Francis Ngannou has revealed that he will have Kamaru Usman in his corner when he fights Stipe Miocic at UFC 260 — Fightful has you covered on this story and all of the news in the world of combat sports.
Kamaru Usman to be in Francis Ngannou's corner at UFC 260
Francis Ngannou will face Stipe Miocic in a rematch for the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 260, Ngannou has revealed that his friend and fellow African, Kamaru Usman will be in his corner to help with his wrestling if needs be.
In the first fight between Miocic and Ngannou, Miocic relied heavily on his wrestling to win the fight and it was clear that the grappling and wrestling of Ngannou was not up to the level it needs to be to become a world champion.
Ahead of the rematch which will take place at UFC 260, Ngannou has really been working on his takedown defense and grappling at Xtreme Couture but also, recently, UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman came out to work with him and will now corner him at UFC 260.
On Ngannou's Fight Camp Vlog, he said "Yeah, so Kamaru Usman’s gonna be in my corner for this fight. So it’s good having him here, helping me out for the fight, by this time you need everything."
Ngannou also said “Basically, he is gonna be in my corner and it’s good for him to train where I am and to bring his own asset into the game. This is a very decisive moment leading up to the fight so it is very important to engage with him. He’s gonna be in my corner basically helping me with my wrestling, which is great. So yeah, it’s good.”
How do you think the rematch between Miocic and Ngannou will go down?
Paulo Costa's coach says he "hasn't fully recovered" from COVID-19 infection
Paulo Costa's coach and brother Carlos Costa has given more details as to why Paulo Costa decided to withdraw from his fight against Robert Whittaker in April.
It was initially reported that Costa had opted to pull out of the bout due to a "severe case of the flu." More details have now been revealed about Costa's condition.
Costa's brother Carlos told MMA Fighting, “We just want to postpone [the fight] a week or two so ‘Borrachinha’ can recover.”
Costa also said "He had COVID and then had the flu, and the flu is taking a long time to go away. We just want to postpone [the fight].”
Also according to Carlos Costa, Paulo tested positive for COVID-19 a month ago and his girlfriend, mother, as well as himself, were all infected with the virus.
Carlos then went on to detail some of the symptoms which Paulo had. He said "He had a sore throat, and then a huge secretion in the chest. His physical conditioning dropped a little bit, and then a few weeks ago he had this severe flu. We’ll get [a] chest X-ray and other exams are done to see if COVID has affected anything.”
Belal Muhammad goes after Leon Edwards again
After his fight against Leon Edwards this past weekend ended in very unfortunate circumstances, Belal Muhammad is extremely angry with the way Edwards has conducted himself post-fight.
Muhammad suffered a gruesome injury to his left eye which saw him having to receive stitches after the fight.
Although the fight's official outcome was a no contest, Edwards was treating the fight as a win due to how dominant he was for the first seven minutes of the fight before it got stopped. Edwards' attitude after the fight is not sitting too well with Muhammad who is very keen to run it back once his eye is healed.
“I was seeing red – I was pissed,” Muhammad said to MMA Fighting. “Honestly, that’s what pissed me off the most. Cause he was looking past it, not worried about it. At that moment, he felt bad, but then he looked past [me]. I could have been sitting there in the hospital blind, my career could have been over, and he wasn’t even thinking about it. But he’s doing a press tour like he freaking won the fight – ‘I’m back, I need the title fight.’ That’s the thing, he thinks he’s owed all of this stuff, and that’s why I feel people do not like him."
Muhammad also went on to take a shot at Edwards by saying "Man-to-man, if you’re happy with that result, then you shouldn’t call yourself a fighter."
Would you like to see Edwards and Muhammad have a rematch?
Daniel Cormier does not believe that a change in the UFC's gloves will make any difference to eye pokes
Former two-division UFC champion, now UFC commentator Daniel Cormier has shared his thoughts on the UFC potentially changing the style of their gloves to stop frequent eye pokes.
Cormier was on commentary this past weekend where Belal Muhammad suffered one of the nastiest eye pokes in the UFC ever in his fight against Leon Edwards.
When speaking to Ariel Helwani on ESPN, Cormier gave his thoughts and opinions on a potentially new, curved glove design that would be made to prevent eye pokes from happening.
“A lot of times when you poke eyes, you are trying to grab. If your fingers aren’t allowed to open or straighten, I think that you could eliminate some of the eye-poking but the reality is, there’s gonna be issues with the gloves being curved if we go forward. My thing is this, you’re never gonna find something that works perfectly. There’s gonna be issues with everything and I don’t know what it’s gonna take in order to stop eye-poking. I believe eye pokes will still happen, maybe not as frequently but they will still happen,” Cormier said. “Eye pokes happen just about every fight. The big one that just happened with Belal (Muhammad) — when was the last time a big one like that happened where it was so damaging?”
Do you agree with Cormier's comments?
Mike Perry says ‘it’s not looking good for Ben Askren’ after having a training session with Jake Paul
Ben Askren is set to make his professional boxing debut against YouTube star Jake Paul in April.
In preparation for the bout, Askren's opponent, Paul has enlisted some help from some UFC fighters with the most notable names being Jorge Masvidal and Mike Perry.
UFC welterweight Mike Perry has revealed that "it is not looking good for Ben Askren" after Perry trained with Paul recently.
Idk @danawhite , I just got some work with @jakepaul and it’s not looking good for @Benaskren .... #IronSharpensIron
— Platinum Mike Perry (@PlatinumPerry) March 17, 2021
“Idk @danawhite, I just got some work with @jakepaul and it’s not looking good for @Benaskren …. #IronSharpensIron” Perry’s tweet said.
