Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Here are the top four honorable mentions and winner of MMA Junkie’s “Knockout of the Year” award for 2023.
With another action-packed year of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie takes a look at the best knockouts from January to December. Here are the top five and winner of MMA Junkie’s “Knockout of the Year” award for 2023.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice for “Knockout of the Year.”
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Following a successful debut at UFC 283, Peru’s Daniel Marcos sets sights on the bantamweight title.
[autotag]Daniel Marcos[/autotag]’s goal is clear – become UFC champion.
The Peruvian prospect has ambitious goals now that he’s successfully started his UFC career. Marcos (14-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) had to go to enemy territory for his first appearance, which came against Brazil’s Saimon Oliveira at UFC 283 in Rio de Janeiro.
The 30-year-old made a statement in his debut and put away Oliveira with brutal knees to the body in the second round of their bantamweight contest.
“I got to work that day and I was focused on demolishing, finishing my rival – and that’s what happened in the second round,” Marcos told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “I feel happy because of it, and it’s a great step in my professional MMA career.
“There are more steps to come, and I want to keep going like this, tranquil and not rushing anything. I’m happy with my team in Peru and in Miami, and we’re moving forward.”
Marcos is undefeated and regarded by many as one of the brightest prospects to come out of Peru. He thinks he has what it takes to extend his streak all the way to a championship fight.
“I want to be the best in the world, and I’m here to do just that,” Marcos said. “I’ve had dreams of the title. I’ve dreamt that I can get there. If you have a dream, you can turn that into a reality with hard work. For me, nothing is impossible. Everything is possible.
“I don’t want two, three fights and be remembered as just a fighter that came and went. I want to be remembered as a champion. The champions are made of bone and flesh, like me. I train really hard and I have the potential. I’m going to keep fighting and keep bringing my name up the UFC rankings. This was just the first step.”
Marcos wants to keep busy in 2023 and keep racking up experience in the UFC. He’s hoping to return before the summer.
“I’m always training and ready,” Marcos said. “I train hard and I stay in shape. If I get the opportunity to fight in April or May or whenever, I’ll be ready to take on whatever challenge. I’m sure of that. April is a good month.”
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“I didn’t want to do it just for the money. So I was like, ‘I’m done with this.’ At least for UFC,” former champ Glover Teixeira said of his retirement.
[autotag]Glover Teixeira[/autotag] didn’t know for sure that UFC 283 in January was going to be his MMA retirement fight when he entered the octagon to face Jamahal Hill for the vacant light heavyweight title.
By the time the contest was over, though, Teixeira (33-9 MMA, 16-7 UFC) was certain a significant chapter of his life had come to an end. His lopsided unanimous decision loss to Hill in front of his home country fans at Jeunesse Arena at Rio de Janeiro marked the final stop in a UFC Hall of Fame worthy run.
It wasn’t only that Teixeira was beaten. It was the way he lost that felt different, he said. It was the type of night older athletes dread. The 43-year-old former UFC champ couldn’t execute the way he wanted in many critical moments, pesrhaps signifying the inevitable decline that Teixeira has avoided for much longer than most.
“(I made the decision) just there right after the fight,” Teixeira told MMA Junkie in an interview for one of his sponsors, Stake.com. “I was disappointed with a lot of things. I didn’t want to go back to the drawing board. In my last fight (with Jiri Prochazka) I was winning the fight, I lost. With the fight with Jamahal, I had good positions on him I just didn’t have the finish. It was weird. I don’t know. I think the position I had him on the ground in the fifth round I thought I was going to have the finish and he was slipping out.
“I felt a little sluggish, a little slow. Even in the ground my ability, my mind works very fast on the ground. I already think what the guy is going to do. I know what he is going to do next, and I’m one step ahead of him. This fight, I was a little off. Then after the fight, with my face beat up, I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. I think it’s time. I think it’s time to hang up the gloves.'”
Just because Teixeira wasn’t able to beat a dangerous opponent like Hill doesn’t mean he’s completely incapable of pushing forward. There are plenty of 205-pound fighters on the UFC roster Teixeira could still beat quite convincingly.
