Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Here’s a breakdown of the names and numbers of new UFC champions crowned in 2022.
UFC title fights throughout 2022 were filled with dramatic moments and exciting finishes.
Titles changed hands often over the past 12 months, creating a brand new landscape for the majority of the divisions heading into the new year.
Take a look at the names and numbers of the new champions (in order of lightest to heaviest weight class) who enter 2023 with UFC gold around their waist:
“I who believes in a forfeiture clause, I believe that Whittaker just won. I believe we now have our fight, it’s Pereira vs. Whittaker,” say Chael Sonnen of the UFC middleweight division.
[autotag]Chael Sonnen[/autotag] thinks [autotag]Robert Whittaker[/autotag] should be rewarded with a title shot after his fight with Paulo Costa fell through.
Despite the promotion officially announcing a fight between Whittaker (24-6 MMA, 15-4 UFC) and Costa (14-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) for the UFC 284 card on Feb. 11 in Perth, Australia, Costa repeatedly said that he never signed a contract. Costa has one fight remaining in his deal but has failed to come to an agreement with the UFC.
That led to the fight falling apart and Whittaker being pulled from the card altogether. But since Whittaker was ready to fight, Sonnen says the UFC should just book him against middleweight champion [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag] (7-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC).
“Robert Whittaker was willing to do it and didn’t get it,” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “I (am one) who believes in a forfeiture clause, I believe that Whittaker just won. I believe we now have our fight, it’s Pereira vs. Whittaker. That’s what I believe. That’s how I see it.”
Sonnen admits he thinks the UFC will go in the direction of an immediate rematch between Pereira and Israel Adesanya, and doubts Whittaker will ask for a title shot. But if Whittaker was to get a shot against Pereira, Sonnen thinks the oddsmakers would favor the former champ.
“Robert Whittaker is not going to pounce on the opportunity, believe me,” Sonnen said. “Robert Whittaker is going to do nothing with this opportunity, but if somebody does it for him, he would be willing to step in there and fight Alex Pereira and Robert Whittaker would be the favorite at DraftKings if that line opened up today, and that’s a really interesting match.”
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Alex Pereira has been named MMA Junkie’s Male Fighter of 2022 after going 3-0 and knocking out Israel Adesanya to become UFC champion.
All you have to do is go back to Dec. 19, 2019, when the very first MMA Junkie headline on [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag] published, to understand the amount of pressure he would be under once his mixed martial arts career got underway.
“The guy who knocked out Israel Adesanya says he can do it again – but in UFC,” it read.
That’s a hell of a way to introduce yourself to MMA fans.
At the time, Adesanya was still undefeated at 18-0 and two months prior, he capped off a meteoric rise to UFC stardom by putting on a masterclass against Robert Whittaker to become undisputed middleweight champion. Meanwhile, Pereira was the reigning GLORY kickboxing middleweight and interim light heavyweight champion with a measly MMA record of 2-1. He hadn’t even tried MMA in more than three years.
It was way too early for fans to think about Adesanya vs. Pereira happening in the UFC, but as was noted in that headline, “Poatan” had this feather in his cap: He’s the owner of two kickboxing wins over Adesanya, including a knockout.
That certainly got the attention of UFC president Dana White and the promotion’s brass. In Pereira’s return to MMA, a vicious knockout of Thomas Powell in November 2020 at LFA 95 was all Pereira needed to secure a UFC contract. That was Step 1 toward his goal.
How would the UFC build up the man being touted as Adesanya’s boogeyman? That was the question. It started out with a bang in November 2021 after a dazzling knockout of Andreas Michailidis with a flying knee and punches at UFC 268. Almost immediately talk of a future fight between Adesanya and Pereira ignited, but there was still a ways to go.
Or was there?
.@AlexPereiraUFC did the work – 3-0, two KOs and winning the UFC middleweight title – to be named our 2022 Male Fighter of the Year. 🏆
Below is his reaction.
