Tag: UFC 302

Luke Rockhold pleads with Dana White to give him Sean Strickland: ‘I will f*cking end this kid’s life’

To say Luke Rockhold wants a piece of Sean Strickland would be an understatement.

[autotag]Luke Rockhold[/autotag] wants a piece of fellow former UFC middleweight champion [autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag].

Rockhold (16-6 MMA, 6-5 UFC), 39, parted ways with the UFC after losing a Fight of the Night brawl against Paulo Costa in August 2022. He was frustrated watching Strickland beat Costa in this past Saturday’s UFC 302 co-main event.

Rockhold doesn’t enjoy watching Strickland fight and would love to throw down with him in the octagon.

“If you were Dana White, would you ever want this guy fighting back for a title? I can’t stand watching this motherf*cker fight,” Rockhold said on the “JAXXON PODCAST.” “F*cking book me. Sign me up, Dana. I will f*cking end this kid’s life, I guarantee.”

Rockhold mouthed off on the UFC in the lead-up to his fight with Costa, so he isn’t sure if they’re on good terms – but he’s open to reconciling.

“(Strickland) just wants to get into like a brawl every time because he’s got that style (where) he comes from such weird angles that he wins a lot of those exchanges,” Rockhold said of Strickland. “He’s going to try and wear you out, but you’ve got to go high, low, you’ve got to wrestle with him. Dana gives me that hall pass, I’ll come in, I will step on that kid’s face.

“I left and obviously if a lot of people paid attention, they saw that week (leading up to) Paulo Costa I had a lot of things to say. I’ve been gone for a while, and I felt like I was mistreated a bit and so – everything is gone. Water under the bridge, but I don’t know if they want to deal with me. But if we did deal, I’d deal right.”

Rockhold and Strickland were booked to fight at UFC 268, but the fight was scrapped when Rockhold withdrew due to a back injury. The pair sparred before, and Rockhold is confident he’d get the better of him on the ground.

“I’ve worked with Strickland. He’s weird, he’s awkward, but he ain’t that good,” Rockhold said. “He’s got decent wrestling, he’s got decent defensive jiu-jitsu. Like, he just gets up. He knows how to get up. He’s decent with that. That’s what he does well.”

Strickland’s loud and unfiltered mouth also rubs Rockhold the wrong way.

“I hate that guy,” Rockhold said. “I know a lot of people look at me, and they just hate me. I see this f*cking kid’s face every time, and it’s just disgusting. He’s a fake little b*tch. He doesn’t even know who he is. I don’t think he believes the sh*t he’s saying these days. He’s just spouting off.”

After losing to Costa, Rockhold signed with BKFC and suffered a TKO loss to Mike Perry in April 2023. Rockhold then picked up his first combat sports win in years when he knocked out Joe Schilling this past April at Karate Combat 45.

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 302.

Aljamain Sterling agrees with Dana White that Jon Jones is No. 1 pound-for-pound over Islam Makhachev

Aljamain Sterling points to a personal experience to argue why Jon Jones should be the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter over Islam Makhachev.

[autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] points to personal experience to argue why [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] should be the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter.

UFC lightweight champion [autotag]Islam Makhachev[/autotag] (25-1 MMA, 14-1 UFC), who notched his third title defense by submitting Dustin Poirier in Saturday’s UFC 302 headliner, is currently the promotion’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter.

Despite Makhachev’s impressive finish, UFC CEO [autotag]Dana White[/autotag] disagrees with the rankings. He thinks former longtime UFC light heavyweight champion and current heavyweight champ Jones should be No. 1, and Sterling agrees.

“If we’re talking pound-for-pound, everyone’s criteria is different,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “But I think pound-for-pound, the way I understand it is, if weight was not a factor, size was not a factor, skill-for-skill, who would be the best guy? And I agree, I think it’s Jon Jones.”

Sterling compared Jones’ comeback after more than a three-year layoff to submit Ciryl Gane and become vacant heavyweight champion to Henry Cejudo’s attempt. Cejudo tried to do the same when he came out of retirement to challenge then-bantamweight champ Sterling after almost three years away but fell short.

