UFC on ESPN+ 35 – Page 4 – Syndication Server

UFC on ESPN+ 35: Waterson vs. Hill official weigh-in highlight

Weight-cutting issues scrap Tyson Nam from Matt Schnell fight at UFC on ESPN+ 35

Tyson Nam campaigned for a fight against Matt Schnell in June and got his wish. But just a day before the fight, that wish is on hold.

[autotag]Tyson Nam[/autotag] campaigned for a fight against [autotag]Matt Schnell[/autotag] in June and got his wish.

But just a day before the fight, that wish is on hold. Schnell (14-5 MMA, 4-3 UFC) has been pulled from Saturday’s UFC on ESPN+ 35 flyweight fight against Nam (19-11-1 MMA, 1-2 UFC) due to weight-cutting issues.

MMA Junkie on Friday confirmed the news with a person with knowledge of the change. The person requested anonymity because the UFC has not yet made a formal announcement. UFC broadcast partner ESPN was first to report the news.

UFC on ESPN+ 35 takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The card streams on ESPN+.

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Schnell saw his four-fight winning streak snapped at the hands of Alexandre Pantoja in December 2019. Prior to that, he submitted both Louis Smolka and Jordan Espinosa in the first round.

With his back potentially against the wall, Nam avoided a three-fight losing skid when he knocked out promotional newcomer Zarrukh Adashev in 32 seconds at UFC on ESPN 10 in June. Following the win, Nam called out Schnell.

With the change, the UFC on ESPN+ 35 lineup now includes:

MAIN CARD (ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)

Michelle Waterson vs. Angela Hill
Ottman Azaitar vs. Khama Worthy
Andrea Lee vs. Roxanne Modafferi
Ed Herman vs. Mike Rodriguez
Bobby Green vs. Alan Patrick
Kyle Nelson vs. Billy Quarantillo

PREIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 5 p.m. ET)

Julia Avila vs. Sijara Eubanks
Kevin Croom vs. Roosevelt Roberts
Roque Martinez vs. Alexandr Romanov
Jalin Turner vs. Brok Weaver
Bryan Barberena vs. Anthony Ivy
Justine Kish vs. Sabina Mazo

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UFC on ESPN+ 35 weigh-in results and live video stream

Check out the results from the official UFC on ESPN+ 35 fighter weigh-ins.

LAS VEGAS – MMA Junkie is on scene and reporting live from Friday’s official UFC on ESPN+ 35 fighter weigh-ins, which kick off at noon ET (9 a.m. PT).

The weigh-ins take place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The same venue hosts Saturday’s card, which streams on ESPN+.

Among those weighing in are Michelle Waterson (17-8 MMA, 5-4 UFC) and Angela Hill (12-8 MMA, 7-8 UFC), who meet in the women’s strawweight main event, and Ottman Azaitar (12-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) and Khama Worthy (16-6 MMA, 2-0 UFC), who fight in the lightweight co-feature.

The full UFC on ESPN+ 35 weigh-in results include:

MAIN CARD (ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)

Michelle Waterson (115) vs. Angela Hill (115.5)
Ottman Azaitar (156) vs. Khama Worthy (155.5)
Andrea Lee (125.5) vs. Roxanne Modafferi (125)
Ed Herman () vs. Mike Rodriguez (205.5)
Bobby Green () vs. Alan Patrick (156)
Kyle Nelson (145.5) vs. Billy Quarantillo (145.5)

PREIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 5 p.m. ET)

Tyson Nam () vs. Matt Schnell ()
Julia Avila (135) vs. Sijara Eubanks (135)
Kevin Croom (154.5) vs. Roosevelt Roberts ()
Roque Martinez (258.5) vs. Alexander Romanov (261)
Jalin Turner (163.5) vs. Brok Weaver (164)
Bryan Barberena (170) vs. Anthony Ivy (169.5)
Justine Kish (125.5) vs. Sabina Mazo (125.5)

Matt Frevola out of UFC on ESPN+ 35; Kevin Croom steps in vs. Roosevelt Roberts

Matt Frevola vs. Roosevelt Roberts has been canceled – again.

[autotag]Matt Frevola[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Roosevelt Roberts[/autotag] has been canceled – again.

The lightweight fight that’s twice been booked has fallen through for the second time. This time, an injury to Frevola (8-1-1 MMA, 2-1-1 UFC) has forced him out of his fight with Roberts (10-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC), which was scheduled for UFC on ESPN+ 35 on Saturday.

[autotag]Kevin Croom[/autotag], who was signed and released by the UFC in late August, is currently being pegged as the replacement to fight Roberts.

A person with knowledge of the situation informed MMA Junkie of the change Thursday. The UFC formalized the new booking Friday.