Have these comments from Perry changes your opinion on how the fight between Askren and Paul will go down?
Rafael Fiziev wants to fight The Korean Zombie at lightweight
Fast-rising UFC lightweight contender Rafael Fiziev has revealed that he wants to fight UFC featherweight veteran The Korean Zombie at lightweight.
Fiziev is currently on an impressive three-fight win streak with a notable win over Renato Moicano in December 2020.
The Korean Zombie however is coming off a dominant loss to Brian Ortega and it is fair to say that The Korean Zombie did not take the loss well as he piled on a whopping 20kg in the aftermath of the fight.
“I had recently sat down with coach Eddie and Jason, my manager, and had a discussion about moving from the featherweight division to the lightweight division,” Jung said (English translation via his YouTube channel).
"Since I had nothing scheduled as a featherweight fighter, I thought moving to the lightweight division wouldn’t be so bad. At least I would be doing something, but sadly, that didn’t work out either,” Jung said in Korean.
With Fiziev hearing that Jung had an interest in a lightweight move, he jumped at the opportunity to try and get the fight on Twitter.
------ https://t.co/5A7cbiTDYR pic.twitter.com/aZGoDmS90h
— Rafael “Ataman” Fiziev (@RafaelFiziev) March 16, 2021
Would you be interested in a fight between Jung and Fiziev?
Stephen Thompson picks Jorge Masvidal to beat Kamaru Usman at UFC 261
After it was announced that Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal would rematch for the UFC welterweight championship at UFC 261 in front of a full Jacksonville crowd, fellow UFC welterweight contender Stephen Thompson has given his thoughts on how he thinks the fight will go down in the rematch.
“If you go back and watch the last fight that these guys had, Jorge Masvidal was doing fairly well stuffing the takedowns, keeping the fight standing until he started to get tired late fourth and fifth round, he started to get taken down,” Thompson told Submission Radio. “So, I think with a full training camp, I do believe that Jorge Masvidal will put up a harder and better fight."
“I’m leaning a little towards Jorge Masvidal for this one," Thompson said.
Thompson then went on to give more detail to reason why he thinks Masvidal will pick up the win.
“But now that (Masvidal’s) got a training camp, and on top of that, he’s faced him before, so he knows what he’s gonna bring to the table. I don’t know, man, it’s hard to kind of put him out. Like, he does some crazy stuff. Like, everybody knew that Ben Askren was gonna beat him, right? And then you saw what he did in the first round. I mean, he pulls stuff out like that out of his hat on the (regular), and you don’t know what’s gonna happen, and it’s scary facing a guy like that.”
Do you agree with Thompson or do you think that Usman will dominate again?
Rory MacDonald says winning the PFL tournament would be a "kind of bucket list thing"
Ahead of his PFL debut which will take place on April 29 against David Michaud, former UFC welterweight title challenger Rory MacDonald has revealed that if he won the PFL tournament it would be a "kind of bucket list thing."
“I’m looking forward to the tournament style,” MacDonald told MMA Junkie. “I like that I have a scheduled year ahead of me. I know when I’ll be competing, so I get to plan for that. It’s good. I’m also excited for the two fights in one night. That would be a first for me, kind of a bucket list thing in my career to check off, so that’ll be nice.”
Although MacDonald is now a veteran of the sport having nearly competed in 30 fights, this may be the first time where he is going to fight twice in one night and it is a situation which MacDonald is extremely excited about being in.
Matheus Nicolau details his road back to the UFC and what he wants next
After getting a very close unanimous decision win over Manel Kape this past weekend at UFC Fight Night Edwards vs Muhammad, Matheus Nicolau has spoken about his journey back into the UFC and what he would like to do next.
Nicolau said “The journey to be here was rough. I’ve been going through a lot. I went through a lot in those couple of years that I was out of the UFC. Especially in this training camp, I went through a lot. I was about to fight Tagir Ulanbekov. He is a completely different fighter, with all different characteristics. The opponent just changed like two weeks ago, so we had to change all the strategies for this fight. Of course, I wanted to win by knockout or submission, but it’s good to have a tough fight like that. I think I proved to everybody and even to myself how much of a warrior I am, how much I want this, how much I work hard. I put everything inside the octagon and I think I did enough to get the victory.”
Nicolau also spoke about what he wants next.
Nicolau said “I think I fit in at the top. Before I left the UFC, I was in the top 15. In my first flyweight fight, I fought with (John) Moraga. Back in the day, he was No. 6 – he had already fought for the title. I always had tough challenges here and I always got good victories. I hope with this win, I will be back on the rankings, in the Top 15, and I want my next opponent to be a ranked guy because my focus is pretty clear here: I want to climb the mountain all the way to the top and get the shot.”
Derrick Lewis believes he will fight Jon Jones "one day
When Derrick Lewis heard that Jon Jones would be moving up into the UFC's heavyweight division he immediately was interested in the fight.
When speaking on a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, Lewis said "It’s good (Jon Jones moving up to heavyweight). I picture myself fighting him one day and I kind of know what his game plan would be if he ever faced me. He would try to attack the legs a lot. I don’t think he really tries to take me down. He’ll try to keep his distance, then try to stay away."
Lewis also went on to say that if the two were to fight, Jones would not try to wrestle him.
Lewis said “I don’t think so [Jones trying to take Lewis down]. I would love for a guy to get this close to me. I believe that’s their downfall when they get that close, Lewis said. “I don’t think he should try to gain any more weight though. I think his walk-around weight is good enough. I believe he walks around at 240, 235, something like that. I don’t think he should keep trying to gain weight or bulk up as much as he thinks he should.”
If a fight between Lewis and Jones was to happen, how do you think it would go down?
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