3:22 PM ET Peter Carroll In its 17-year history, Cage Warriors has paved the way to the UFC for nearly 100 fighters. On June 29, for the first time since the inaugural Cage Warriors championships were unveiled in 2005, six of the coveted titles — considered “golden tickets” to the UFC — were put on
MMA
3:15 AM ET Marc RaimondiESPN Junior dos Santos was the polished boxer, the former UFC heavyweight champion. He had the pedigree. But Francis Ngannou had the raw punching power. In the end, that’s all that mattered. Ngannou crushed dos Santos with a combination of looping, crushing punches early on — a right hook followed by
6:02 PM ET Marc RaimondiESPN Joseph Benavidez owns a win over flyweight champion Henry Cejudo. He’s one of the best and longest-tenured 125-pound fighters ever. Heck, he even came in with a previous win over his opponent, Jussier Formiga. All Benavidez needed to do was get a victory — a second one — over Formiga
Jun 30, 2019 Francis Ngannou knocked out another opponent in the first round Saturday, this time Junior Dos Santos in the main event of UFC Fight Night in Minneapolis. His power is clearly unmatched in the UFC. Ngannou is 3-1 since his unanimous decision loss to former champion Stipe Miocic in January 2018. Have we
10:28 AM ET Marc RaimondiESPN Daniel Cormier said it before his fight with Stipe Miocic. You can go back and hear it in interviews. The future champ-champ just about called his shot. “I said, ‘Stipe does this thing when he exits the clinch that will cost him,'” Cormier told ESPN. “He tends to hang his
Jun 24, 2019 The latest episode of Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show on Monday featured arguably the greatest fighter ever, two UFC title challengers and a new Bellator champion. Here’s what you might have missed: Jon Jones doesn’t hold back UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, less than two weeks from his UFC 239 main event
12:05 PM ET Marc RaimondiESPN The super-sized main event for UFC Minneapolis is official as heavyweight headliners Francis Ngannou and Junior Dos Santos both made weight Friday morning ahead of the card Saturday night. Ngannou weighed in at 255.5 pounds, while Dos Santos hit the scale at 249. The winner could be next in line
9:13 AM ET It’s easy to forget, given his meteoric rise in the sport, but Francis Ngannou never intended to get into mixed martial arts. When Ngannou migrated to France from his native Cameroon in his mid-20s, he initially got into boxing. His coaches eventually steered him toward MMA. And looking back, he says, one
8:27 AM ET Marc RaimondiESPN Henry Cejudo remembers running into Demetrious Johnson backstage at a UFC event in early 2016, before their first fight for the flyweight title. Johnson was the longtime champion, Cejudo the upstart challenger and 2008 Olympic gold medalist. Cejudo approached Johnson as he stood with his family. There were already rumors
1:45 PM ET We’re closing in on the second set of regular-season fights in the Professional Fighters League, and over the first three fight cards, there have been a handful of standout performances that have elevated certain fighters into the spotlight. That’s clear when looking at traditional stats, like fastest finishes, total strikes landed and