Croom (21-12 MMA, 0-0 UFC) has competed as a professional since 2009 and is riding a three-fight winning streak. Days prior to UFC on ESPN+ 33 on Aug. 29, Croom was slotted as a replacement to fight Alex Caceres. However, Croom was deemed unable to compete and was released shortly thereafter.

UFC on ESPN+ 35 takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex. The event streams on ESPN+.

With the change, the UFC on ESPN+ 35 lineup includes:

MAIN CARD (ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)

Michelle Waterson vs. Angela Hill
Ottman Azaitar vs. Khama Worthy
Andrea Lee vs. Roxanne Modafferi
Ed Herman vs. Mike Rodriguez
Bobby Green vs. Alan Patrick
Kyle Nelson vs. Billy Quarantillo

PREIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 5 p.m. ET)

Tyson Nam vs. Matt Schnell
Julia Avila vs. Sijara Eubanks
Kevin Croom vs. Roosevelt Roberts
Roque Martinez vs. Alexander Romanov
Jalin Turner vs. Brok Weaver
Bryan Barberena vs. Anthony Ivy
Justine Kish vs. Sabina Mazo

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Roxanne Modafferi cites pursuit of evolution as key to MMA longevity

Andrea Lee inspired by Roxanne Modafferi’s longevity ahead of UFC on ESPN+35 clash

Andrea Lee had a lot of nice things to say about her UFC on ESPN+ 35 opponent in advance of their second meeting.

[autotag]Andrea Lee[/autotag] won’t do any trash talk in the lead-up to her next UFC bout.

The 31-year-old flyweight contender returns to the octagon Saturday at UFC on ESPN+ 35 in a rematch against veteran [autotag]Roxanne Modafferi[/autotag]. Lee (11-4 MMA, 3-2 UFC) fought Modafferi in 2014 for her third professional fight. Although Lee was new to the game at the time, Modafferi had already been fighting for more than 10 years and had almost 30 professional fights.

Six years later, they meet again, this time with both in the UFC flyweight top 10. Lee is impressed and admires Modafferi’s longevity in the sport.

“Roxanne does surprise me, but she does inspire me,” Lee told MMA Junkie at the UFC on ESPN+ 35 virtual media day. “The fact that she’s still in the UFC, has been in the top 10, like, she came back. She was cut from the UFC, went to Invicta FC, went on a winning streak and then got called back to the UFC, and she’s been in the UFC ever since — that’s super impressive and very inspiring to me.”

Lee, who lost to Modafferi via split decision in their first bout, is not surprised to be getting booked against “The Happy Warrior.” Lee had a feeling the two would get matched up again at some point.

“It doesn’t surprise me that her and I are matched up again,” Lee said. “I knew that was going to happen eventually. I’ve had people that are always asking me at the end of every fight, ‘You need to call out Roxanne,’ and I’m like, ‘No, because I don’t like to call out people.’

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“But people have been wanting for this match to happen and I always thought it was going to happen on its own time and it worked out perfectly. We both lost to Lauren (Murphy), she was our last opponent, and I had a feeling that they were going to match us up. When I got the call and the name was Roxy I was like, ‘I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.’ But I’m ready and I think it’s time. We’re both in the top 10 and I think it’s time we rematch. It’s in the UFC and we’re getting paid a lot more, can’t ask more than that.”

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Lee is now a veteran compared to when she first fought Modafferi. “KGB” hopes to change the outcome this time around and prove she’s a much-improved fighter.

“I don’t feel like I’m going out there to avenge anything because that was so long ago, but it’s exciting to get to rematch with Roxy and show how much better I have gotten since then because when I fought Roxy that was my third pro fight,” Lee said. “She had already something like 20 pro fights so I was a young up-and-comer and we took that fight on short notice because we thought it was going to be a great fight and it was.

“I lost a split decision, it was close. I learned a lot about that fight and I learned a lot about my career and I feel like I’ve gotten so much better because I feel like I learned a lot from that loss alone and every loss since then. I’m excited to go out there and prove that I could win that fight, that night just wasn’t my night.”

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Andrea Lee not out to avenge loss, but excited to rematch with Roxanne Modafferi at UFC on ESPN+ 35

Andrea Lee spoke to the media ahead of Saturday’s UFC on ESPN+ 35 event in Las Vegas.

UFC on ESPN+ 35’s Ed Herman on what keeps him going: ‘I’m one of the real BMFs’

The way things have been recently, “Short Fuse” isn’t going to believe he’s fighting until he actually get into the cage.

LAS VEGAS – [autotag]Ed Herman[/autotag] is in town for UFC on ESPN+ 35 fight week, but he’s not going to believe a fight’s actually going down until he’s locked in the cage with Mike Rodriguez.

