Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
All the UFC and Bellator fight announcements that were first reported or confirmed by MMA Junkie in the past week.
MMA fight announcements are hard to follow. With so many outlets and channels available, it’s nearly impossible to organize.
But here at MMA Junkie, we’ve got your back.
Each week, we’ll compile all the newly surfaced fights in one spot. Every Monday, expect a feature listing everything you might have missed from the UFC or Bellator.
Here are the fight announcements that were broken or confirmed by MMA Junkie or officially announced by a promotion from Aug. 14-20.
Jessica Andrade will look to tie the record for most fights in a year at UFC 295.
[autotag]Jessica Andrade[/autotag] will look to tie the record for most fights in a year at UFC 295.
Andrade (24-12 MMA, 15-10 UFC) takes on [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag] (13-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) on Nov. 11 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The event airs on pay-per-view following prelims expected on ESPN and ESPN+.
The matchup was announced during Saturday’s UFC 292 broadcast and later was confirmed by Andrade on social media.
Having already competed four times in 2023, Andrade will tie the UFC record for most fights in a calendar year when she makes the walk against Dern, and will become the only female fighter to do so. But Andrade finds herself in unfamiliar territory. The former UFC strawweight champion has lost three straight for the first time in her career, most recently a submission setback to unbeaten Tatiana Suarez earlier this month in the UFC on ESPN 50 co-main event.
Dern has split her past four appearances. After dropping a five-round majority decision to Yan Xiaonan last October, the jiu-jitsu blackbelt ace rebounded with a Fight of the Night effort against Angela Hill in May – in what was her third career headliner.
With the addition, the UFC 295 lineup currently includes:
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 295.
Mackenzie Dern explains why she sees Amanda Lemos becoming the new UFC strawweight champion at UFC 292.
UFC strawweight contender [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag] sees a new champion soon being crowned in her division.
Dern believes that champion Zhang Weili will lose her belt when she squares off against challenger [autotag]Amanda Lemos[/autotag] at UFC 292 on Aug. 19 in Boston. Not only does Dern (13-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) see Weili losing, but she also sees her getting stopped.
“I think Amanda Lemos is going to knock her out,” Dern told Michael Bisping in a recent interview. “Amanda Lemos is a hard fight. She’s probably one of the last persons on my list that I want to fight right now.”
Dern, who’s coming off a unanimous decision win over veteran Angela Hill, knows Weili is a tough adversary and currently the world’s best at 115 pounds. But she believes Lemos is bound to catch her in 25 minutes of fighting.
“From what I saw with Rose (Namajunas) catching her (Weili) on the chin with that kick and was just kind of like ‘boom,’ on the spot, precise, I can see Amanda Lemos like hanging on,” Dern explained. “She’s hard to knock out, she has a good base. I don’t see Weili like Jessica Andrade with big biceps and that style to submit her, even though I know Zhang has a ground game. I think in 25 minutes, she can land a shot that will knock her out.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 292.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from May 2023.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from May 2023. Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Month award for May.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice.
Check out the latest moves in the USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings coming out of UFC Fight Night 224.
On paper, UFC Fight Night 224 wasn’t a card filled with big names, but it still factored into this week’s USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings.
The event took place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, where [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag] scored a dominant win over Angela Hill in the night’s strawweight main event, while the co-headliner featured middleweight [autotag]Anthony Hernandez[/autotag] finishing Edmen Shahbazyan with ground-and-pound in Round 3.
Still, just one of those UFC Fight Night 224 winners made waves in our rankings, with “Fluffy” pushing his winning streak to four fights and landing among the honorable mentions at the expense of former Bellator champion Gegard Mousasi.
Check out all the latest pound-for-pound and divisional USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings above.
Dana White says Mackenzie Dern is in “a really good position” after defeating Angela Hill at UFC Fight Night 224.
LAS VEGAS – UFC president [autotag]Dana White[/autotag] walked out of the UFC Apex Saturday impressed with the performance of [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag].
In the main event of UFC Fight Night 224, Dern (13-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) dominated Angela Hill over the course of 25 minutes to win a one-sided unanimous decision. After the fight, Dern called out former two-time strawweight champion Rose Namajunas, as she wants to add a big name to her resume.
During the post-event news conference, White was asked what he thinks about the callout and if that’s a fight that could be next for both fighters.
“I don’t know, but that’s a fun fight too,” White told reporters. “Mackenzie’s in a really good position after tonight’s performance. She’s never looked meaner than she looked tonight.
“She came out on a mission, man. She looked like she was in great shape. She fought hard for five rounds. Her stand up was on point. She hurt Angela Hill several times with her standup and was all over her on the ground. Other than pulling off a knockout or a sub, she couldn’t have had a better performance than tonight, so I think anything is possible for her.”
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The victory was Dern’s eighth of her UFC career, and a rebound from a majority decision loss to Yan Xiaonan in October. After going through a number of changes in her personal life and professional, Dern believes she’s ready to take things to the next level by challenging a former champion.
