Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
There were 35 UFC 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.
Here are the fight announcements that were broken or confirmed by MMA Junkie or officially announced by the promotions from Jan. 8-14.
After a 42-month absence, former UFC women’s featherweight champ Germaine de Randamie is set to return in April vs. Norma Dumont.
[autotag]Germaine de Randamie[/autotag], the UFC’s inaugural women’s featherweight champion, is set to make her return to action after 42 months away.
On April 6, De Randamie will take on [autotag]Norma Dumont[/autotag] at a UFC Fight Night event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. MMA Junkie confirmed the matchup with a person with knowledge of the booking following a social media post by Dumont. The news first was reported by Laerte Viana on Instagram.
While both women have competed in the bantamweight and featherweight divisions during their UFC careers, De Randamie (10-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC) and Dumont (10-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) will meet at 135 pounds.
After she gave birth to her son in March 2023, De Randamie targeted a return in the fourth quarter of the year. While that timeline didn’t come to fruition, she now is set to enter the octagon the first time since UFC on ESPN 16 in October 2020.
The Dutch striker submitted Julianna Peña in the third round of their bantamweight bout. It was a Performance of the Night-winning finish, which marked a return to the win column after a bantamweight title challenge loss to then-champion Amanda Nunes. De Randamie was booked to fight Irene Aldana more than a year later, but had to withdraw due to injury.
Dumont, currently No. 7 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie women’s featherweight rankings, has been active. She made two appearances in 2023, and currently is on a three-fight winning streak with wins over Danyelle Wolf, Karol Rosa and Chelsea Chandler. Dumont, 33, will face a former UFC champion for the first time in her tenure with the promotion.
With the addition, the current lineup on April 6 includes:
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Check out a full recap of 2023’s most significant footnotes and milestones from the events, the fights and individual performances.
Now that the year has come to a close, and with a major assist from UFC research analyst and live statistics producers Michael Carroll, here are some of 2023’s most significant milestones from the events, the fights and individual performances.
The UFC’s 2024 campaign will soon kick off – and the first card of the year has experienced a makeover.
The first UFC event of 2024 has been hit with multiple lineup changes.
UFC Fight Night 234 takes place Jan. 13 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and streams on ESPN+. The lineup currently sits at 13 fights.
Over the past three days, however, that number has fluctuated with three withdrawals and two additions, as follows:
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 the promotions from Oct. 2-8.
Analysis of the biggest storylines coming out of UFC on ESPN 49, including Holly Holm’s sports future and some derailed hype trains.
What mattered most at UFC on ESPN 49 in Las Vegas? Here are a few post-fight musings …
Whatever bad blood was going on between Norma Dumont and Chelsea Chandler, Dumont may have put an end to it Saturday.
LAS VEGAS – Whatever bad blood was going on between [autotag]Norma Dumont[/autotag] and Chelsea Chandler, Dumont may have put an end to it Saturday.
Dumont (10-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) turned in a dominant performance to sweep Chandler (5-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) on the scorecards for a unanimous decision on the main card at UFC on ESPN 49 in Las Vegas. The bout was just the 29th women’s featherweight fight in UFC history.
Amanda Nunes’ recent retirement while she held both the women’s featherweight and bantamweight belts has thrown some chaos into the title pictures in both divisions. Dumont appeared to have taken another big step forward as a contender and said she wants to fight for the vacant belt.
But the big talk right after her win was the Friday backstage altercation between Dumont and Chandler after their ceremonial weigh-in faceoff.
“She reached out to me on Instagram before when she started in the UFC,” Dumont said at her post-fight news conference at the UFC Apex. “We talked. We chatted a bit and we even tried to get a fight together to fight each other, but the UFC didn’t want it at that time – saying that she didn’t have the level to actually fight me at that time. And then she even asked me for some tips. Then all of a sudden, this fight was scheduled and she started saying some things such as, ‘I don’t think (her past) opponents did what they needed to do. I don’t think people put pressure on her. I don’t think people did enough’ – that I wasn’t everything that people thought I was.
“We’re doing weigh-ins. She would look looking down when I talked to her, when I looked over to her. I just went up there and said, ‘Listen, if you’re going to talk, let’s do this. You can’t talk and not back it up.'”
Dumont, from Brazil, said the spat didn’t make a difference to her come fight night, though. And true to that, she appeared to fight without a lot of the emotion that came with the previous day’s run-in, in which both fighters were shown on video being held back from each other.
“Frankly, it doesn’t make a difference,” she said. “I always told people it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve always said all those people from outside Brazil, they wouldn’t even step foot into the climate that we actually have down there, all the stuff that we do. It’s always the war, always the tension, always the brawl. That’s what it’s like, and it doesn’t matter. When I get in there, it doesn’t matter if it’s a friend or a foe. I’m there to hurt. I’m there to strike. I’m there to do everything I can.”