Full story: https://t.co/8Oc7fn0Tm3 pic.twitter.com/GJug7MPQJa
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) December 20, 2022
Pereira’s lone fight of 2021 set him up for a massive 2022. His first bout of the year at UFC Fight Night 203 in March was a clean-sweep unanimous decision win over Bruno Silva, though it was evenly matched from start to finish. You might’ve figured that would derail Pereira off the fast track, but it didn’t as the UFC booked him against top contender Sean Strickland at UFC 276 – the same event where Adesanya was set to defend his title vs. Cannonier.
It was clear what the UFC hoped would happen. The chatter heading into UFC 276 was that Pereira vs. Strickland could be a No. 1 contender fight. It likely would take something spectacular for either man to guarantee their place, and boy, did Pereira deliver by knocking out Strickland in the first round with a picture-perfect vicious left hand. With Adesanya winning a lackluster affair to keep his crown, it was game on: Pereira would get his shot at Adesanya within his first year in the UFC.
Already Pereira’s confidence was beaming. “Whenever he’s ready, I’m good,” Pereira said after UFC 276.
The stage was set for the trilogy between Adesanya vs. Pereira: Nov. 12, UFC 281, Madison Square Garden, New York. It doesn’t get any bigger than that, which told us everything we needed to know about how the UFC felt about the matchup. And the hype was real, with every analyst and pundit chiming in on whether or not Adesanya could overcome Pereira, his Brazilian nemesis who chased him out of kickboxing and into MMA.
For the majority of the fight, it appeared Adesanya would as he put on a tactical striking display that led to him being up on all three judges’ scorecards heading into the fifth round. And that’s when it happened. That’s when Pereira made his move
Pereira came out with a real sense of urgency, knowing he was down on the card. He eventually tagged Adesanya with a series of power punches that had him pressed against the cage, on wobbly legs, and with nowhere to go. Unable to escape and intelligently defend himself, referee Marc Goddard waved off the fight, awarding Pereira a standing TKO victory to claim the middleweight after just four UFC appearances.
Three years earlier, the guy who knocked out Adesanya said he could do it again in the UFC – and he did. Of the 16 UFC fighters who went 3-0 in 2022, nobody’s wins were bigger and none were more impressive. For these reasons, Alex Pereira is the 2022 MMA Junkie Male Fighter of the Year.
Just how great was 2022 for UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski? He ends the year No. 1 pound-for-pound in the official UFC rankings and also set himself up for a potentially even greater 2023.
Volkanovski took care of business this past year, going 2-0 to remain the 145-pound champ. Back in April, Volkanovski’s year started with a fourth-round TKO win over Chan Sung Jung at UFC 273. Then in July, Volkanovski put to rest any remaining questions about who the superior fighter is – him or Max Holloway? – as he dominated Holloway to win 50-45 on all three judges’ scorecards and move to 3-0 against him.
As if his run of dominance in his own division wasn’t enough, Volkanovski advocated heavily for himself to get a shot at becoming a two-division champion to the point that the UFC had him weigh in as the backup for the vacant lightweight title fight between Islam Makhachev and Charles Oliveira at UFC 280. Now Volkanovski turns the page to 2023 looking to secure a second title when he challenges Makhachev for 155-pound gold in February at UFC 284.
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As a reminder, Israel Adesanya was beating Alex Pereira “relatively comfortably” before the fifth-round TKO at UFC 281.
City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman doesn’t doubt that [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] can avenge his loss to UFC middleweight champion [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag].
Adesanya (23-2 MMA, 12-2 UFC) lost his title to Pereira (7-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) when he was stopped in Round 5 of their UFC 281 headliner last month. Adesanya was up 3-1 on the judges’ scorecards, but Pereira rallied to finish him by TKO in the fifth.
