LAS VEGAS – Rob Font expects an action-packed fight with Kyler Phillips.

Font (20-8 MMA, 10-7 UFC) takes on Phillips (12-2 MMA, 6-1 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 245 (ESPN+) co-main event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

“Kyler, he brings it,” Font told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a UFC Fight Night 245 pre-fight news conference Wednesday. “He’s nonstop action. These type of guys, there’s more opportunities to counter, more opportunities to get finishes, and they’re not necessarily a boring fight at all.”

Font is no stranger to facing a surging bantamweight contender, and thinks Phillips style matches up perfectly with his.

“I think this is a great matchup. I think this is a Fight of the Night for sure,” Font said. “Like I said, he brings it. He starts off fast. I believe I start off fast, as well. He has a wild kicking style. He’ll pull guard and try to jump on submissions.

“He seems like a lifelong martial artist, like one of those kids that have been in the gym since he was like 3 – karate background, jiu-jitsu background, and he’s fighting tough guys. He just beat Pedro Munhoz so, this is another tough fight.”

Font will look to snap a two-fight losing skid after losses to Cory Sandhagen and Deiveson Figueiredo. The last time he lost back-to-back fights, he was able to upset Adrian Yanez with a TKO finish, and he looks to play spoiler once again vs. Phillips.

“This feels similar to when I fought Adrian Yanez,” Font said. “Unfortunately I lost two in a row, then I fought him, got a big win and then lost another two in a row. Now I’m back with another unranked fighter that’s super dangerous, so it has that feeling. It just gets me up and ready to go. I know with a big win, a big finish, the headlines will be different.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 245.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – As far as Donn Davis is concerned, talk about the world’s top heavyweight should be focused on Saudi Arabia on Saturday, not New York in November.

Put simpler, the promotion’s co-owner thinks the PFL will have the best heavyweight in MMA after Saturday, not the UFC. And further, Davis implied that disputing that claim would take a cross-promotion of some kind with the UFC – an idea CEO Dana White essentially never has been keen to.

At PFL: Battle of the Giants (DAZN/ESPN+) at The Mayadeen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou (17-3) takes on Renan Ferreira (13-3) in a PFL heavyweight superfight title bout. Ngannou has boxed twice since he left the UFC, but hasn’t fought an MMA bout since January 2021 before he left the UFC for the PFL after a contract dispute.

At UFC 309, which takes place Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden, Jon Jones (27-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) is a massive favorite upwards of 7-1 against former champ Stipe Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC). Jones won the UFC heavyweight title after Ngannou vacated it.

And naturally, depending on which side is asked, the other side is ducking – either Jones or Ngannou.

“Our focus is on this Saturday,” Davis said after a Thursday news conference in Saudi Arabia for the pay-per-view. “This is the biggest fight in MMA in heavyweight this year. Francis, when he left the UFC, he was the pound-for-pound No. 1 and the heavyweight champion. And then Ferreira is the biggest rising star … This is the fight everybody wants to see. Whoever comes out of this fight is the No. 1 in the world. Whoever wants to claim the No. 1 spot goes through the winner of this fight, not through the UFC – this fight. Whoever wants to claim that position better be calling us after Saturday, not calling them.”

Jones has suggested his fight with Miocic might be his swan song. Ngannou is in his late 30s, as well. Absent cross-promotion, and reasonably soon, it seems like a Jones-Ngannou fight is a longshot at best.

But Davis implied it could happen if White wanted it to.

“We’ve said at the PFL we want to give the fans what they want, and that’s the best fights in the world,” Davis said. “Francis Ngannou? He said he’ll take on all comers. I think Jon Jones wants to cement his legacy. There’s only one obstacle to that fight, and we know who that is.”

After the UFC 309 heavyweight title fight between Jones and Miocic, the UFC has interim champ Tom Aspinall waiting in the wings, as well.

For more on the cards, visit MMA Junkie’s event hubs for PFL: Battle of the Giants and UFC 309.

