Sean O’Malley gets paid the same to fight ranked opponents or proverbial tomato cans, so is his logic sound?
The buzz around [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] has been present ever since his highlight-reel knockout on Dana White’s Contender Series earned him a UFC contract in 2017. Add his look and personality to his fighting ability, and it’s no wonder people are so drawn to him.
Thing is, O’Malley, who is 5-1 in the UFC, hasn’t beaten anybody who is officially ranked at bantamweight. He hasn’t even fought a ranked opponent to this point. That, according to O’Malley, has been by design.
As he explained recently, O’Malley admitted that he’s avoided tougher fights against ranked opponents because financially he has no incentive. Whether he fights a ranked opponent or a proverbial tomato can, he gets paid the same.
It’s a quite logical approach to his career in nature, but it’s seemed to rile up fans. What do you make of this? Is O’Malley onto something? Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Matthew Wells, Nolan King and Brian “Goze” Garcia weighed in with host John Morgan.
You can watch their discussion in the video above, or check out the full episode below.
Luke Rockhold knows he’s in for a tough fight in his return, but is confident that his well-rounded skills will help him prevail.
[autotag]Luke Rockhold[/autotag] knows he’s in for a tough fight in his return but is confident that his well-rounded skills will help him prevail.
Returning from a lengthy layoff of more than two years, Rockhold (16-5 MMA, 9-4 UFC) meets the streaking [autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag] (24-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) at UFC 268 on Nov. 6.
Though Strickland has shined in his current five-fight winning streak, Rockhold sees certain holes in his opponent’s game that he’s looking to take advantage of in the contest.
“As stupid as he looks and as stupid as he sounds, he’s effective,” Rockhold told MMA Junkie Radio. “Probably because he’s so stupid. He just comes forward, he’s got confidence in himself, and he doesn’t question it, and that’s dangerous, for sure. I think he’s somewhat one-dimensional, and being able to expose that is key. He’s just tough – tough and confident. That’s a big problem for a lot of people, so you’ve got to take that confidence from him.
“You’ve got to put him in positions he’s not comfortable with and finish it. I think he’s average everywhere. He’s hasn’t got a great ground game. He doesn’t have great wrestling. Decent boxing. He doesn’t kick much, but he’s tough. He’s tough, and he’s not going to take no for an answer kind of thing. He doesn’t have quit in him. You’ve got to make him quit.”
Unbeaten in his career at 185 pounds, Strickland is on his most impressive run to date. The 30-year-old is coming off a shutout of “The Ultimate Fighter 17” finalist Uriah Hall in July and has already logged in over an hour of octagon time since Rockhold last fought.
But now that Rockhold has recovered from a slew of injuries, he says he is rejuvenated to return and re-stake his claim at the top of the middleweight division.
“Recently I’ve gotten healthier, and I’ve got that urge to come back and to fight,” Rockhold said. “Being away from it for so long, it kind of builds it back up. Anyone can burn out in any sport, especially even more so in fighting, so time was well-deserved, well-needed, and it fired me back up to get back in there, and I still believe I’m the best. When I’m dedicating myself and put the time in and fight freely, I don’t think anyone can compete with me.”
To see the full interview with Rockhold, check out the video below.
Bellator and PFL both will be vying for your attention on Friday night.
Bellator and PFL are set to square off for your attention Friday night, with both main cards kicking off at 9 p.m. ET.
Bellator 264 is headlined by a middleweight title fight between champion Gegard Mousasi and John Salter. Meanwhile, the 2021 PFL playoffs get underway with lightweights and welterweights, headlined by an intriguing 170-pound semifinal between 2019 PFL champ Ray Cooper III and former Bellator champ Rory MacDonald.
Here’s the question: If the main events do wind up going head to head, which screen has the audio turned up for your undivided attention?
Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Nolan King, George Garcia, Mike Bohn, and host John Morgan discuss the topic on this week’s episode.
Check out the debate in the video above and watch the full episode below:
Vicente Luque’s resume speaks for itself, but is it enough to jump past Leon Edwards in the title shot pecking order?
[autotag]Vicente Luque[/autotag] can no longer be ignored in the UFC welterweight division.
Luque confirmed himself as a true title contender this past Saturday at UFC 265 when he submitted Michael Chiesa in their main card bout. After the win, Luque laid out his case for a title shot, and champion Kamaru Usman – who is slated to rematch Colby Covington – at least acknowledged the discussion.
MMA Junkie’s Danny Segura posed a question on social media: At 10-1 in his last 11 fights, with nine stoppages and three consecutive performance bonuses, is Luque more deserving of a title shot than Leon Edwards?
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Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Nolan King, George Garcia, Mike Bohn, and host John Morgan discuss the topic on this week’s episode.
Check out the debate in the video above and watch the full episode below:
With Jose Aldo showing his worth as a legit contender in a stacked bantamweight division, who should he fight next?
Former UFC featherweight champion [autotag]Jose Aldo[/autotag] seems to be finding his groove at bantamweight.
For the second consecutive fight, Aldo walked out of the octagon a winner after a phenomenal performance against Pedro Munhoz to secure a unanimous decision this past Saturday at UFC 265. After a rough patch of three consecutive losses, Aldo is rounding back into form and is starting to look like a legitimate contender at 135.
There are lots of options on the table for his next fight, from Dominick Cruz to T.J. Dillashaw to Rob Font to Cory Sandhagen. So what will it be? What makes the most sense?
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Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Nolan King, George Garcia, Mike Bohn, and host John Morgan discuss the topic on this week’s episode.
Check out the debate in the video above and watch the full episode below:
Now that Ciryl Gane is the interim heavyweight champion, is he the favorite in a title unification bout vs. Francis Ngannou?
