Kevin Lee wants to make it back to the UFC for a third run, and is off to a good start with an impressive showing Saturday.
Lee (19-8) competed in his first fight since leaving the UFC for the second time after a submission loss to Rinat Fakhretdinov in just 55 seconds at UFC on ESPN 47 last July.
Saturday, Lee took on Bellator veteran Thiago Oliveira (17-12-1) at Lights Out Championship 17, and ended this fight with a tight rear-naked choke submission in just two minutes.
The win is Lee’s first since winning a unanimous decision over Diego Sanchez at Eagle FC 46 in March 22, which came after Lee’s first run with the UFC.
Ali Abdelaziz recently appeared on Submission Radio where he discussed a number of topics, including the possibility of a McGregor-Gaethje dream fight that may never happen. According to Abdelaziz, it’s McGregor who has been reluctant to accept the matchup.
“Let’s be real, Conor McGregor will never, will never, will never… he got offered this fight at least five times,” Abdelaziz said (transcription via Denis Shkuratov). “At least five. He never wanted to have to do anything with Justin Gaethje. He said the reason he didn’t want to fight Justin was because Justin talked bad to him on Twitter and Instagram before and the history we have with him. He didn’t want to lose to our team, I guess.”
Gaethje recently told a similar story to TMZ Sports, though he claimed it was actually six times that the McGregor fight was offered and not signed by his adversary. At the time, Gaethje said McGregor couldn’t risk fighting him because “How you lose to me is not how you can lose and continue to be Conor McGregor. That’s a big risk for him and he’s always saying something, trying to take the light away from people fighting in the cage.”
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Abdelaziz has a different take on it, alleging that fighters are told not to feud with McGregor on social media if they want to be booked against him.
“The last five, six years we offered Justin Gaethje so many times,” Abdelaziz said. “Never once, never once, this man—Even the UFC, told me this, ‘Hey, leave him alone. Don’t talk with him. He doesn’t like to fight people who talk bad to him on the internet.’ I promise you, he likes to be the one to start the talk and you retaliate.
“Why do you think [Michael] Chandler being so nice to him? Why? Because he was being told not to talk bad to Conor. Conor has to start talking bad and he talk bad back. He’s a weak mental midget. He’s soft like a marshmallow. And he’s a no-good, son of a bitch. This is what he is.”
The history between McGregor and Abdelaziz’s fighters dates back to McGregor’s ugly feud with Khabib Nurmagomedov. When the two fought at UFC 229, Nurmagomedov defeated McGregor by fourth-round submission, but then exited the cage afterwards to initiate a brawl with McGregor’s teammates. McGregor, Nurmagomedov, and several of their associates were fined and suspended as a result of the incident.
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Post-fight shenanigans aside, Abdelaziz believes the win was do definitive for Nurmagomedov that the outcome forever changed McGregor.
“It’s been six years since Conor lost his soul to Khabib,” Abdelaziz said. “Khabib took everything away from him. He took his manhood. He took his soul. He was never the same. He will never be the same. He took everything away from this man. This man, every time he look at himself in the mirror, he think about a Dagestani guy who wears a papakha, a wig. This is incredible. He ruined him.
“Khabib said, ‘I’m going to change your face. I’m going to change your mental.’ Remember that? The UFC lost so much money because of Khabib. But this is the game. You have to fight the best and Khabib was the best at the same time and Conor fought the best and he got whooped.”
The issue with yellow cards pre-dates Maresca’s appointment in June.
Former Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino spoke last season about how “silly” bookings were a problem and showed video clips to his players to try to rectify the issue.
The Blues were punished last season for not adapting to new Premier League rules for dissent.
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Jackson picked up 10 bookings last season but only one was for a foul, the others were for dissent, not retreating quickly enough for a free-kick and entering the field of play when a substitute.
Other players fell foul in similar situations and captain Reece James received two red cards – including one for two yellows – despite playing just 421 minutes.
The immaturity of Chelsea’s young squad may be another factor and with centre-back Thiago Silva having departed in the summer the average age of the group has dropped further to 23.4, according to data from Transfermarkt.
The Blues also have the lowest average height in the league, according to Transfermarkt, averaging just over 5ft 8in, which was another issue Pochettino complained about when in charge.
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It perhaps leads to a tendency for players to look at other ways to try and impart their physicality on matches.
And under both Pochettino and Maresca Chelsea are firmly a possession-based team, trying to implement various pressing styles. That pressing can lead to bookings in transition phases and there is a tendency for teams operating these tactics to produce tactical fouls to stop counter-attacks.
Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the body which governs referees in England, has also changed the rules in recent years, with an automatic yellow card now expected to be brandished in several situations.
MMA fight announcements are hard to follow. With so many outlets and channels available, it’s nearly impossible to organize.
But here at MMA Junkie, we’ve got your back.
Each week, we’ll compile all the newly surfaced fights in one spot. Every Monday, expect a feature listing everything you might have missed from the UFC, PFL and Bellator.
Here are the fight announcements that were broken or confirmed by MMA Junkie or officially announced by the promotions from Sept. 30-Oct. 6.
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UFC Fight Night 246, Las Vegas, Nov. 9
Jan 21, 2023; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Luan Lacerda (red gloves) reacts after the fight against Cody Stamann (blue gloves) during UFC 283 at Jeunesse Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jason da Silva-USA TODAY Sports
UFC 309, New York, Nov. 16
Jim Miller
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UFC Fight Night 247, Macau, Nov. 23
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – AUGUST 10: (R-L) Quang Le of Vietnam punches Chris Gutierrez in a bantamweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on August 10, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Powers/Zuffa LLC)
UFC Fight Night, Tampa, Fla., Dec. 14
Jun 29, 2024; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Cub Swanson (red gloves) fights Andre Fili (not pictured) during UFC 303 at T-Mobile Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
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UFC Fight Night, Las Vegas, Jan. 11
Chris Curtis
UFC 311, TBA, Jan. 18
Nov 4, 2023; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Jailton Almeida (red gloves) fights Derrick Lewis (blue gloves) during UFC Fight Night at Ibirapuera Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jason da Silva-USA TODAY Sports
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Welcome to the latest update to the MMA Fighting pound-for-pound rankings, where every month our esteemed panel sort through the noise to answer one question: Who are the best overall male and female MMA fighters in the world?