With more than 20 years experience under his belt, however, Teixeira didn’t stick around as long as he did to lower the level of competition now. He only wants to be in the octagon with the highest stakes against the absolute elite, and anything short of that is not worth it.
“I don’t want to fight if it’s not for the title anymore, if it’s not for me to be the best in the world anymore,” Teixeira said. “I’m always this guy that preaches you’ve got to live with purpose in life. Money is great when you have purpose. When you know what you’re doing and you want to do it not for the money. … The money is great because you work for the money, but I didn’t want to do it just for the money. So I was like, ‘I’m done with this.’ At least for UFC.”
Teixeira might be done with UFC, but he’s not closing the door on athlete competition for good. He will still be in his gym training often, coaching a budding crop of fighters that includes current UFC middleweight champion Alex Pereira.
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Although Teixeira won’t be pursuing any fights in the near future, he does admit if an opportunity comes his way, he would give it a serious look.
“If I’m going to do it for the money, I do something easy,” Teixeira said. “I box a guy my age or something. Then it would be different than fighting young guys in the UFC for the light heavyweight championship.”
For now, though, Teixeira is going to reap the rewards of an illustrious career. The transition away from being active in the sport has its bumps, but Teixeira is learning to cope.
“It’s kind of weird,” Teixeira said. “I realize (after retiring) how much of an athlete I am. My whole life I go (work out) and I want to push my next because I’m always thinking about the fight. The last minute of the fight, the last minute of the round and I push it, push it, push it. Lately (I was working out) and I was like, ‘I I don’t have a fight coming up. I don’t have to do this. It’s just for fun.’
“I want to keep the pace high because I have athletes there (at my gym), but it’s kind of relaxing. It’s what I need. 20 years I’ve been doing this and always thinking about the competition mode. It’s very nice during my work outs.”
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Alexandre Pantoja, Mexico City. That’s what Brandon Moreno would like for the first defense of his second UFC flyweight title stint.
Flyweight champion [autotag]Brandon Moreno[/autotag] wants to bring a UFC pay-per-view event to Mexico.
Moreno is looking to make the first title defense of his second stint as champion on home soil and against a man he’s lost to before in [autotag]Alexandre Pantoja[/autotag].
Moreno (21-6-2 MMA, 9-3-2 UFC) is hoping to be more active than he’s been in recent years, so ideally he’d like to return in the summer. However, if the UFC were to pay a visit to Mexico during their independence month of September, Moreno would be more than happy to wait.
“I would like to fight two more times this year – one in June and then again in November or December,” Moreno told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “I was fighting three times a year. I had that rhythm before the whole thing with Figueiredo started, so I’d like to pick that rhythm back up.
“But if UFC gives me the perfect excuse to wait until September for a pay-per-view in Mexico City, the launch of the Performance Institute (in Mexico), which I think this year gets launched, I think that’s an incredible excuse. I wouldn’t be surprised if they offer me Pantoja for the next one, so I think that would be the ideal scenario for me.”
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Moreno has lost to Pantoja twice, technically speaking, but only once in a professional setting. “The Assassin Baby” first fought the Brazilian in 2016, losing by second-round rear-naked choke in an exhibition bout contested during “The Ultimate Fighter 24.” The Mexican star met Pantoja again in 2018, losing a unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 129. It was his last defeat before going on his historic title run that would see him become a two-time UFC champion.
Moreno has nothing personal against Pantoja. Professionally, that’s a different story.
“Whether you want it or not, that thorn remains,” Moreno said. “That thorn of, ‘Hey, I know I can beat this guy, and he’s beaten me in the past.’
“As a competitor, I try to stay always very relaxed, and I don’t take anything personally, but whether you want it or not, that competitor side in my soul and spirit still has that little thorn. Something that I have very present in my head and something I’m very convinced of is that the Brandon Moreno that fought Pantoja in their respective times, those weren’t his best versions.
