is only 24 years old and he just went hammer and tongs with the No. 1-ranked guy in the world. In just about any other scenario, people would be praising the pants off him. But because he was a sizable betting favorite heading into the fight, instead there are now questions about how good he is. That’s a bit silly. Is he as good as Brandon Royval? Not quite. But basically no one else is either.

That’s not to say that Taira’s performance was above reproach. He certainly showed a number of enormous holes. Royval pieced Taira up on the feet and the Japanese fighter also maybe showed a lack of cardio for five round fights. But those are things we’d expect from a young fighter who has basically never had to develop a B game. I fully expect this to be one of those losses that is hugely beneficial for Taira.

Now on to the question: I think Taira beats Mokaev but I’m in no way certain of that. That is a matchup of two very similar fighters. Both are exceptional grapplers, Mokaev is the better wrestler but Taira is the more dangerous finisher with a few more tricks. Ultimately, I think it comes down to the striking and while Taira is not very good on the feet, he’s shown more than Mokaev has at this point so I’ll favor him.

PFL’s big night

“I think we can all agree in saying Ngannou vs Ferreira doesn’t go the distance, but what’s the most preferable outcome for the PFL? Is it Ngannou knocking out Ferreira or would it be their homegrown guy knocking out the lineal UFC champion, who never lost his belt in the cage?”

Francis Ngannou takes on Renan Ferreira in the main event of PFL’s latest PPV offering this Saturday and I think it’s safe to say this is the most important event of PFL’s existence.

Almost two years ago the PFL backed up the Brinks truck for Ngannou and now he is finally going to compete for them. Is that going to matter? Are people going to tune in because Francis Ngannou is fighting, because that was basically the calculus when PFL signed him: that Ngannou brings both cache and eyeballs. A year ago when Ngannou arguably should have beaten Tyson Fury, that might have been true. Now that Anthony Joshua put him on a stretcher? Unsure.

Aside from needing Ngannou to be a star, the PFL also really needs him to win. I’m not sure if Ngannou is a PPV draw in general, but I am certain he’s not the kind of star that can springboard others to stardom off of beating him. If Ferreira comes out and sleeps Ngannou, the only thing that happens is that the MMA world collectively says, “Well, Francis was gone for almost three years and just got savagely KOed. Guess Tom Aspinall really is the top guy right now.” Sure, Renan Ferreira would be the lineal champion, but that will be all but meaningless at that point in time. No one will care.

So yeah, the PFL needs Francis to come through and uppercut Ferreira out of the cage, remind people why they were so excited to get him in the first place and, hopefully, generate enough interest to have a successful PPV outing.

Big pressure on Big Francis this weekend.

Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco

“What does the future hold for cyborg and Pacheco after this weekend? Kayla will have no real threats for a long time once she takes the belt from Pena.”

Genuinely I have no idea. Pacheco vs. Cyborg is a quality fight that has two enormous issues with it. First is that Cyborg is ancient in fight years. Cyborg has had a wonderful career but frankly the only reason it’s continued this long is because women’s featherweight isn’t a real division, so she’s feasted on overmatched and/or underweight opposition. Pacheco is the first woman Cyborg will have fought since Julia Budd who is actually capable and physically comparable. She’s probably going to get her ass kicked.

Which is all well and good for Pacheco, who is a great fighter, but that leads to problem two: there is nothing else for Pacheco to do after this. I’m honestly a bit surprised that Cyborg didn’t just retire from MMA instead of take this fight but it’s great for Pacheco she didn’t. At least Pacheco gets this one fight for the resume, but after this Pacheco then just moves into the same place Cyborg spent most of her career: having no one to fight.

My best guess is that if/when Pacheco wins, they just run back another tournament next year and she competes in it because she makes a bundle of money and it’s not like the promotion has real “superfights” to offer her. And as for Cyborg, I suspect this is it for her MMA career and she can move back on to pursuing boxing.

UFC 310

“Now that they announced Shavkat vs. Belal I can think of several exciting matchups at the top of the 170 lb division. Is this the best the division has looked in the last decade? Can you rate the divisions by talent?”

If you missed it, the big fights for UFC 310 got announced this week and the event will be headlined by a welterweight title fight between Belal Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov. Reason won out and it’s going to rule. Either Belal pulls off the upset and truly proves himself to be one of the best fighters in the world right now, or Shavkat finally receives his crown and welterweight has a no-doubt-about-it exciting champion for the first time since Robbie Lawler. Win-win.

As for the state of the welterweight division, maybe? It’s true that for the past couple of years the welterweight division has fallen off some, particularly in comparison with weight classes like 155 of 135; and now we do have this crop of new names coming through and making things interesting, which is exciting, but a decade is a long time.

The golden age of welterweight (thus far) was probably Georges St-Pierre’s initial years as champion when the entire top-10 were some of the best fighters alive. But if you look back to 2016, that’s a pretty good crop of fighters as well. Tyron Woodley is champion, Stephen Thompson is at the peak of his powers, Demian Maia is still hanging around, Usman and Colby Covington are on the come-up, along with Leon Edwards and Gilbert Burns. It’s only the past few years where things have felt stagnant because the old guard keeps hanging around. So no, I don’t think it’s the best of the past decade but it’s trending in an excellent direction.

