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Imanari wins via Imanari Roll in seconds at ONE
Latest 10 UFC fight announcements, today's in bold
•Alistair Overeem vs. Alexander Volkov confirmed headliner on 4/20 at UFC on ESPN+ 7 in St. Petersburg.
•Anderson Silva vs Jared Cannonier on 5/11 at UFC 23 in Curitiba
•Bethe Correia vs. Irene Aldana on 5/11 at UFC 237 in Curitiba
•Paige VanZant vs. Poliana Botelho on 4/13 at UFC 236
•Wilson Reis vs. Alexandre Pantoja on 4/13 at UFC 236
•Elias Theodorou vs. Derek Brunson on 5/4 at UFC on ESPN+ 8 in Ottawa
•Sarah Moras vs. Leah Letson on 5/4 at UFC on ESPN+ 8 in Ottawa
•Arjan Bhullar vs. Juan Adams on 5/4 at UFC on ESPN+ 8 in Ottawa
•Aiemann Zahabi vs. Vince Morales on 5/4 at UFC on ESPN+ 8 in Ottawa
•Brian Kelleher vs. Mitch Gagnon on 5/4 at UFC on ESPN+ 8 in Ottawa
Mackenzie Dern announces pregnancy, fighting career on hold but will return
GSP's coach laments return of embarrassing MMA superstars
Firas Zahabi: “The way the market changed, the way that the personalities changed, we went back to our Tito Ortiz days, and even worse to greater degrees. Georges was such a breath of fresh air because he brought class to our sport. We were not embarrassed of our sport when he was there … I was happy to say I’m part of the sport. But nowadays, you have so many superstars who are getting in trouble with the law. The way they behave, it makes the sport look uncivilized. And it’s not the case – 99 percent of our athletes are good people. But it’s unfortunate when the megastars embarrass us all." h/t MMAjunkie • Watch
Black breaks down formative GSP fight
6' 4", 225, former fighter and founder of 600-employee company on lessons from MMA
BlueGrace Logistics CEO Bobby Harris: "I have to quote Rob Kahn - he's kind of like the godfather of (Mixed Martial Arts) in Tampa — when you're in a dominating position, dominate. In business, it's a critical thing to remember: When you're in a position to do something great, don't let it pass you by. Do it. We feel we're in a real interesting time when we can make a lot of impact, and we mean to do that." h/t Tampa Bay Times
EFC signs new deal with SABC, following SuperSport partnership
Both SABC (free television) and SuperSport (Pay TV channel) will televise the promotion's main-card bouts this year, starting with EFC 77 at Time Square in Pretoria, South Africa on 3/16. The partnership will see 1 hour of EFC programming every Saturday evening from 20:00-21:00 on SABC 3, plus 10 live EFC events broadcast per year. On the evening of every live EFC event, SABC 3 will broadcast the full 3-hour event delayed live from 21:30-00:30, featuring the 5 main-card bouts. In the USA the event streams on DAZN.
Headbutts are coming to UFC Fight Pass on Friday night
Nurmagomedov sees your whiskey, and raises a perfume
UFC 234 PPV estimated at 175,000
UFC 234, the show headlined by Anderson Silva vs. Israel Adesanya after the Robert Whittaker vs. Kelvin Gastelum main event fell through, on 2/9 from Melbourne, Australia, is currently estimated at doing 175,000 buys on PPV. All things considered, that isn’t a bad number. However, it was the show that did the best prelims numbers in more than two years so it’s a case where the prelim numbers (and Google numbers, likely due to so many searches regarding Whittaker’s late pullout) did not correlate with final numbers. The prelim rating was more based on the basketball lead-in than the UFC show itself. h/t WON (subscription)
Paul Felder undergoes surgery on collapsed lung
In the closing moments of his unanimous decision win over James Vick on Sunday night in Phoenix, Paul Felder believes his lung was punctured when he took a shot to the ribs. The collapsed lung did not heal on its own, so he was forced to undergo surgery at a local Phoenix hospital Wednesday afternoon; the surgery was a success. It is hoped that Felder will be discharged next week, Butler said. The UFC is currently working on flying his family from Philadelphia to be with him. h/t ESPN
UFC Fight Night 145 faceoffs
Brave partnership will help promote Filipino warriors
Brave Combat Federation has announced a deal with Philipines' TV5. The partnership will start with the broadcast of Brave 22: Storm of Warriors, which Filipino fans will now be able to watch live on the biggest sports channel in the country. Both parties are excited about this deal's potential as they announced details and talked about it in a press conference held this week in Manila. Brave president Mohammed Shahid: "A lot of promotions use their local stars only when they go to their backyard. We don't. We make sure to make this a global event, and these Filipino warriors have defended their flag all over the world. Stephen Loman has faced and beaten tough fighters from Brazil, Ireland, and India. Jeremy Pacatiw has beaten a Brazilian prospect in Brazil. People ask me why they're not known here, but they will be now. They are known all over the world and will now have the chance to be known here."
Team Velasquez narrative on loss evolves
AKA founder and head coach Javier Mendez appeared recently on Submission Radio and presented an evolving narrative around Cain Velasquez's loss to Francis Ngannou at UFC on ESPN 1 on Sunday. Velasquez said that the loss was due to a knee that went out: “It was just the knee, he didn’t even, like, touch me, you know?” Now Mendez says he watched the replay, and believes it was an illegal blow to the back of the head: “If you guys watch the video, the very first punch Ngannou threw at Cain, he came into shoot, he got hit in the back of the head, an illegal shot that dazed him a little bit when he went in for the takedown, and that’s what kind of jacked up his knee to start. So, I didn’t see that, I did not see that. And today I looked at it and said, oh my god. And guess who told me about it? Cain. Today, he said, ‘hey coach, I got hit in the back of the head, so I was a little dazed’. So that’s kind of did what happened. ... nothing to take away from Ngannou, he’s a great fighter, he came in prepared, the better man won that night. There’s nothing you can say about that. But, it was a freak accident.”