“I was about to say, three years off and to come back and do that to the No. 1 guy like Dana said, I actually really agree with that,” Sterling said. “If we’re talking about right now, Jon Jones, what he did is super impressive. Henry Cejudo came back, he tried to do what he tried to do and look what happened. He’s ‘the greatest combat athlete of all time,’ no disrespect to him but …”

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 302.

Eddie Alvarez confident Arman Tsarukyan beats UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev

Eddie Alvarez thinks Arman Tsarukyan is the one to dethrone UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev.

[autotag]Eddie Alvarez[/autotag] thinks [autotag]Arman Tsarukyan[/autotag] is the one to dethrone UFC lightweight champion [autotag]Islam Makhachev[/autotag].

Makhachev (25-1 MMA, 14-1 UFC) retained his title with a fifth-round submission of Dustin Poirier in this past Saturday’s UFC 302 headliner at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

When comparing Makhachev to his mentor, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Alvarez says Makhachev’s risk taking is what makes him more beatable than Nurmagomedov.

“Islam is not Khabib, he doesn’t fight like Khabib,” Alvarez said on The MMA Hour. “He takes more chances, he takes more risks and relies on finishing guys, where Khabib just knew you weren’t going to be able to deal with him over time and he’d take you from 100 percent energy to 0 energy, and then he would finish you.

“Islam’s going to go for it, he’s going to leave himself more vulnerable so he’s a little bit funner to watch, but he’s more susceptible to getting beat than Khabib was.”

Makhachev said he’s more interested in challenging for the welterweight title than rematching Tsarukyan (22-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC), whom he beat in April 2019. That was just Tsarukyan’s UFC debut, and the 27-year-old has since gone 9-1.

Alvarez thinks Makhachev and his team are avoiding Tsarukyan. The former UFC lightweight champion also sees Tsarukyan being able to resist Makhachev’s wrestling, and even picked him to win – especially after seeing Poirier fend off numerous of Makhachev’s takedown attempts.

“Arman beats him,” Alvarez said. “I made that assumption right after the (Poirier) fight. Everybody Khabib defended against, he had what I call the state-grappling advantage. The gap in the grappling advantage was so high, and he dominated these guys. … If you’re able to match their wrestling a little bit where they can’t dominate you and you can put them in a fight, you start to see they’re a little bit human.”

“Arman, because of his wrestling background, he’s going to be able to stop the shot. He may even take Islam down a little bit. Islam won’t be the hammer the entire fight, and we need to see how he deals with that because they’re always the hammer.”

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 302.

Henry Cejudo says Sean Strickland’s UFC 302 win over Paulo Costa was a ‘snoozefest’

Henry Cejudo did not enjoy watching Sean Strickland vs. Paulo Costa at UFC 302.

[autotag]Henry Cejudo[/autotag] did not enjoy watching [autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Paulo Costa[/autotag] at UFC 302.

Strickland defeated Costa by split decision in this past Saturday’s co-main event at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. – a scorecard which confused the likes of Dana White, who thought it should’ve been unanimous for Strickland. The UFC boss admitted it wasn’t the fight he expected.

Strickland (29-6 MMA, 16-6 UFC) promised a war and put the blame on Costa (14-4 MMA, 6-4 UFC) for not engaging enough. Cejudo wanted to see more heat from the two.

“This fight disappointed a lot of people,” Cejudo said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast with Kamaru Usman. “I wasn’t expecting that. They were just too friendly, man. It’s almost better to have a little bit of animosity. They were just trying to be homies, trying to be friends.

“There’s too much respect in there inside the cage, because nobody wanted to necessarily lose to each other because they’re both trolls, that the fight just ended up – the last 17 seconds of that fight is what gave the roar, but other than that, the fight was a snoozefest. I don’t know how else to say it.”

Cejudo’s co-host, Usman, gave Strickland and Costa the benefit of the doubt.

“I know Dana was upset with it, but at the same time, how can you be? Those rounds – Round 3, Rounds 1 through 4 – were relatively back-and-forth, kind of confusing,” Usman said. “You know, Sean was kind of throwing out more strikes, but Paulo Costa, when he stood his ground, would land strikes that seemed to be a little more effective. I don’t know. It was just a weird fight.”

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 302.

USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings, June 4: Jailton Almeida, Ailin Perez climb up

UFC 302 is in the books. Check out the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings.

UFC 302 is in the books and with a handful of ranked fighters on the card, there was bound to be movement.