And for rankings:

1. Lightweight
2. Bantamweight
3. Featherweight
4. Flyweight
5. Middleweight
6. Welterweight
7. Womens’ Flyweight
8. Women’s Strawweight
9. Light Heavyweight
10. Heavyweight
11. Women’s bantamweight

And truly the bottom three are interchangeably terrible.

Nick Diaz returns

“What should we expect out of Nick Diaz? Another sad performance? Or do you think he’s going to take this one serious?”

Also lined up for UFC 310 is the return of Nick Diaz, who will take on Vicente Luque. It’s a fight that was originally scheduled for UFC Abu Dhabi this year until “travel issues” popped up for Diaz (a.k.a. somebody finally remembered the very strict rules the UAE has surrounding marijuana). And I gotta tell you, it’s going to be terrible.

The issue is not “whether Nick takes this fight seriously,” it’s that Nick Diaz doesn’t have it anymore. To paraphrase the poet and scholar Cutty Wise, the game ain’t in him no more.

Nick is 41 years old. That alone is nearly disqualifying. On top of that, he’s only fought twice this decade: once in a farce of a bout with Anderson Silva and the other in a hard to watch beatdown against Robbie Lawler. The last time Nick Diaz won a fight, Barack Obama was barely into his first term as president. This isn’t a matter of want, it’s a matter of capability.

I do not know why Nick Diaz is coming back. I hope it’s not because he has to but mostly I hope he gets out of this fight as unscathed as possible. The fact that Luque also looks to be on the well-done side of cooked makes this at least more tolerable than the Lawler matchup, but barely.

Maybe I’m wrong and Nick comes back and looks incredible, but I’m anticipating this to be one of the worst parts of MMA this year. I guess we’ll see.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.

Umar Nurmagomedov is convinced Merab Dvalishvili is ducking him.

Nurmagomedov (18-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) claimed the No. 1 contender spot when he defeated Cory Sandhagen in his first UFC headliner in August. One month later, Dvalishvili (18-4 MMA, 11-2 UFC) dethroned Sean O’Malley to become bantamweight champion at UFC 306.

Dvalishvili has been dismissing Nurmagomedov as a rightful contender since prior to even winning the title. Nurmagomedov thinks Dvalishvili refusing to acknowledge him is not a good look, and claims Dvalishvili is purposely trying to push for March – where Nurmagomedov won’t compete because of Ramadan.

“Merab is trying to avoid my name, trying to tell me that I don’t deserve (a title shot),” Nurmagomedov told Kevin Iole. “Even if the UFC will ask him to fight me or someone else, I think he will choose someone else 100 times. He’s playing games. They know that I will not fight in Ramadan and they’re telling us we’re going to fight in March. March is all Ramadan.

“It’s looking very bad. It’s looking like he’s trying to avoid (me), like he is scared. I don’t understand how the champion is trying to avoid, but if they won’t fight with me, I don’t want to wait. Summer: June, July, May – I want to fight now. I want to fight after two months, before Ramadan, and I want to be active, and we’ll see what’s going to happen.”

Nurmagomedov’s patience is running thin. He has already opted to remain active by booking a grappling match Oct. 25 at ADXC 7, and is even contemplating taking another fight if Dvalishvili won’t fight him before Ramadan.

“I want to be active, and I want to fight before Ramadan,” Nurmagomedov said. “Maybe January or December it’s going to be a good time for me and then after Ramadan, we’ll see. Maybe Merab fights someone else and maybe he will lose, who knows.”

Nurmagomedov says he knew Dvalishvili would win the title if O’Malley couldn’t catch him.

“They’re both not very good,” Nurmagomedov said. “O’Malley’s a bum in MMA. He doesn’t have any grappling. He doesn’t have any wrestling, and he didn’t even try to fight him. He’s just waiting, he’s just running and he fights like a bum. Merab – he’s good. With Merab, you have to go ahead and fight. You can’t beat him when you’re running from him.”

Cristiano Ronaldo may not start at Hampden on Tuesday but that certainly does not mean Scotland can relax.

Nations League opponents Portugal have an array of top-quality attacking alternatives and the all-time leading goalscorer in men’s international football is unlikely to want to put his feet up altogether in Glasgow.

Head coach Roberto Martinez withdrew Ronaldo after 63 minutes in Saturday’s 3-1 win away to Poland, but explained after the match the 39-year-old was “perfect” and the switch was about managing minutes.

The veteran striker scored his 133rd Portugal goal in Warsaw and has found the net in all three wins in this campaign, including a late prod in Lisbon to break Scottish hearts.

“Age does not come into play, Ronaldo does not play as a 39-year-old,” said Martinez as the visitors chose to warm up at St Mirren’s SMiSA stadium in Paisley.

“We are assessing every player and how they feel. Cristiano has been working really well in this camp.

“I think the difficulty of playing two games away from home is more how can you prepare between matches? How can you recover with the players?

“I’ve got no doubt that Cristiano, after 60 minutes, can be involved in the second game. I don’t know if he can start or he can finish the game, but he can certainly be involved as he showed in the last game.”