Bareman, the Coach of the Year at the 2022 World MMA Awards, likes what he saw out of his star pupil, and thinks with a couple of changes, Adesanya can get his hand raised.
“We’re quietly confident,” Bareman told Submission Radio. “You got to understand, we were winning that fight relatively comfortably. We felt we were taking the rounds. But not comfortable enough – when you’re fighting somebody like that, who’s game plan appears to be, it’s not a guy who builds his game plan around accumulation of damage.
“He’s a guy that builds his game plan around mentally wearing down and trying to land one big shot. And he’s comfortable giving rounds and then not panicking, because he gives away rounds, and it’s part of a bigger picture for him, setting up what he ultimately is looking for. And with a few adjustments, we can make some changes there and build on a lot of positive things that happened in that fight for us.”
The promotion hasn’t announced what’s next for Pereira, but Bareman thinks rematching Adesanya is what makes sense. Although Pereira appears to have Adesanya’s number with three wins over him, including two in kickboxing, Adesanya has performed well in those outings.
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With their history, Bareman thinks it only makes sense that the UFC books an immediate rematch. He thinks Khamzat Chimaev’s call for a title shot against Pereira shouldn’t even be entertained.
“I haven’t seen the numbers on the last fight, but I’m sure they’re very, very good,” Bareman said. “I think in the middleweight division, I still think that’s the biggest fight. Khamzat’s a rising star, but he’s literally done nothing at middleweight. So he hasn’t established himself. You’re talking about two guys at the top of the food chain in terms of their status in combat sports. Khamzat’s a rising star. Like, he’s a massive rising star. But he’s not in the position of these two guys. This is the biggest fight. Khamzat still has to beat people at middleweight and work his way up to even fighting one of these guys.
“So, unless the politics take over and the business of the sport take over – and that’s essentially how we arrived at this fight that we’re talking about, right? So, it’s still the biggest fight to make. And at the end of the day, it’s not Alex’s choice. It will be Alex’s choice when he makes X-amount of title defenses and does well for the company and all that. Then it becomes Alex’s choice. But at the moment we’ve got a (former) champion who’s done so much for this company, who’s defended his title so many times. He kind of gets to … if he wants a rematch, I believe that that’s what he should get.”
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Marc Goddard is certain that he didn’t do Israel Adesanya wrong by stopping his title fight vs. Alex Pereira at UFC 282.
LAS VEGAS – Referee Marc Goddard believes he handled [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag]’s stoppage of [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] perfectly fine.
Pereira (7-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) rallied to claim the middleweight title with a standing TKO of Adesanya (23-2 MMA, 12-2 UFC) in the fifth round at UFC 281, where he had Adesanya badly hurt against the cage.
Adesanya immediately protested the stoppage and has continued to since then, but Goddard stands by his call.
“I feel very good,” Goddard told MMA Junkie on the World MMA Awards red carpet. “Israel, I think he’s a great guy. I think he was a fantastic champion. I’m not just saying it because I’m here. I like the guy a lot. I like all the fighters. That’s my job, I’m down the line, and if I done that fight again, 11 times out of 10 I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m very comfortable with my actions, and the people who know me will know I’m my harshest critic.
“It’s a very fine line. We don’t get second takes, reverse angles, etc. People find it weird when we say we’re there to protect the fighters when they knock hell’s bells out of each other for 25 minutes. … At the end of the day, my job is to act instinctually and correctly to protect the guys. It was an amazing fight. Congratulations to Alex, all the respect in the world to Izzy. I’m happy with what I did.”
Adesanya was up 3-1 on all three judges’ scorecards before he was stopped. A big left hook by Pereira had Adesanya on wobbly legs in the final round, prompting him to fall back against the fence. Goddard called the stoppage at 2:01 of Round 5.
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Sean Strickland unsurprisingly continues to not have very nice things to say about former UFC champ Israel Adesanya.
[autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag] expects the UFC to book an immediate rematch between middleweight champion [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag] and [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag].
