MMA

7:29 PM ET The UFC is finalizing a lightweight bout between Justin Gaethje and Rafael Fiziev to its UFC 286 lineup in London. Contracts have not been signed, but the 155-pound contest is expected to be shored up shortly, multiple sources told ESPN on Saturday. The UFC 286 pay-per-view is scheduled for March 18 from

1:09 PM ET Sara CoelloESPN Close Sara Coello is a writer in ESPN’s investigative and enterprise unit. Before joining, they wrote about legal issues and crime for The Charlotte Observer, The Post and Courier and The Dallas Morning News. Coello studied sociology, journalism and Spanish at The University of Dallas. The public is unlikely to

8:52 AM ET The 2023 MMA calendar gets underway this weekend, and it intensifies next week when UFC 283 is headlined by a pair of championship fights. But a truly game-changing moment for the sport arrives next month in a collision of ESPN’s No. 1 and No. 2 pound-for-pound fighters. When UFC men’s featherweight champion

4:45 PM ET A suspended MMA coach at the center of an ongoing betting scandal in the UFC has acted as an agent for an offshore bookmaking operation for years, multiple sources who placed bets with him told ESPN. James Krause, 36, has worked as an agent — the term for a middleman between offshore

Jan 9, 2023 Nassourdine Imavov meets short-notice replacement Sean Strickland in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday in Las Vegas. The fights at the UFC Apex are on ESPN+, with the 7 p.m. ET main card preceded by prelims at 4 p.m. Both fighters typically compete at middleweight — Strickland is No.

8:53 AM ET Just days away from UFC’s opening fight card of the new year, ESPN is back with the second installment of its annual MMA Rank. Using a two-step voting process, ESPN’s MMA contributors set out to project which 30 fighters will perform the best in 2023. The final list features fighters from multiple

5:12 PM ET LAS VEGAS — UFC president Dana White told reporters Wednesday that no one should be defending his actions after he was caught on camera on New Year’s Eve in Mexico slapping his wife in a nightclub’s VIP section. Appearing before media members at the UFC’s Apex to answer questions about the physical

3:09 PM ET Jeff WagenheimESPN Usman Nurmagomedov has been Bellator lightweight champion for less than two months, and already he is being asked to run a gantlet of challengers. Bellator MMA announced Wednesday that it will launch a Lightweight World Grand Prix in March, with Nurmagomedov defending his title as part of an eight-fighter field

9:21 AM ET With the UFC returning to action this weekend with its first card of 2023, it’s time once again for ESPN’s annual MMA rank. A two-step voting process involving ESPN’s MMA team set out to project which 30 fighters will have the best 2023. The final list features fighters across multiple promotions —

11:35 PM ET Carlos Contreras Legaspi Former MMA fighter Phil Baroni was charged by a state judge in Mexico with aggravated femicide Monday. Baroni, 46, was living in the coastal region of Sayulita and San Francisco in Bahía de Banderas, Nayarit, when he called police Jan. 1, after finding his girlfriend, a woman from Mexico