The UFC will give the Tecia Torres vs. Angela Hill booking another shot.
The UFC will give the [autotag]Tecia Torres[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Angela Hill[/autotag] booking another shot.
Torres (11-5 MMA, 7-5 UFC) meets Hill (13-9 MMA, 8-9 UFC) at UFC 265, which takes place Aug. 7 at a location and venue that has yet to be announced.
A person with knowledge of the matchup confirmed the booking to MMA Junkie on Monday but asked to remain anonymous because the promotion has yet to make an official announcement. MMA DNA was first to report the news.
The pair was scheduled to rematch at UFC 256 in December, but Hill withdrew after testing positive for COVID-19. Torres faced newcomer Sam Hughes instead, winning the fight by TKO due to doctor’s stoppage in the first round.
Hill accused Torres of ducking a potential rebooking, with Torres seemingly uninterested in the matchup at the time since she was hoping for someone ranked above her. Torres won their first outing by unanimous decision in 2015 in what was just Hill’s third pro fight.
Winner of four of her past six, Hill was able to snap a two-fight losing skid with a unanimous decision win over Ashley Yoder at UFC Fight Night 187 in March. Hill was then scheduled to face Amanda Ribas at UFC on ESPN 24 in May, but Ribas tested positive for COVID-19 and the fight was pulled just hours before the event. Their matchup was rebooked for UFC Fight Night 189 on June 5, but Ribas was forced out as she’s still dealing with lingering COVID-19 symptoms.
With the addition, the UFC 265 lineup now includes:
Champ Amanda Nunes vs. Julianna Pena – for women’s bantamweight title
See who Ryan Spann, Dan Ige and Angela Hill should fight next after their bouts at UFC Fight Night 187.
With another night of action in the rearview mirror at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, it’s time to look forward, put on a pair of Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard’s shoes, and play UFC matchmaker for UFC Fight Night 187‘s key winning fighters outside the main event.
“Beat some ranked opponents and then if it makes sense, I’ll fight you.”
According to [autotag]Angela Hill[/autotag], the UFC is trying to rebook a fight with [autotag]Tecia Torres[/autotag].
The strawweights were scheduled to rematch at UFC 256 in December, but Hill was forced out after testing positive for COVID-19. Torres faced newcomer Sam Hughes instead and won by TKO due to doctor’s stoppage in the first round, one of her finest performances to date.
Now it appears that the UFC is revisiting the initial matchup, but Hill claims that Torres won’t sign the contract.
Hey @TeciaTorres heard you’d rather sit out till October than fight me, you signed the contract for Dec., what changed, u got paid for beating a last minute newb? Good to know ur still terrified of fighting me after all these years. Staying ready cause these bitches are scurd.
Hey @TeciaTorres heard you’d rather sit out till October than fight me, you signed the contract for Dec., what changed, u got paid for beating a last minute newb? Good to know ur still terrified of fighting me after all these years. Staying ready cause these bitches are scurd.
Torres was quick to respond, stacking both their resumes opposite each other to remind Hill of her accolades. “The Tiny Tornado,” who’s positioned three spots higher than Hill in the official UFC strawweight rankings, also shut down the matchup, stating that she’d rather fight someone higher ranked.
Torres (11-5 MMA, 7-5 UFC) won their first outing by unanimous decision in 2015 in what was just Hill’s third pro fight.
After building some momentum with three straight wins over Ariane Carnelossi, Hannah Cifers and Loma Lookboonmee, Hill (12-9 MMA, 7-9 UFC) has dropped two straight razor-thin split decisions to Claudia Gadelha and Michelle Waterson.
Torres, on the other hand, snapped a four-fight losing streak, which included losses to current UFC strawweight champ Zhang Weili and former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk, with back-to-back wins over Brianna Van Buren and Hughes.
Torres hasn’t responded to Hill’s callout as of this writing.
Sam Hughes and coach Eddie Grant are confident they made the right call in stopping the fight – and the UFC doctor agrees.
Three days after [autotag]Sam Hughes[/autotag] made her UFC debut, and she was still in Las Vegas, which wasn’t part of her plan.