Pereira (7-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) dethroned Adesanya (23-2 MMA, 12-2 UFC) with a come-from-behind TKO win to capture the middleweight title last month at UFC 281. Pereira was able to defeat Adesanya for the third time – with the other two times in kickboxing.
With their long-standing history and the stylistic matchup, Strickland thinks the UFC will capitalize by booking another fight between Pereira and Adesanya.
“Rankings mean f*ck all nothing,” Strickland told MMA Junkie. “It doesn’t matter what you’re ranked. It doesn’t matter your position. If the UFC wants you to fight for a belt, doesn’t want you to fight for a belt, it doesn’t happen. They would probably want Izzy to fight, because (Robert) Whittaker will probably just take him down and grind him out for f*cking five rounds, so they’re thinking let’s milk this cash cow one more time with Izzy.”
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Strickland admits he thought Adesanya would retain his title but doesn’t disagree with Marc Goddard’s stoppage in the fight, which Adesanya protested.
“I thought Izzy was gonna win just because I thought Izzy was gonna fight like a b*tch the whole time,” Strickland said. “Just run and not fight. Not do the f*cking man sh*t like I did, but Alex, he hits hard. I think it was a good stoppage. It is what it is.”
He continued, “Izzy fights like a f*cking b*tch. Izzy can fight, and he’s f*cking good. He’s long, he’s a giant, but he fights like a f*cking b*tch. Nobody wants to see guys like that. We need to go back to the old school, the Chuck Liddell, the f*cking guys who stand and bang.”
Strickland (25-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) will look to rebound from his knockout loss to Pereira at UFC 276 when he faces Jared Cannonier in the UFC Fight Night 216 headliner Dec. 17 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
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Darren Till isn’t sure if Israel Adesanya can get past the challenge of beating Alex Pereira.
LAS VEGAS – [autotag]Darren Till[/autotag] isn’t sure if [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] can get past the challenge of beating [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag].
Pereira (7-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) dethroned Adesanya (23-2 MMA, 12-2 UFC) with a come-from-behind TKO in Round 5 at UFC 281 to capture the middleweight title. The win marked the third time Pereira has defeated Adesanya, with the other two times coming in kickboxing.
But in Pereira’s past two wins over Adesanya, he was losing the fight up until he rallied to score the finish. Even though Till acknowledges that Adesanya showed he has the tools to beat Pereira, he would still side with the Brazilian if they fought for a fourth time.
“I’ve watched all three fights and the two fights he (Adesanya) was just absolutely winning comfortably,” Till told MMA Junkie. “Alex all three times just seems to from somewhere, I don’t know what it is whether he’s got Izzy’s number or what, gets the win and it’s quite terrifying for Izzy because can Izzy beat him? We’ve seen he can – well he can’t because the fifth Alex got it back.”
He continued, “Is a fourth fight worth it? Yeah, you have to because Izzy was the champ for a long time and he was dominant, but Alex has beat him three times and it’s not like a wrestler vs. a striker. They’re both strikers. It’s very tough. I know I’ve lost a fight here and there but if you lose four fights to the same person… I think the fourth fight is warranted but at this point do I see Izzy beating Pereira? For some reason, because Pereira’s won the three fights, no I don’t.”
Adesanya has long expressed interest in fighting Till (18-4 MMA, 6-4-1 UFC), but Till is yet to score the signature win he needs at middleweight to catapult him to title contention. Although Adesanya is no longer champion, Till is still interested in the matchup.
“It’s a fight that’s got to happen because I know he wants to fight for one reason, he wants to test my type of striking against his,” Till said. “I’ve always known that because he’s seen the type of striker I am and I’ve seen the type of striker he is, like phenomenal, but we’ll just see. But I think with Pereira now having the title a lot of things are gonna change up because if Izzy doesn’t get the title back, there’s a lot of people there to take it.”