Now Dumont will hope the UFC has reason to keep women’s featherweight around without Nunes ruling it the division. There have been rumors for years that the promotion would ditch the weight class eventually because it’s been a challenge to keep it populated with enough roster members to have frequent contenders.
Without Nunes, the rumors started to ramp up. But Dumont said if the UFC takes away 145, she’ll just bounce down 10 pounds.
“I’m here in the 145 division. I’m here to be the cage at 145, or at 135,” she said. “If Ronda (Rousey) comes back, I’ll go to any division she’s in. I think it would be, simply, the fight of my life since we don’t have Amanda active at the moment.”
Check out Dumont’s complete post-fight interview in the video above.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 49.
Check out all the post-fight facts from UFC on ESPN 49, where Mayra Bueno Silva put herself in the same category as Ronda Rousey.
UFC on ESPN 49, which took place Saturday at the UFC Ape in Las Vegas, had a slow start to the event, but ultimately ended with a bang.
[autotag]Mayra Bueno Silva[/autotag] (11-2-1 MMA, 6-2-1 UFC) continued her rise up the women’s bantamweight contender list when she scored a second-round submission of former champion [autotag]Holly Holm[/autotag] (15-7 MMA, 8-7 UFC) to become a true title contender.
For more on the numbers behind the headliner, as well as the rest of the card, check below for MMA Junkie’s post-event facts from UFC on ESPN 49.
UFC on ESPN 49 fighters took home UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance pay, a program that continued after the UFC’s deal with Venum.
LAS VEGAS – Fighters from Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 49 event took home UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance pay totaling $126,500.
The program, a comprehensive plan that includes outfitting requirements, media obligations and other items under the fighter code of conduct, replaces the previous payments made under the UFC Athlete Outfitting Policy.
UFC on ESPN 49 took place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The card aired on ESPN and streamed on ESPN+.
The full UFC on ESPN 49 UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance payouts included:
* * * *
[autotag]Mayra Bueno Silva[/autotag]: $6,000
def. [autotag]Holly Holm[/autotag]: $11,000
[autotag]Jack Della Maddalena[/autotag]: $4,500
def. [autotag]Bassil Hafez[/autotag]: $4,000
[autotag]Fransisco Prado[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Ottman Azaitar[/autotag]: $4,500
[autotag]Junyong Park[/autotag]: $6,000
def. [autotag]Albert Duraev[/autotag]: $4,500
[autotag]Norma Dumont[/autotag]: $6,000
def. [autotag]Chelsea Chandler[/autotag]: $4,000
[autotag]Nazim Sadykhov[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Terrance McKinney[/autotag]: $6,000
[autotag]Melsik Baghdasaryan[/autotag]: $4,500
def. [autotag]Tucker Lutz[/autotag]: $4,500
[autotag]Viktoriia Dudakova[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Istela Nunes[/autotag]: $4,500
[autotag]Melquizael Costa[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Austin Lingo[/autotag]: $4,500
[autotag]Evan Elder[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Genaro Valdez[/autotag]: $4,000
[autotag]Azat Maksum[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Tyson Nam[/autotag]: $6,000
[autotag]Alexander Munoz[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Carl Deaton[/autotag]: $4,000
[autotag]Ailin Perez[/autotag]: $4,000
def. [autotag]Ashlee Evans-Smith[/autotag]: $6,000
Under the UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance program’s payout tiers, which appropriate the money generated by Venum’s multi-year sponsorship with the UFC, fighters are paid based on their total number of UFC bouts, as well as Zuffa-era WEC fights (January 2007 and later) and Zuffa-era Strikeforce bouts (April 2011 and later). Fighters with 1-3 bouts receive $4,000 per appearance; 4-5 bouts get $4,500; 6-10 bouts get $6,000; 11-15 bouts earn $11,000; 16-20 bouts pocket $16,000; and 21 bouts and more get $21,000. Additionally, champions earn $49,000 while title challengers get $49,000.
In addition to experience-based pay, UFC fighters will receive in perpetuity royalty payments amounting to 20-49 percent of any UFC merchandise sold that bears their likeness, according to officials.
Full 2023 UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance payouts:
Year-to-date total: $4,555,000
2022 total: $8,351,500
2021 total: $6,167,500
Program-to-date total: $19,144,000
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 49.
Check out what the UFC on ESPN 49 winners and guest fighters had to say backstage at Saturday’s event in Las Vegas.
LAS VEGAS – UFC on ESPN 49 took place Saturday with 13 bouts on the lineup. We’ve got you covered with backstage winner interviews from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
You can hear from all the UFC on ESPN 49 winners by checking out their post-fight news conferences below.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 49.