This past weekend in Houston, a new interim heavyweight champion was crowned in the main event of UFC 265.
[autotag]Ciryl Gane[/autotag] defeated [autotag]Derrick Lewis[/autotag] in enemy territory by third-round TKO to silence the Toyota Center, which leads us to a future unification bout against champion [autotag]Francis Ngannou[/autotag].
Some early betting lines actually have Gane favored over Ngannou, but is that correct? Is Gane really deserving of the respect based on his win over Lewis, or are oddsmakers overlooking the fact that Lewis could have been under immense pressure and simply folded in the moment?
Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Nolan King, George Garcia, Mike Bohn, and host John Morgan discuss the topic on this week’s episode.
Check out the debate in the video above and watch the full episode below:
What started as a joke for Randy Couture has some truthful sentiments in the day and age of celebrity boxing.
What started as a joke for [autotag]Randy Couture[/autotag] now might have actual appeal to the UFC Hall of Famer.
In the day and age of celebrity vs. MMA fighter boxing matches, Couture doesn’t necessarily have the itch to return and make some extra cash. However, if he were to step inside the boxing ring, Couture knows which celebrity he’d want to face.
Couture’s “beef” with master Steven Seagal stemmed from a joking conversation with Jay Glazer at a UFC event years ago, when a few journalists misconstrued comments as serious.
“Jay, jokingly said, ‘Hey, we were just talking about you. Who would you come out of retirement to fight?,'” Couture recalled when speaking to MMA Junkie Radio. “I said, ‘Well, if Steven Seagal would sign the contract, I would come out to fight him.’
“Obviously, I was joking. Jay was joking. But the other three journalists that were standing there took that seriously. They went to Seagal and said, ‘Oh, Couture said he’d come out of retirement if you’d fight him.’ He, of course, had a very entertaining response to that.”
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Though it was a joke at the time, Couture thinks the sentiment holds some truth today. An actor himself, Couture is somewhat rubbed the wrong way by rumors of Seagal’s mistreatment of stuntmen.
“That would be the guy,” Couture said. “Everybody knows the rumors and all that stuff regarding stuntmen getting injured doing scenes and stuff with him, which does happen on occasion but is not the norm. It seemed like he went out of his way to make it a point of putting a little extra on those situations where you could hurt somebody to make himself look better and prove he was legitimate. That’s where I got started. I got started in stunts. I was lucky enough to get some real acting gigs. For all the stuntmen out there, I will stick to my guns and say Seagal would be that guy.”
Check out MMA Junkie Radio’s full interview with Randy Couture below:
The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.
Join MMA Junkie Radio hosts “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” for a watch-along of UFC 265 headlined by Derrick Lewis vs. Ciryl Gane.
UFC 265 takes place Saturday with an interim title fight atop the bill, and MMA Junkie Radio’s “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” will host a live streaming watch-along above, which kicks off at 8 p.m. ET.
In the main event, [autotag]Derrick Lewis[/autotag] and [autotag]Ciryl Gane[/autotag] will meet for the interim heavyweight championship and the right to unify with undisputed champ Francis Ngannou. The night’s co-headliner features a clash of top-10 bantamweights as former featherweight champ [autotag]Jose Aldo[/autotag] takes on [autotag]Pedro Munhoz[/autotag].
UFC 265 takes place at Toyota Center in Houston. The main card streams on ESPN+ pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN 2 and ESPN+.
Here are the nine fights included in the watch-along:
Derrick Lewis vs. Ciryl Gane – for interim heavyweight title
After another thrilling finish, Adrian Yanez is ready to elevate his career to the next level.
After another thrilling finish, [autotag]Adrian Yanez[/autotag] is ready to elevate his career to the next level.
Yanez (14-3 MMA, 3-0 UFC) picked up his third straight “Performance of the Night” bonus when he rallied to score a second-round TKO of fellow prospect Randy Costa at UFC on ESPN 27 this past Saturday.
The 27-year-old’s stock continues to rise, and after winning his seventh straight bout, Yanez likes the suggested ideas of facing veterans [autotag]Raphael Assuncao[/autotag] or [autotag]Jimmie Rivera[/autotag] next.
“Both those guys are phenomenal names and guys who I respect,” Yanez told MMA Junkie Radio. “I was watching Raphael Assuncao fight when I was still an amateur, and that was back in 2012, so I have a big respect for the both of them. Both those names sound very, very nice. They’ve been in the game for a very long time, and I think that’s just great all around. I think that would be a great fight either way.
“That would set me up even higher for my next fight, so those are great set-up fights – tune-ups to get those guys who are in the top 15, easily.”
Although he was fairly critical of his performance, especially in the first round, Yanez wants to ramp up his activity by fighting another two times before the end of the year.
“I would want September,” Yanez said. “I definitely want September and then fight end of November and kind of chill out for December, January and February – and after that, be very, very active.”
After a two-year suspension, T.J. Dillashaw successfully returned to the cage, but does he need another win before getting a title shot?
[autotag]T.J. Dillashaw[/autotag] returned from a two-year suspension this past weekend at UFC on ESPN 27 in a victorious outing against [autotag]Cory Sandhagen[/autotag].
The former champ made it clear he’s not back to just take fights, he wants his belt back, and he wants it pretty quickly as he called for the winner of the [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Petr Yan[/autotag] rematch.
That title fight is a few months away, which leaves the opportunity open to take another fight in the meantime. Did Dillashaw do enough in his split-decision win over Sandhagen to warrant a title shot in his next fight or does he need at least one more statement performance before he skips the line?
Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Mike Bohn, Nolan King, and “Gorgeous” George Garica discuss this topic along with host John Morgan.
Check out the conversation in the video above and check out the full episode below.