The extended stay was unexpected, but necessary, given the circumstances. In the 72-plus hours since her UFC 256 loss to [autotag]Tecia Torres[/autotag] this past Saturday, Hughes (5-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) and coach Eddie Grant of Catalyst Fight House have taken frequent trips to see the UFC’s ophthalmologist.
“The doctor told us that he’s been the ophthalmologist for the UFC for 15 years, and he said he’s literally never (seen it),” Grant told MMA Junkie on Tuesday night. “He knows this injury, but he’s never seen it happen in a fight.”
Hughes was diagnosed with a hyphema, or pooling of blood inside the eye. Per Grant, the UFC doctor informed them her iris was approximately 80 percent-filled with blood. She is expected to make a full recovery but has been prohibited from flying for at least four days as a precautionary measure.
“(The doctor) told me when we were in there,” Grant said. “He was like, ‘I really wanted to congratulate you and tell you good job for catching this. I don’t think other corners would have caught this injury and how bad it is.’ He was like, ‘You looked at it, and you knew right away.’ He was like, ‘I was really glad you decided to stop that fight. That was really smart.’
Image via Eddie Grant
The fight ended in an unusual fashion in between Rounds 1 and 2 after Grant told a commission official that his fighter would not compete further due to an eye injury. Hughes had told him she couldn’t see.
“I felt the poke and then I felt something in my eye,” Hughes said. “All I felt was that it was super fuzzy, super blurry. I remember trying to wipe my eye one time in the fight. Progressively, in not event 10 to 15 seconds, it shifted from being blurry to being dark, to being completely pitch black in my left eye.”
Grant added, “When we got in the cage, she was walking to where she heard my voice but her corner is actually on the other side, to her left. So I’m going in and I’m like, ‘Sam, Sam.’ And I can see she’s trying to find me. Then, she turns her whole body and then starts coming toward me.”
Seconds after the American television audience returned from a commercial break, referee Jason Herzog waived off the fight. While UFC commentator Joe Rogan began to defend Hughes, broadcast partner Daniel Cormier interrupted.
“As an athlete, you know if you say you can’t see, the referee is going to come in there and stop it,” Cormier said in the moment. “You could say, ‘Ah, I want to go. I want to go. I want to go.’ But if that man in the suit goes in, the guy from the commission, and he looks into your eyes – I did this in August (against Stipe Miocic). ‘DC, can you see?’ (You say), ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ because you want to go fight.
“… I’m not trying to crap on Sam Hughes here by any way, but just saying, ‘I can’t see’ tells the guy you’re done. They’re going to make you stop because even if her coaches let her go, the commission will come in and talk to you, and then it’s over.”
Grant wholeheartedly disagreed with any potential implications his fighter wanted out, while Hughes was disheartened by the narrative laid out after only her first UFC outing.
“I’m sorry, but that really got to me,” Grant said. “First of all, Sam is a huge fan of Daniel Cormier – and she always has been. Then for him to be like, ‘She’s quitting’ and all this stuff, I know that that was hurtful to her. … The thing is that she wasn’t quitting. She would’ve continued to fight. Sam got her arm broken in a fight and came back and won. I have no question about whether she’ll continue to fight. You’re going in there in your UFC debut, and it just so happens we took the fight on five days’ notice. We cut 17 pounds, made weight, and then went and fought the No. 10 girl on planet earth.”
Hughes added, “(Quitting) wasn’t my intention at all. He asked a question, and I answered it. But if you look at the footage, I was like, ‘No, no, no, please don’t stop it,’ because I had full intentions of going into the second and third round.”
[lawrence-related id=574307,574312,574277]
Every corner person has their own idea of the role they are supposed to fill. Grant said no coaches have voiced disagreement in his decision that he knows of. Fighters on the other hand, that’s a different story. But for Grant, looking out for his fighters’ safety is a top priority, even if they don’t like the outcomes of decisions.
“We’ve got to decide what we’re doing here,” Grant said. “Is this a fight to the death, or is this a sport that we’re trying to proliferate? If we were signing up for a few thousand dollars to fight to the death, we might not have done that. But if they’re like, ‘Hey, we need somebody to come in and fight against this top 10 girl,’ then we’ll do that, and they’ll pay you a few thousand bucks or whatever. It’s hard.
