12:45 PM ET Juliana Velasquez has her first Bellator title defense booked. The new Bellator women’s flyweight champion will face top-tier kickboxer Denise Kielholtz at Bellator 262 on July 16 at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, the promotion announced Friday. The undefeated Velasquez beat Ilima-Lei Macfarlane to win the title this past December. Bellator 262
MMA
7:52 AM ET Four years ago, Cody Garbrandt delivered an all-time classic, five-round performance against Dominick Cruz to capture the UFC’s bantamweight championship. Garbrandt hasn’t looked the same since. Going into Saturday’s UFC Fight Night main event between Garbrandt (12-3) and Rob Font (18-4) at the Apex in Las Vegas (7 p.m. ET, prelims at
6:12 PM ET Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza is no longer on the UFC roster. The perennial UFC middleweight contender broke his arm in a submission loss to Andre Muniz at UFC 262 last Saturday in Houston. It turns out that it was the final fight on Souza’s UFC contract and he is now a free agent,
11:02 AM ET The PFL announced its next round of light heavyweight and welterweight matchups Wednesday, with the June 17 event serving as the final opportunity for fighters in those classes to earn points toward a berth in the 2021 playoffs. Among the most notable matchups, promotion newcomer Rory MacDonald (22-6-1) will face Gleison Tibau
3:43 PM ET The UFC is targeting a new date of July 24 for a bantamweight fight between former champion TJ Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen, multiple sources told ESPN, confirming an MMA Junkie report. Contracts have not been signed, but the UFC is working on finalizing the 135-pound contest. Once official, it will headline a
11:01 PM ET There is a deal in place for a boxing match between boxing luminary Oscar De La Hoya and UFC legend Georges St-Pierre. But the fight cannot happen unless the UFC gives its approval, according to Ryan Kavanaugh, who is attempting to promote the bout under his Triller Fight Club banner. Kavanaugh told
3:22 PM ET UFC lightweight Beneil Dariush waited months for Tesla to give him some answers about a brand new car he ordered in 2020. As it turns out, all he needed to do was call out Elon Musk on live television to get the response he was looking for. Dariush, 32, defeated Tony Ferguson
8:03 AM ET Tatiana Suarez, one of the best women’s MMA fighters in the world, is finally close to returning to the Octagon. Suarez told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani in a video interview published Wednesday that she has been medically cleared by doctors and is targeting a return to the UFC in September, or perhaps even
7:30 AM ET It did not look good for Charles Oliveira. Less than a minute into last Saturday’s fight for the UFC lightweight championship, he was trapped in a guillotine choke, and Michael Chandler‘s beefy arms were squeezing the life out of him. Even after he escaped trouble and gained dominant position in control of
7:49 AM ET Charles Oliveira sits atop the UFC’s lightweight division after a thrilling second-round TKO of Michael Chandler in the main event of UFC 262 on Saturday, but did the new champ do enough to surpass Dustin Poirier as the No. 1-ranked fighter in the division? Oliveira wasn’t the only one to make an