“When I fought him, and it’s not making excuses, Pantoja never fought the best Brandon Moreno at that time. I truly believe that, and I would love to prove that in the future.”
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Jamahal Hill and Glover Teixeira went to war at UFC 283 in MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Month for January.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from January 2023: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Month award for January.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice.
With the rivalry now over, Brandon Moreno looks back at his epic quadrilogy against Deiveson Figueiredo.
[autotag]Brandon Moreno[/autotag] has been through a lot with Deiveson Figueiredo.
From surprising the combat sports world with a thrilling draw in a makeshift championship bout, to creating the biggest rivalry the UFC flyweight division has ever seen, Moreno and Figueiredo have been on one hell of a journey to become one of the main stories of the post-pandemic era in MMA.
This month at UFC 283 in Brazil, Moreno (21-6-2 MMA, 9-3-2 UFC) ended the first quadrilogy in UFC history. He did so by stopping Figueiredo (21-3-1 MMA, 10-3-1 UFC) with a TKO to reclaim the UFC 125-pound title.
It was a career-defining bout, as Moreno and Figueiredo were tied up 1-1-1.
This championship contest was not only designed to crown the king of the division, but also define a winner of the rivalry – and maybe even more importantly, a loser, who would be put in a very difficult position in terms of future title contention.
“Once they raised my hand, I felt so much peace,” Moreno told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “I felt how all this pressure, all this stress, everything that’s happened these last two years, always thinking about the same guy. This fight had a ton on the line. There was a lot that was being played. Whether you want it or not, you felt that pressure. I won and when I got my hand raised, at that moment, I felt peace.”
With a win in his pocket and a world of pressure listed off his shoulders, Moreno celebrated with his team inside the octagon while his smile stretched from ear to ear – opposite to what was happening outside the octagon and into the stands.
The Brazilian crowd wasn’t happy to see their countryman lose. They booed Moreno and forced him to run out of the arena and into the back tunnels, as they were throwing beer and other objects in his direction.
But Moreno didn’t care. After all, he was the UFC champion again.
“I was so happy, enjoying it, and dancing,” Moreno said. “Maybe that’s why they also got more upset, but it was fun. It was fun because as a Mexican, as a Latin American, I don’t excuse it and say it’s good. It was very disrespectful, but you see it in soccer, you see it in wrestling, how the people get fired up and throw stuff at you. Again, I’m not saying it’s good, but I don’t take it personally. I had a lot of fun.”
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The Mexican star fought Figueiredo a total of four times over the course of four different years – 2020, 2021, 2022, and now 2023.
It was a long saga, to say the least, and one that at times had Moreno fed up. But despite the stress and the difficulties experienced, the Figueiredo rivalry left Moreno with plenty to digest.
“Man, it’s something that left me a lot of experience – not only technically,” Moreno explained. “Yes, this rivalry forced me to evolve as an athlete, to see how to better my wrestling, jiu-jitsu, striking in a way. So that’s for starters, that’s obvious. But as a person, I went through so many things.
“From winning the belt, the experience of being a champion, the experience of losing it. As a human being, it also made me better myself, so that’s another thing I’m thankful for with Deiveson. Not only from the professional side and career side, but as a person, this left me with a lot.”
Technically, Moreno feels he became a much more well-rounded fighter throughout this entire process. Not only did he build up his boxing, but he was able to find the perfect balance between his newly acquired skills and his high-level grappling.
From a personal side, the feud with Figueiredo changed him profoundly. He achieved his dream of becoming a UFC champion and made history for Mexico as the first Mexico-born fighter to win a UFC title. He also got a taste of what it is like to lose everything that he worked for his entire career.
The quadriology was a profound experience.
“Winning the title in 2021 changed my life,” Moreno said. “It brought me new things and also new responsibilities, which I wasn’t used to at the time. It’s interesting because the more you go, the more you learn new things. I mentioned how the first UFC main event in Mexico City affected me (back in 2017 vs. Sergio Pettis). All of a sudden I had all this focus, a bunch of interviews, and that at the time affected me because I didn’t have the experience to handle it.