“I wouldn’t have taken a fight for $1 million if I knew she would lose an eye. I don’t care. Her eye is worth way more than $1 million to me as a coach and to her as a fighter. … If she were to be yelling at me right now, telling me she hated me for it, I’d still be 100 percent fine with it.”
In the moment, she wanted to continue, but now Hughes praises her coach’s decision – especially knowing how much worse her injury could’ve been in hindsight.
“I’m going to have great performances and re-sign multiple contracts with the UFC, so he was protecting me in the long run,” Hughes said. “If I were to beat Tecia with one eye, that would’ve been nice. But if that meant I didn’t fight again, then that would’ve been devastating.”
The best facts and figures to come out of UFC 256, which saw Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno fight to a draw in the main event.
The UFC’s 2020 pay-per-view schedule came to a close Saturday. UFC 256, which took place at UFC Apex in Las Vegas, marked the 11th and final numbered card of the year.
[autotag]Deiveson Figueiredo[/autotag] (20-1-1 MMA, 9-1-1 UFC) emerged as the last champion to defend this calendar year when he fought [autotag]Brandon Moreno[/autotag] (18-5-2 MMA, 6-2-2 UFC) to a majority draw in the main event, keeping his belt in the process.
For more on the numbers to come out of the event, check below for 40 post-event facts from UFC 256.
Fighters from Saturday’s UFC 256 took home UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance pay totaling $220,500.
LAS VEGAS – Fighters from Saturday’s UFC 256 event took home UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance pay totaling $220,500.
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 256 took place at UFC Apex. The main card aired on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+/UFC Fight Pass.
The full UFC 256 UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance payouts included:
* * * *
[autotag]Deiveson Figueiredo[/autotag]: $40,000
vs. [autotag]Brandon Moreno[/autotag]: $30,000
Under the UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance program’s payout tiers, which appropriate the money generated by Reebok’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 $3,500 per appearance; 4-5 bouts get $4,000; 6-10 bouts get $5,000; 11-15 bouts earn $10,000; 16-20 bouts pocket $15,000; and 21 bouts and more get $20,000. Additionally, champions earn $40,000 while title challengers get $30,000.
In addition to experience-based pay, UFC fighters will receive in perpetuity royalty payments amounting to 20-30 percent of any UFC merchandise sold that bears their likeness, according to officials.
Full 2020 UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance payouts:
Check out some of Tecia Torres’ most popular Instagram posts following her UFC 256 fight booking rematch vs. Angela Hill.
Social media is part of life in the fight game for most fighters. Many of them turn to Instagram to keep their fans and followers informed and entertained since (for now) its reputation is less vitriolic than some of its contemporaries.
Ahead of her fight against short-notice replacement Sam Hughes (5-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who stepped in for Angela Hill, check out some of the most popular Instagram posts from Tecia Torres (11-5 MMA, 7-5 UFC) over the past year.
Torres and Hughes are part of the UFC 256 preliminary card, which takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN2/ESPN+ and early prelims on ESPN+.
The rematch between Angela Hill and Tecia Torres will have to wait.
The rematch between [autotag]Angela Hill[/autotag] and [autotag]Tecia Torres[/autotag] will have to wait.
Hill (12-9 MMA, 6-9 UFC) announced on Sunday that she’s out of her scheduled strawweight fight with Torres (11-5 MMA, 7-5 UFC) on Saturday at UFC 256 after testing positive for COVID-19.
According to Hill, she took all the necessary precautions in training camp. She still tested positive, though, and won’t be fighting at UFC Apex in Las Vegas (via Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIep7NiBlH_
Unfortunately I tested positive for Covid-19 and won’t be fighting next week. Tried to stay as safe as possible during fightcamp but with mma training there’s virtually no social distancing. Was really looking forward to running it back, maybe we still can in the near future. #CovidFuckingUpEveryonesSeason #UFC256
It’s unknown at this time if the UFC plans on rescheduling the fight between Hill and Torres, or if Torres will receiving a new opponent on less than six days’ notice.