Till will look to get back to the win column when he faces Dricus Du Plessis in Saturday’s UFC 282 event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN2 and early prelims on ESPN+.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 282.
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Sean Strickland would do “the same f*cking thing” and bang it out with Alex Pereira on the feet if he ever rematches the UFC champ.
LAS VEGAS – [autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag] is determined to work his way into another fight with [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag], and it all starts with the final UFC main event of 2022.
In his first fight since suffering a quick knockout loss to Pereira (6-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) in their title eliminator at UFC 276 in July, Strickland (25-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) is set to face Jared Cannonier (15-6 MMA, 8-6 UFC) in the UFC Fight Night 216 main event, which takes place Dec. 17 at the UFC Apex and streams on ESPN+.
It’s an important fight for Strickland, who prior to being halted by the now-UFC middleweight titleholder Pereira, had been on a six-fight winning streak and was on the cusp of a title opportunity. Strickland received much criticism for the way in which he approached the fight with the former two-division GLORY kickboxing champion, because he didn’t attempt a single takedown before being dropped and stopped inside three minutes.
In Strickland’s mind, there’s not a whole lot of regret about the way it unfolded. He thinks he can win the matchup with Pereira even going toe-to-toe, and if he’s able to eventually secure a rematch, said his tactics would essentially be the same.
“The guy f*cking hits hard, dude,” Strickland told MMA Junkie on Tuesday. “That motherf*cker, he has dynamite in his hands but got to get a couple wins under my belt, and hopefully he’s still the champ and we’ll run it back.
“He’s a f*cking big motherf*cking Brazilian who hits like dynamite. F*ck. I’ll give you guys a pointer: You stand in front of that motherf*cker and bang, somebody is going to sleep and it’s most likely going to be you. If I fight the guy again, I’d do the same f*cking thing. Just put this (right) hand a little more (up).”
Strickland said he thinks he’s “a few” wins away from securing his first UFC championship opportunity, but it all depends on the landscape of the division. It’s expected that Pereira’s first defense will be a rematch with Israel Adesanya, then the winner of the UFC 284 fight between Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa is probably ahead of him in line, as well.
That’s not much of an issue for Strickland, he said, but at the moment his focus is entirely on Cannonier. Strickland is expecting a grueling fight, and he relishes the danger factor Cannonier and his knockout power brings to the table.
“How would you guys feel with that big, scary mothrf*cker looking back at you trying to kill you?” Strickland said. “It’s exciting. I can’t wait.”
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Former light heavyweight champ Glover Teixeira would rather not share a card with teammate Alex Pereira, the UFC’s new middleweight champ.
[autotag]Glover Teixeira[/autotag] would rather not share a card with his teammate [autotag]Alex Pereira[/autotag].
Teixeira (33-8 MMA, 16-6 UFC) was in Pereira’s corner for his title-winning finish against Israel Adesanya at UFC 281 in November and was elated to see him capture the middleweight title.
Pereira (7-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) was going to return the favor by cornering Teixeira for his title fight rematch against Jiri Prochazka at UFC 282 before it was scrapped. But having cornered each other on numerous occasions, Teixeira says he prefers he and Pereira assist each other rather than compete on the same event.
“That’s a little bit too much,” Teixeira told MMA Junkie in an interview facilitated by one of his sponsors, Stake.com. “I like to be there for him and same thing, he likes to be there for me. That’s why he didn’t fly to Brazil because of this fight. He was trying to go back to Brazil right away, but then he’s like, ‘I’m going to wait for your fight,’ and then he waited around and (the cancellation) happened. We’re there for each other, but if it happens, it happens. It would be a beautiful thing. We’d deal with any situation.”
With Prochazka vacating his light heavyweight title due to injury and Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev scheduled to fight for the vacant belt in Saturday’s UFC 282 main event, Teixeira is eyeing the winner.
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With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from November 2022.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from November 2022: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Month award for November.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice.