Namajunas (11-5 MMA, 9-4 UFC) dropped the strawweight title in her previous outing, a highly-criticized bout against Carla Esparza at UFC 274 last year. Aside from competing against fellow UFC fighter Gillian Robertson at Fury Pro Grappling 6 in December, Namajunas has been quiet, and doesn’t have a fight scheduled.
White appears to think the matchup would be a good one, but it’s far too soon to know if it could together to meet Dern’s wishes for her next main event outing. The UFC boss loved Dern’s latest work inside the cage, which could bode well for her matchmaking going forward.
“Mackenzie Dern looked unbelievable tonight,” White said. “So aggressive. I don’t know what you guys thought, but I thought this was going to be one of those fights where Angela Hill came out stand up, try to take it to her, and Mackenzie was going to do everything in her power to get it to the ground to try and submit her. To see Mackenzie’s stand up – the punches, the knees actually hurting Angela Hill, who’s tough as nails – then on the flip side, Angela Hill, who’s so tough and durable getting into these positions. … It was a badass fight. It was as good of a main event as you could ever hope for.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 224.
Dana White touched on a number of topics after UFC Fight Night 224 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
LAS VEGAS – UFC president Dana White spoke to the media Saturday night following the completion of UFC Fight Night 224.
He addressed various topics at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, including the main event between [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag] and [autotag]Angela Hill[/autotag], booking [autotag]Conor McGregor[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Michael Chandler[/autotag], [autotag]Kamaru Usman[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Khamzat Chimaev[/autotag], the return of the BMF title, and more.
You can watch White’s full post-event news conference above, plus check out a transcription of some of the topics he covered below.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 224.
Mackenzie Dern didn’t intend to have her personal issues grab headlines before UFC Fight Night 224, but is glad everything is out there now.
LAS VEGAS – UFC strawweight contender [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag] didn’t intend to have her personal issues at the forefront of fight week, but is glad everything came to light.
Ahead of her UFC Fight Night 224 main event bout against Angela Hill at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Dern (13-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) detailed a tumultuous fight camp that included a number of personal hurdles such as changing managers and going through a divorce.
“I didn’t come here with the intention to say like, ‘Oh yeah, all my problems that I’m going through,'” Dern told reporters at the post-fight news conference. “But it was good for me to just let it out there and for people to see we go through things like this. Divorce, child support, all these things, you know? Managers and people wanting all these things from you. It’s like since I’ve been into the MMA world, I’ve always had people wanting to pull me in all these different directions, and I’m learning the sport too. I come from jiu-jitsu, I don’t come from MMA, so I’m learning so much. I didn’t really have a path, you know?
So now, to be able to let everyone know you’re going through this, but I’m still here and I had a great performance, I think – and yeah, it didn’t stop me. We can’t let people stop us from going after our dreams.”
A great performance, indeed. Despite all of the family problems and professional changes, Dern still had to find a way to stay focused on the task of defeating Hill (15-13 MMA, 10-13 UFC). Not only did Dern get the job done by winning a dominant unanimous decision in her third UFC main event, she perhaps looked better than ever.
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Dern’s changes came after a majority decision loss to Yan Xiaonan in October. It was her second fight of 2022, which halted the momentum of a split decision win over Teica Torres last April. While Dern is focused on challenging former champion Rose Namajunas, she wouldn’t mind running it back with Xiaonan.
“I would like a rematch with Yan,” Dern said. “I think she had a great performance with Jessica (Andrade). I think it was a really close fight. So, I would like to get a rematch with her if Rose wasn’t available, or even Jessica Andrade, who’s a former champion too. Definitely someone ahead of me.”
For now, Dern is happy to get back on track with an impressive win in a main event Fight of the Night battle. She was able to display physical and strategic improvements through the course of the fight. However, overcoming the personal challenges that people couldn’t see made this win special for Dern.
“People see us like we’re super heroes and all we do is fight and train all day and we’re mean, but no,” Dern said. “We go through things all the time. We’re regular people. We just fight for a living.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 224.
Check out all the facts and figures from UFC Fight Night 224, which saw Mackenzie Dern rack up another $50,000 bonus in the main event.
The UFC closed out its May schedule on Saturday with UFC Fight Night 224, which took place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
In the main event, [autotag]Mackenzie Dern[/autotag] (13-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) defeated [autotag]Angela Hill[/autotag] (15-13 MMA, 10-13 UFC) by unanimous decision in the Fight of the Night, with the grappling specialist landing a career-best 126 significant strikes over the course of five rounds.
For more on the numbers, check below for MMA Junkie’s post-event facts about UFC Fight Night 224.
Thoughts and analysis of the biggest storylines coming out of UFC Fight Night 224, including Mackenzie Dern’s beastly showing.
What mattered most at UFC Fight Night 224 in Las Vegas? Here are a few post-fight musings …