Let’s take a look at how things stand following a pair of title fights at UFC 307 in Salt Lake City, and a performance from one contender that has her on the cusp of a top 5 spot.
Throwing four of the best bantamweights in the world on the same card was bound to shake up the women’s pound-for-pound charts and Saturday’s results didn’t disappoint.
Kayla Harrison led off the UFC 307 main card with a convincing win over perennial contender Ketlen Vieira. It wasn’t a first-round demolition, but rather a gutsy 15-minute performance that showed how much Harrison has matured in her sixth year as an MMA fighter. It’s no stretch to say Harrison’s first two UFC opponents, Vieira and Holly Holm are a considerable step up from what she faced in the PFL (with the exception of Larissa Pacheco, who Harrison still holds two wins over) and she’s impressed against both, in different ways.
The win over Vieira bumped Harrison up four spots to No. 8 in our rankings, one spot higher than her previous best. The Harrison hype train headed for champion station appears to be right on track.
With a split nod over Raquel Pennington, Peña is the UFC bantamweight champion once again, which puts her back in the rankings at No. 13 and in the driver’s seat if she has anything to say about it. Her ideal opponent is retired rival Amanda Nunes, the woman Peña beat at UFC 269 to score one of the most shocking championship upsets ever, only to immediately return the title at UFC 277 when Nunes pummeled her for five rounds.
It’s doubtful “The Lioness” awakens from her slumber to deal with Peña, so a title defense against Harrison feels inevitable. The winner could find themselves cracking the top 5 of the pound-for-pound rankings, something no women’s bantamweight has done since Nunes’ retirement in June 2023.
Falling out of the rankings (previous ranking shown): No. 20 Macy Chiasson
Alex Pereira shut down a spirited effort from Khalil Rountree Jr., so there’s not a lot to report when it comes to the men’s side of the list, though Pereira’s dominance and popularity continue to push the question of just how close he is to usurping Islam Makhachev in the No. 1 spot.
Few would dispute Makhachev’s status as the best fighter in the world, but activity matters and Pereira has a strong case to top the charts with his fourth title fight victory in less than a year. To add further context, Makhachev has fought five times since the start of 2022, smoking Charles Oliveira to claim the lightweight title and then going 2-0 against featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski. His most recent outing saw him finish Dustin Poirier, one of the best lightweights ever.
Given that lightweight is widely considered to be a stronger division than light heavyweight or middleweight, it’s fair to keep Makhachev at No. 1. But if he doesn’t book a title fight soon, and Pereira keeps up this pace, Makhachev might not be able to hold “Poatan” for long.
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Recent results for ranked fighters (previous ranking shown): No. 2 Alex Pereira def. Khalil Rountree Jr.
The six-person voting panel consists of MMA Fighting staffers Alexander K. Lee, Guilherme Cruz, Mike Heck, E. Casey Leydon, Damon Martin and Jed Meshew.
Updates to the rankings will be completed following every UFC pay-per-view. Fighters will be removed from the rankings if they do not compete within 18 months of their most recent bout.
Should a fighter announce their retirement, our panel will decide whether that fighter should immediately be removed from the rankings or maintain their position until further notice (let’s put it this way: we’d have taken Khabib Nurmagomedov out of our rankings a lot quicker than the UFC did).
As a reminder, the notion of pound-for-pound supremacy is always going to inherently be subjective. When you’re debating whether someone like Sean Strickland should be ranked above someone like Charles Oliveira, there is no true right answer. In other words: It’s not serious business, folks.
Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Make your voice heard in the comments below.
Peña (12-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) reclaimed the bantamweight title when she edged out Raquel Pennington (16-9 MMA, 13-5 UFC) in Saturday’s co-main event at Delta Center. Earlier in the night, Harrison picked up her second UFC win when she outgrappled Ketlan Vieira.
A split screen showed Harrison (18-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) listening to Peña’s post-fight interview in the octagon, but “The Venezuelan Vixen” instead called for a trilogy bout with Amanda Nunes. Peña insists on settling the score with Nunes, and says she expected a better performance from Harrison.
“I’ll tell you, I was warming up and focusing on my own fight, but with that being said, I had my coaches there watching the fight and kind of giving me the 411 on what was going down. We’re not impressed,” Peña told MMA Junkie and other reporters at the UFC 307 post-fight press conference.
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“She said she was going to put her elbow through her skull, and she was going to, you know, do all this damage. (Vieira) didn’t have a scratch on her. It was boring, and she didn’t do anything that jumped off the page like, ‘Ooh, the boogeyman,’ you know what I mean? So I was definitely, especially with hearing from my team, not impressed.”
Harrison was tested by Vieira, who split her head open with an elbow in the clinch. Vieira showed resistance, but Harrison eventually overwhelmed her. Peña thinks the two-time Olympic gold medalist judoka was exposed.
“I definitely think that at some point or another, like Ronda (Rousey), when you figure out the one-trick pony of being able to stuff a takedown, you realize that the fight is more competitive and more even than people want to give it credit for,” Peña said. “I think that once you stuff the takedown, you realize that you’re actually in a tougher fight than you thought you were, and I think that that’s kind of what played into her head tonight.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 307.
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