1:08 PM ET Jeff WagenheimESPN “Remember, I was supposed to fight him after he fought Ken Shamrock,” Chuck Liddell recounted on Monday, looking back with bemused fondness on his age-old rivalry with Tito Ortiz and its bitter beginnings. “After I fought Vitor Belfort, he jumped in the ring and said he was going to kick
MMA
3:55 AM ET Japanese MMA star Norifumi ‘Kid’ Yamamoto has died at the age of 41. Yamamoto, who was one of the sport’s most popular fighters in the mid-2000s, revealed in an Instagram post in August that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Krazybee, Yamamoto’s Tokyo gym, announced he had passed away on Tuesday Sept.
5:15 PM ET Former UFC champion Johny Hendricks and longtime Bellator welterweight Brennan Ward have agreed to meet in a bare-knuckle boxing match later this year. Both recently retired mixed martial artists have come to terms with the World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation. WBKFF vice president Paul Tyler confirmed the news to ESPN on Monday,
3:10 PM ET Former UFC strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk is open to moving up to flyweight to compete for the belt, she told ESPN on Monday. The expected matchup would be against Valentina Shevchenko, who was set to face then-champion Nicco Montano on Sept. 8 before Montano withdrew with health issues the day before. The
10:20 PM ET UFC Fight Night Sao Paulo has taken another hit. Eryk Anders is stepping in on six days’ notice to fight Thiago Santos in the main event of Saturday night’s card in Brazil, multiple sources confirmed to ESPN. Anders accepted the assignment on Sunday after Jimi Manuwa withdrew from the headliner due to
5:32 PM ET Russian heavyweight and submission specialist Aleksei Oleinik had joked leading up to Saturday’s main event against Mark Hunt that his opponent had no neck to apply one of his signature chokes to. Ultimately, he proved himself incorrect. Oleinik (57-11-1) located Hunt’s neck with a rear-naked choke in the first round at UFC
11:24 AM ET Karim Zidan In December 2016, five months after his Hollywood talent agency had purchased the UFC, Ari Emanuel was on a plane headed to Moscow. The CEO of WME-IMG (now called Endeavor) was with longtime UFC president Dana White, and they were on their way to meet Russia’s then-minister of sport, Vitaly
10:36 PM ET Former two-weight UFC champion BJ Penn will return to the cage at UFC 232 on Dec. 29 in a lightweight bout against Ryan Hall. UFC Tonight announced the 155-pound matchup on Wednesday. UFC 232 will take place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Penn (16-12-2) hasn’t fought since he suffered a majority
12:55 PM ET DALLAS – Kamaru Usman is laying down in his bed inside Room 783 of the Hilton Anatole on Thursday night dreading what the next few hours will be like as he pulls the covers over his body and closes his eyes. “This is going to be a tough weight cut,” Usman said.
1:32 PM ET Lyoto Machida’s Bellator debut is set. The former UFC light heavyweight champion will meet former Bellator middleweight champion Rafael Carvalho on Dec. 15 on the promotion’s debut card in Honolulu. The event will be headlined by Hawaii’s Ilima-Lei Macfarlane vs. Valerie Letourneau for the Bellator flyweight title, and it will take place