Nate Diaz vs Gray Maynard III set for TUF 18 Finale

Diaz and Maynard Square Off For The Third Time!!

by Tommy Strong @strong_tea
 

The Ultimate Fighter 18 Finale, will see top lightweights Nate Diaz take on Gray Maynard for the third time of asking.

Though only officially the second time on record, as the first encounter was in 'TUF' 5 where both men would meet in the semi-finals with Nate Diaz submitting Maynard and then going onto be the winner of "TUF" season 5.

The pair would meet again in January 2010, at UFC Fight Night 20, but this time it would be Maynard who would take the win via split decision.

Maynard (11-2-1) went onto to beat Kenny Florian to earn himself a title shot at the Lightweight belt at UFC 125 when he took on Frankie Edgar, in what would end up being the fight of the night and year! In an epic back and forth battle the judges couldn't split the pair with the outcome being a draw (48-46, 46-48, 47-47) The pair would meet again 9 months later in a rematch that didn't disappoint. Though this time it was Edgar that managed to take the win via an emphatic 4th round KO.

Since then Maynard is (1-1) beating Clay Guida via split decision, and then losing to TJ Grant inside the first round in a lightweight title eliminator fight.

Diaz (16-9) since his loss to Maynard, decided to move back up to Welterweight which he had mixed fortunes going 2-2.

At UFC 135 Diaz returned back to Lightweight and went on to win three fights in a row beating Takanori Gomi, Donald Cerrone and then handing Jim Miller his first ever submission loss to earn himself a title shot against Benson Henderson.

Diaz is currently on a two fight losing streak, having lost a one sided fight in his title shot against Benson Henderson and more recently losing to Josh Thomson via TKO. In that fight Josh Thomson became the first fighter to knockout Diaz.

With so much on the line and the way both fighters like to fight, we could be in for a real treat! (touching wood)

Rob Sinclair Out Of Lightweight Tournament, Ricardo Tirloni Now Set To Face Rich Clementi

Rob Sinclair Out Of Lightweight Tournament with Knee Injury 

A knee injury has forced England’s Rob Sinclair out of the Bellator Season 9 Lightweight Tournament, which takes place September 27th from Portland’s Moda Center on September 27th live on Spike. Sinclair will now be replaced by Bellator veteran Ricardo Tirloni. The Brazilian submission ace was originally scheduled to face Marcin Held in a lightweight feature fight, but will now move into the tournament, while Held will take on Portland native Ryan Healy.

Tickets for the event are on sale now and can be purchased by visiting Bellator.com, as well as the Moda Center Box Office. The event will broadcast LIVE starting at 6 p.m. PST on Spike, as well as in Spanish language on mun2. The preliminary card will be streamed LIVE and FREE on Spike.com starting at 4 p.m. PST.

The full fight card can be found below:

MAIN CARD:

Bellator Heavyweight Tournament Semifinal: Mark Godbeer (8-1) vs. Cheick Kongo (18-8-2)
Bellator Lightweight Tournament Opening Round: Marcus Davis (22-9) vs. Tiger Sarnavskiy (23-1)
Bellator Lightweight Tournament Opening Round: John Alessio (34-16) vs. Will Brooks (10-1)
Bellator Lightweight Tournament Opening Round: Martin Stapleton (12-1) vs. Saad Awad (14-5)
Bellator Lightweight Tournament Opening Round: Ricardo Tirloni (15-4) vs. Rich Clementi (45-22-1)

PRELIMINARY CARD:

Lightweight Feature Fight: Scott Thometz (6-2) vs. Brent Primus (2-0)
Welterweight Feature Fight: Andy Uhrich (9-3) vs. Nathan Coy (12-4)
Middleweight Feature Fight: Joe Pacheco (6-0) vs. Tyson Jeffries (10-7)
Lightweight Feature Fight: Marcin Held (15-3) vs. Ryan Healy (23-12-1)
Middleweight Feature Fight: Jeremiah Riggs (7-7) vs. Peter Aspinwall (3-3)
Bantamweight Feature Fight: Austin Springer (3-0) vs. Brent Alvarez (1-1)

Bellator Signs Featherweight Daniel Weichel

Bellator Signs Featherweight Daniel Weichel 

In a division currently featuring Bellator Champion Pat Curran, Daniel Straus, Patricio Pitbull, Diego Nunes, and Frodo Khasbulaev, the featherweight ranks in Bellator just got deeper with the addition of German powerhouse Daniel Weichel. Only 28, the 31-8 submission ace becomes an instant threat within the division, and has his sights set on the next Bellator Featherweight Tournament.

“It´s like a dream come true fighting for Bellator MMA,” Weichel said. “I can´t wait to enter the cage and begin the toughest tournament out there. Fighting in the US and live on Spike TV is a thrill; so I will go out there to make my team at MMA Spirit and the greatest fans in the world as proud. I always wanted to compete with the best fighters and I can do just that at Bellator. My hard work has paid off and you will get to see another beast at featherweight, I can promise that.”