The biggest winner in the USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings is heavyweight contender [autotag]Jailton Almeida[/autotag], who quickly submitted Alexandr Romanov in the first round. As a result, Almeida has moved from No. 10 to No. 7 in the divisional rankings.

Also, women’s bantamweight [autotag]Ailin Perez[/autotag] entered the honorable mentions, replacing Melissa Gatto. Perez defeated rival Joselyne Edwards by unanimous decision on the prelims.

Check out all the latest pound-for-pound and divisional USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings above.

Video: Does Sean Strickland deserve a title shot after UFC 302? What’s next for Paulo Costa?

What’s next for Sean Strickland and Paulo Costa following UFC 302? We discuss on “Spinning Back Clique.”

On the latest episode of “Spinning Back Clique,” the panel reacts to [autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag]’s split decision win over [autotag]Paulo Costa[/autotag].

The two middleweights clashed in the co-main event at this past Saturday’s UFC 302. It was a fairly uneventful fight that had Strickland winning by split decision. The result put Strickland back in the win column after his title loss in January, while Costa fell to 1-4 in his past five outings.

Should Strickland get the next title shot? Where does Costa go from here? MMA Junkie’s Brian “Goze” Garcia, Nolan King, Mike Bohn, and host Gorgeous George discuss.

Watch their discussion in the video above, and don’t miss this week’s complete episode of “Spinning Back Clique” below on YouTube.

https://youtube.com/live/HlprD38OBpI

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Michael Bisping: Dustin Poirier has ‘represented himself with class,’ no need to fight after UFC 302

Michael Bisping advises Dustin Poirier to hang up his gloves after UFC 302.

[autotag]Michael Bisping[/autotag] advises [autotag]Dustin Poirier[/autotag] to retire after UFC 302.

Poirier (30-8 MMA, 22-7 UFC) was submitted by Islam Makhachev (25-1 MMA, 14-1 UFC) in this past Saturday’s headliner at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., falling short in his third attempt at undisputed gold.

“The Diamond” was uncertain of his fighting future after losing to Makhachev, but if he does decide to continue competing, Bisping sees two logical options for him next.

“So Justin Gaethje, Alexander Volkanovski, they’re my two top picks, or does he walk off into the sunshine?” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “Listen, make hay whilst the sun is shining, but he’s made a lot of hay. He’s got money in the bank. He’s represented himself with class.

“He went toe to toe with Islam Makhachev. He’s been in there with some of the best fighters on the planet and put on some absolute wars and, as he said, if he considers his smokers and his kind of amateur fights, he’s had about 50 fights.”

Despite still thinking Poirier can compete at a high level, Bisping advises him to call it a career.

“He’s only 35 years old, he’s got a lot of life left to live, so go off, enjoy yourself,” Bisping said. “That would be my suggestion. I would love to see him fight Volk, I would love to see him fight Gaethje, but for me, I would say the best thing that I ever did was walk away from combat sports.

“It’s a very, very hard thing. It’s all that you know, you’ve dedicated your entire life to it, but when you do it, when you reach those kinds of heights, it opens so many other doors. So, Dustin Poirier, whatever you do decide, all the best. Congratulations on a phenomenal career.”

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 302.

Michal Oleksiejczuk says arm didn’t break at UFC 302, disagrees with stoppage

Michal Oleksiejczuk wishes Herb Dean gave him more time to fight the submission at UFC 302.

[autotag]Michal Oleksiejczuk[/autotag] isn’t sure he could’ve escaped the armbar at UFC 302 but feels like he should’ve been given more agency over the situation.

On Saturday’s main card at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., Oleksiejczuk (19-8 MMA, 7-6 UFC) lost to [autotag]Kevin Holland[/autotag] (26-11 MMA, 13-8 UFC) by technical submission in Round 1 after referee Herb Dean deemed his arm dangerously contorted.

Though his arm was bent awkwardly, Oleksiejczuk told MMA Junkie on Tuesday that it did not break. While he still awaits the results of an MRI to see exactly what the issue is, Oleksiejczuk said he felt the stoppage was incorrect.

“I feel good,” Oleksiejczuk said. “My mental is OK. My arm is not broken. I think that I want a fight in a few months. I will be ready. … I didn’t tap. My arm is not broken. I felt great in this fight. This stoppage is not good. It’s not correct, in my opinion. … In my opinion, the stoppage is not correct. I think that if the fight was longer, my chance in this fight is (better).”