Francis Ngannou’s MMA return happens this Saturday as the PFL returns to pay-per-view for Battle of the Giants in Saudi Arabia. With the PFL needing to badly get some buzz, does Ngannou have to beat Renan Ferreira — not just for himself, but for the PFL as a whole?

On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses Saturday’s big fight card, how important it is that the card delivers as a whole, and what happens based on the result of the main event. Additionally, topics include Dana White once again ripping the UFC rankings panel after UFC 307, the promotion returning to the APEX this Saturday for UFC Vegas 99 headlined by Anthony Hernandez vs. Michel Pereira, Donald Cerrone announcing he’s ending his retirement with hopes of two more UFC bouts, UFC 310 fight announcements including Belal Muhammad vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov for the welterweight title, and more.

Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and UFC lightweight Grant Dawson.

Watch the show live at 12:30 p.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. PT in the video above.

If you missed the show live, you can still watch above, or listen to the podcast version, which can be found below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods.

Poulsen had coached Odense BK to the Danish championship in 1989 and the domestic cup in 1991 before being asked to step in and help Zambia.

“Approximately three weeks after the disaster, I got calls from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Football Association [to ask] if I could help over a period of six weeks in Denmark,” he told BBC Sport Africa last year, speaking to mark the 30th anniversary of the plane crash.

However, the scale of the task in front of him became apparent when the side arrived in Europe and started training.

“I could see this was going to be a big job,” said Poulsen.

“I felt the ability of the players was not really there, that they didn’t have any confidence. All quite understandable given they were in foreign country with strange food and accommodation, far away from families.

“The main thing is that the common language of football is so strong.”

Poulsen was asked to take charge of the 1994 World Cup qualifier against Morocco in Lusaka on 4 July 1993 as the Chipolopolo players took to the field for their first competitive encounter since the crash.

Kalusha Bwalya captained the side, having avoided the crash because he was due to make his own way to Senegal.

The 1988 African Footballer of the Year was on the scoresheet as Zambia came from behind to beat their North African opponents.

“That was fantastic, mission accomplished,” Poulsen said.

“The whole nation accepted our work. It took hours for us to leave the stadium as people ran alongside the bus, singing.

“After less than six weeks, a new national team was born.”

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Fabian Edwards gets a second crack at Bellator middleweight champion Johnny Eblen, and isn’t putting too much into losing the first matchup.

At PFL: Battle of the Giants in Riyadh, Edwards (13-3) will look to avenge the loss to Eblen (15-0), which came at Bellator 299 last September. All it took was one win, and “The Assassin” now finds himself days away from another Bellator title shot.

“It feels right,” Edwards told MMA Junkie and other reporters at media day. “Some people say it’s too soon and all of that, but for me, it feels right. … “I just look at it as one fight doesn’t mean that’s how all the fights will play out. I look at it as a new fight, but I’ve felt him before.”

The loss to Eblen snapped a three-fight winning streak for Edwards. He immediately returned to the win column in his following outing against Aaron Jeffery, winning by unanimous decision.

Looking back on the first meeting, Edwards believes he was doing everything properly against Eblen until an ill-timed mistake left an opening. Ahead of the rematch, he studied the first fight and said he watched the finishing sequence “thousands” of times, which taught him an important lesson.

“The small details,” Edwards said when asked what is different going into the rematch. “That’s what this fighting game is, it’s the small details that make a difference. I look back at the last fight, it was a small mistake that made a difference, and I made sure I corrected those.”

The scorecards were all over the place in the first meeting with Eblen. One judge had both rounds for Eblen, another scored both for Edwards, while the third scored one round for either fighter.

This time around, whether it’s on the scorecards or by early stoppage, Edwards is confident he will leave Riyadh with the Bellator middleweight title.

“I get my hand raised by any means,” Edwards said. “I feel like the last fight, I was beating him. It wasn’t any areas that he was outclassing me at. But it’s MMA, it’s 4 oz. gloves, and you get yourself caught sometimes. That’s what I believe happened.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for PFL: Battle of the Giants.