Already a fan favorite in Europe, the former lightweight standout is ready to make his presence felt stateside, and continue his winning ways inside the Bellator cage. After moving from welterweight to lightweight in 2009, Weichel has gone 13-2, including victories over Khasbulaev, Georgi Stoyanov, and Jose Figueroa.

“Since our inception, we’ve strived to bring in the best talent from around the world, and Daniel certainly fits that bill,” Bellator Chairman & CEO Bjorn Rebney said. “We’ve had our eye on Daniel for quite some time so we’re all excited to get Daniel into our next Featherweight Tournament.”

Stay tuned to KingdomMMA.co.uk for all your Bellator news.

Paul Daley vs. Alexander Yakovlev at the Legend

Paul Daley vs. Alexander Yakovlev at the Legend

This is the second officially announced bout of the event, the first being the fight between the scandalous Russian heavyweight Alexander Emelianenko and the Croatian MMA legend Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic.

Alexander Yakovlev (19-4-1) is well known to Russian fans for his M-1 league performance. Yakovlev, who has certificates of mastery in hand-to-hand fighting, freestyle wrestling, sambo, and combat sambo, clinched the win in 16 of his fights, with 8 knockouts and 8 submissions.

Last November, with 5 wins in a run and a tie in hard confrontation with Shamil Zavurod, Yakovlev had a title fight with the M-1 Challenge champion Rashid Magomedov, but lost by the judges' decision. Having drawn the right conclusions from this experience, the Bad Boy came back to the ring last April defeating Murad Abdulaev in a close fight.

His opponent, Paul Daley (33-12-2), British knockout artist has fought in the 10 years of his professional career in almost all major MMA promotions, including Strikeforce, Bellator и UFC. Semtex, famous for his quick temper and lethal left hook, has already knocked out 24 fighters, with MMA stars Duane Ludwig, Martin Kampmann, and Scott Smith among them.

Now Daley is on the rise again: he has to his credit 4 wins in a run and a free hand (Daley has recently parted with Bellator). He had his latest fight in Liverpool, having knocked out Lukasz Chlewicki in the first round.

Russian MMA fans will have to wait until November to find out who is more explosive - the Bad Boy or Semtex.

Jon “Bones” Jones Previews Nike UFC 165 Training Camp T-Shirt

Jon “Bones” Jones Nike UFC 165 Training Camp T-Shirt
by Chris Houten - @mrhouts

UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones took took to instagram this week to preview his signature walkout t-shirt for his up coming UFC 165 title defense against Alexander Gustaffason.

Produced by Nike, Jones' new signature t-shirt features his name and training camp tag on the back, while the front finds a reflective flip on his nickname which appears to switch from “Bones” to “Jones” depending on the lighting conditions.

No official release date has been set although it is expect the Jon Jones UFC 165 signature T-shirt will be available from Nike in the days leading up to the fight.

The Bradley Scott Blog - Episode 2

My life training at The MMA Lab

by Bradley Scott @Bradleyscott89

The MMA Lab

Last week was a tough week, it was probably one of the harder weeks we have done. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it, absolutely fucked. The strength and conditioning was probably the reason for it. We did three solid strength and conditioning sessions, they were really long winded as well.

To keep you all up to date with my routine for the past couple of weeks, this is what I have been doing.

Last Monday (26th August)
Kickboxing - working on our technique so it was quite tame but focused on specific techniques.

Tuesday
Wrestling and Grappling - which was pretty difficult

Wednesday - It was tough we did a really hard conditioning session and then after that we had stand up sparring.

Thursday
In the morning I did Jui Jitsu, then in the afternoon we just rolled for like an hour and a half. It absolutely killed me.

Friday Morning ON MY DAY OFF
I had to do conditioning again which absolutely annihilated me, but I had the rest of Friday off.

Then on Saturday I had sparring, proper MMA sparring which is the hard sparring session at The MMA Lab but I was so fucked I could hardly spar, I still managed to get four good five minute rounds in. I was destroyed mentally by the end of the week.

Monday (2nd Sept)
This week, conditioning has been upped a notch as the Americans have had a day off on Monday called Labor Day which is like one of our bank holidays back home. So we had an hour and half to two hour MMA practise doing Kickboxing drills. Lots and lots of kicks and lots of defence from kicks obviously this was as a result of Anthony Pettis and how his fight with Benson turned out.

Tuesday
We had a fucking horrible conditioning session, it was the worst conditioning session ever. Oh my god, it was fucking hell. I had to leave early as I had to have my eyes tested and so he just crammed as much shit in to an hour and half session as he could and it just fucking killed me. Loads and loads of biometric stuff, the vertimax machine which ties you to the floor with all the elastics. It was a fucking nightmare it caught me off guard massively and completely destroyed my soul and my will to live.