According to the ABC Unified Rules a technical submission is defined as “when a legal submission act results in unconsciousness or broken/dislocated bone(s)/joint(s).”

The decision to stop a fight on the basis of a contorted limb is somewhat subjective to the referee’s discretion – and in the case, Oleksiejczuk thinks Dean misjudged.

“This is my career,” Oleksiejczuk said. “This is my choice. I am really a warrior. I want to fight every time. In my opinion, this is my choice: tap or not. … I don’t know but my opinion is very simple. I am a warrior and this is my work. I want to show the best fights. I want to show very exciting fights. That’s all.”

Oleksiejczuk did not indicate he plans to appeal the decision to the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board (NJSACB), though wants to wait until his medical results come back to make that decision.

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UFC CEO Dana White agreed with Dean’s stoppage and said he thinks the referee should intervene to prevent debilitating injury.

In addition to the thoughts expressed publicly, Oleksiejczuk’s coach Ivan Kirillov told MMA Junkie that White approached them at the event to praise his fighter’s toughness.

“Dana White came to me and said that he didn’t want to hurt him,” Kirillov said. “It’s not about him. It’s about his health. He said Michal is very tough but they don’t want him to hurt himself because of that, because of that situation.”

Oleksiejczuk has lost back-to-back fights and three of his most recent four, making the loss sting a little more. With respect from his promoter and positive messages from fans around the world, Oleksiejczuk expects his next fight to be back under the same banner, especially considering he recently signed a new multifight deal.”

“We’ll see if my arm is OK,” Oleksiejczuk said. “I want to go forward and fight with the best fighters in this division. I want to make progress. … I just want to go forward and fight again as soon as possible once I’m recovered. … I just want to say that you for all fans because I got a lot of messages from all over the world. There were good words for me.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 302.

Video: Is Islam Makhachev or Jon Jones the No. 1 P4P after UFC 302?

Dana White was adamant that Jon Jones remains the P4P No. 1 fighter, not Islam Makhachev. Is he right? We discuss on “Spinning Back Clique.”

On the latest episode of “Spinning Back Clique,” the panel discusses the fallout of [autotag]Islam Makhachev[/autotag]’s latest title defense.

Makhachev defended his UFC lightweight title for a third time this past Saturday in the main event of UFC 302. He did so by submitting Dustin Poirier in a thrilling war. Makhachev’s win not only left a lot to talk about in the 155-pound division, but also in the sport as a whole, as many now view him as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in MMA.

Is Makhachev the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter, or does that spot belong to [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag], as UFC CEO Dana White suggested?

MMA Junkie’s Brian “Goze” Garcia, Nolan King, Mike Bohn and host Gorgeous George react to Makhachev’s win and how this affects the pound-for-pound conversation.

Watch their discussion in the video above, and don’t miss this week’s complete episode of “Spinning Back Clique” below on YouTube.

https://youtube.com/live/HlprD38OBpI

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‘I’m not gonna hate on them’: UFC 302 winners reveal how they feel about new gloves

The reviews are in after the new UFC gloves made their debut this past Saturday at UFC 302.

NEWARK, N.J. – Before UFC 302, before he’d even officially used them in a real fight, former middleweight champion [autotag]Sean Strickland[/autotag] was beyond critical of the new UFC gloves, lambasting the designers for trying to solve a problem when one didn’t exist.

“How did you a**holes think this was a good idea?” Strickland said at UFC 302 media day. “[The gloves] absolutely suck. UFC dropped the ball on that one.”

Back in April, the UFC announced the new gloves, touted by the promotion as being able to “significantly reduce” eye pokes and broken hands, would make their debut at UFC 302. After outpointing Paulo Costa for a split decision win this past Saturday, Strickland’s tune changed.

“At the end of the day, they’re f*cking gloves,” Strickland said during the UFC 302 post-event news conference. “I think I’m just an angry f*ck, and I’ll find any excuse to be mad. … But yeah, no, they’re fine. I don’t really know the purpose of them, but they’re fine.”

Strickland was among several UFC 302 winners to comment on the gloves, with many fighters feeling a sense of apathy about the change.

Listen to what they had to say in the video above.

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 302.