“This time around it was the same. I was champion, and it was double the interviews, double the commitments. Then losing the belt, something which I had fought for years. I lost it in one night, and that hurt. That hurt a lot. But I managed to overcome that and keep in focus and in the present. … All those things forged my mind and my character.”
Now, Moreno sets sight on Alexandre Pantoja – who he believes to be the No. 1 contender in the division and the next deserving challenger.
“The Assassin Baby” wants to return in June to defend his title, but he’d be willing to delay if the UFC were to pay a visit to Mexico around their Independence Day.
“I know that he’s next, at least in my eyes, we’ll see what him and the UFC work out things out, but I’m ready,” Moreno said. “I’m going to rest my body and my mind, because all the stress of all these two years thinking about the Figueiredo, whether you want it or not, it spends your mind a little bit.
“But at the same time, I want to be active. I’d love to fight in June. Nothing is official, but if the UFC decides to go to Mexico in September to host a pay-per-view there, that would be a good reason to wait.”
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Gabriel Bonfim wins MMA Junkie’s Submission of the Month after his older brother claimed KO of the Month honors.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best submissions from January 2023: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Submission of the Month award for January.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting for your choice.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best knockouts from January 2023.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best knockouts from January 2023: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Knockout of the Month award for January.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting for your choice.
UFC champ Jamahal Hill admits a showdown with Jon Jones is on his bucket list for the future.
[autotag]Jamahal Hill[/autotag] admits a showdown with [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] is on his bucket list for the future.
Hill (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC), the newly crowned UFC light heavyweight champion, knows a meeting with Jones (26-1 MMA, 20-1 UFC) in the short-term is unrealistic, as they are in different places in their respective careers. Down the line, however, he certainly doesn’t rule it out.
Jones was the longtime holder of the 205-pound belt currently in Hill’s possession. He never lost the strap in the cage, but rather vacated it when he decided to move up to heavyweight. It’s been a slow burn to make that move, but Jones will finally return on March 4 when he faces Ciryl Gane for the vacant heavyweight belt in the UFC 285 headliner.
Whether Jones wins the belt or not, he is still someone Hill would like to share the octagon with. He’s not sure when or under what circumstances it would materialize, but Hill told the “Believe You Me” podcast that Jones is a key part of why he’s found so much success in MMA.
“Yeah, 1,000% – I want to eventually build to a fight against Jon,” Hill said. “He’s the ultimate test. He was from the time that I came and decided I want to make this run. At first when it started it was Anderson Silva. He was the man. It was 2010 and things like that, but when he had his injury, I kind of fell off from the sport.
“That’s another reason why I started working (a day job). I didn’t see the money in it and all of that, then Conor (McGregor) happened. But Conor got that because he had (Jose) Aldo, who had been undefeated for 10 years. He had somebody to chase. I needed somebody to chase, and this whole time I’ve been chasing Jon. I’m interested in that fight.”
In the more immediate future, Hill will look to defend his 205-pound title. He’s said he wants former champ Jiri Prochazka to be his first title challenger, but it remains to be seen in Prochazka can get healthy in time to fight by July or August, which is when Hill recently told MMA Junkie he wants to return.
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The UFC’s first pay-per-view of 2023 was not short on violence with 10 stoppages. Check out the super slow-motion highlights.
The UFC’s first pay-per-view of 2023 was a memorable one, for all different reasons.
UFC 283, which took place Jan. 21 at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, marked the promotion’s return to Brazil after nearly three years. The card featured 10 stoppages out of 15 fights, two new champions crowned, and a pair of high-profile retirements from legends of the sport.
In the main event, Jamahal Hill claimed the vacant light heavyweight belt with a lopsided beatdown of Glover Teixeira, who hung up the glover afterward. “Sweet Dreams” dished out a divisional record 232 significant strikes, and badly busted up Teixeira’s face in the process.
With the event now in the books, the UFC has released the latest edition of “Fight Motion,” a feature of super-slow motion vide highlights looking back at the event.
Check it out above.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 283.
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