Then on Tuesday night I was hoping for some technique work, we did wrestling mixed with a little bit of jui jitsu and then we rolled at the end for another thirty minutes or so. It was another hour and half workout by the end so that was pretty savage as well but it was really good.


All the guys are so good and I am learning so much. Ive been working a lot with a brown belt in Jui Jitsu called Ishmael (I cant remember his second name) but he is really good and is kicking my arse on the floor. I'm currently a blue belt, second degree not that makes any difference. So I need to hurry up and get to a purple belt otherwise I cant compete.... you got to be a high belt in Jui Jitsu its like the law so I think I'll get my black belt in a couple of months I expect. Do a couple of backward rolls, couple of forward rolls, a couple of triangles and that should get me my black belt..... god if only it was that easy!!

I have been getting destroyed on the floor here they are so good. Its the ones that look like nothing who are the most dangerous ones, well except for Ishmael who is shredded. He is really athletic and has good stand up, good wrestling in fact he is good at MMA. He is also a pro but I don't know what organisation he fights for, but he is really good.

We also have Augusto Mendes he is a 4x World Brazilian Jui Jitsu champion and a ADCC winner so he is really good and so fast but he is only little so he can help and he is a damn sight better than me. He is quick on the floor, not so good stand up or wrestling but great on the floor.

That's is literally all I have been doing so far and I am hanging out of my arse. Everyday I come home and drink this special water "Essentia Water" Its super hydrating water and is quite expensive but it tastes quite good as water goes. Its fucking lovely, them and chocolate almonds they get me through.

I weighed myself yesterday and I'm 200lbs so that's well ahead of schedule. Its where I want to be a week out so I will just try and stick to it now if I can. It was after training though so I was probably a little dehydrated so I'd probably say I was more like 203lbs I expect.

Hanging out with the guys from The MMA Lab
On Saturday night I didn't actually get to see the Benson fight as we all got together for a local event which was about an hour away, still in Arizona. We had three wins out of three fights all of them really quick. Two of them were guillotines, one in about 30 seconds the other in a minute and a half. Then the other fight was a third round TKO but it was a massacre so that was really good and it proved what a real winning attitude The MMA Lab has.

As for the UFC fights I know Jamie Varner didn't win but I haven't seen the fight yet but I would have liked to see Jamie Varner win, he is a really cool guy.

I know Benson will be back as well and will hopefully get another shot at Pettis to earn revenge, he will probably have to take a couple of fights before but then hopefully get another shot. He walks around deceivingly close to weight and is still in good shape now. He is fucking shredded.

In the next blog I will continue to give more details of my training and touch on my game plan and some specifics that I have been training on ready for the fight so stay tuned to Kingdom MMA for the next instalment.

Belfort vs Henderson set for UFC Fight Night 32

Vitor Belfort agrees Dan Henderson rematch

by Jack Broadey @J3cK_b

Vitor Belfort has not seemed to need Joe Silva's help in matching him recently. He's gone from calling out Chris Weidman, on to Chael Sonnen and finally settled on a Dan Henderson rematch.

Logically the fight makes no sense. He didn't want to fight Tim Kennedy as he wasn't ranked in the top 10. He didn't want Sonnen as he wanted a shot at Weidman's Middleweight belt. As soon as Sonnen found a matchup with Wanderlei Silva he suddenly became interested again. In short Belfort is a hard man to read. If the reason for avoiding the Kennedy fight was fair and logical the Henderson fight should surely fall under the same banner.

Henderson is obviously a danger and we all know what he's capable of on a good day. Are those good days behind him now? He's not ranked at Middleweight or Light Heavyweight, he doesn't fight very often, he's lost two fights in a row and Belfort has already beaten him, albeit 7 years ago. The fight smacks of Belfort taking the biggest name available willing to travel to Brazil. He keeps saying he's not hiding in Brazil to get away with his TRT usage but the fights in Brazil keep coming. The longer fights like this one spring up the more questions will be asked.

From Dan Henderson's point of view it must of been an easy decision to make to accept the fight. From being on the cusp of a title shot to being on a two fight skid is an extreme in itself. Neither loss was particularly damaging, infact there is an argument Henderson could of got the nod in both the Machida and Evans fights. The fact he didn't puts him right to the back of the que and makes him irrelevant again. A win over a Vitor Belfort jacked up on TRT  in Brazil is quite possibly the best win Dan Henderson could get right now.

Belfort is the standout middleweight contender and should Henderson beat him he probably catapults himself into that one last title fight he desperately craves. A win for Belfort again does nothing for him realistically. He's expected to win. He has beat another unranked opponent and won't earn a title shot with a win. Matchmaking has been very curious with Belfort lately. It's almost as if they want him to lose as they have no idea what to do with him.

The rematch will headline UFC Fight Night 32 in Golania, Brazil on November 9th. No other contests have yet been announced.