Can you blame him? Herman (24-14 MMA, 12-10 UFC) has had several fights fall out during the COVID-19 era, most recently having his bout with Gerald Meerschaert fall out on fight day after his opponent caught the virus.

“I was at fight week last time and I didn’t find out until the day of that my fight was canceled,” Herman told reporters, including MMA Junkie, on Thursday. “So I’m not counting anything until I step in that cage.”

But hey, if anyone has earned the right to have such an attitude, it’s Herman, the middleweight competitor who is one of the company’s longest-tenured performers. “Short Fuse” has been with the company since earning runner-up status on “The Ultimate Fighter 3,” so he knows by now how to go with the flow.

“Not giving a (expletive),” Herman said about his attitude. “I’m like hey, it is what it is, a new opponent, this and that. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, man. All kinds of (expletive) happened over the years, so where I’m at in my career, each fight could be my last. You never know, with injuries and things going down with all this COVID stuff, you know, fires burning and tornados and hurricanes, who the hell knows what’s going to happen?”

So, no offense to Rodriguez (11-4 MMA, 2-2 UFC), but Herman, who brings a two-fight winning streak into the bout, has learned over the years not to get too high or too low.

He’s been there, done that.

“I’m one of the real ‘BMF’s for one,” Herman said. “For two, yeah man, it’s just what I do. When I was younger, I didn’t take maybe care of myself as good as I should have, so these days, I’m being a little older and more mature. I’m taking care of my body better. I eat better. I take my recovery seriously. I don’t party like I did when I was a kid, just all those little things add up.

“My family and my friends and my team are the most important to me, and you push the rest out. Just trust the people who are around you who you know are going to have your back.”

UFC on ESPN+ 35 takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The card streams on ESPN+.

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On verge of history, Angela Hill proud to be first African-American woman to headline UFC event

Angela Hill is proud to be the first African-American woman to headline a UFC show. “Representation is such an important thing.”

[autotag]Angela Hill[/autotag] will make history Saturday night.

The UFC strawweight contender will become the first African-American woman to headline a UFC event the moment she sets foot in the octagon when she takes on Michelle Waterson in the main event of UFC on ESPN+ 35 in Las Vegas.

It’s a big moment for Hill (12-8 MMA, 6-8 UFC). The 35-year-old competitor feels honored to be making history for African-American women in the world’s premier MMA promotion.

“It’s big, and I didn’t even realize how big it was until (my manager) mentioned it to me,” Hill told reporters during her UFC on ESPN+ 35 virtual media scrum. “I think in a time like this, people need heroes people need someone to look up to, someone to root for. And just the fact that this hasn’t happened yet is indicative of the fact that it is important.

“A lot of people would say, ‘Why does it matter?’ But if it doesn’t matter to you, that’s OK, but it does matter to the fans who see that and they’re like, ‘Finally, finally, we have some representation. Finally we have a face in this sport that we love, and we’ve been waiting for so long.'”

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Racial tension has run rampant in the U.S. in recent years, as many try to support and create awareness for the Black Lives Matter movement in wake of police brutality targeted towards people of color. Others stand against it or play down the level of racial injustice today in the country.

Hill is happy to be making history during these times and bring representation to Black people.

“Its really cool to be a part of the Black Lives Matter movement,” Hill explained. “It’s really important, and I think people try to pretend that it’s not and call it things that it isn’t because it’s hard to look at the violence. It’s hard to say there’s something wrong when you haven’t experienced it yourself.

“I think the reason it’s so important to Black people is because they’ve all had moments where they felt in danger or they felt they weren’t considered as human as their white counterparts, and it’s not something that disappeared when (former President Barack) Obama got elected. It’s not something that disappeared once cops got body cams. It’s something that’s still hurting the community right now. I think with the pandemic that’s going on right now, with just everything just being so divisive, it’s really brought it to light and made people pay attention to how hard the struggles are and the fact there needs to be some change.”

Hill thinks many take representation for granted, as they’re not used to or haven’t experienced being underrepresented in many areas in society. Hill has felt the joy of seeing Black people and culture take center stage in many situations, and is happy to bring that same joy to others in the world of MMA.

“When people do reach out and say, ‘Hey, my daughter looks up to you. My girlfriend loves you. I hope my daughters can be as strong as you,’ when people reach out and say things like that, it’s always surprising but it just makes me feel so happy that I didn’t give up,” Hill said. “It gives me that extra push when I just want to be like, ‘(explicit) it, this isn’t worth it because fighting is hard, it’s really hard.

“It’s even harder when every time I’ve lost is on the UFC stage. I’ve never lost outside of the UFC, so having that magnifying glass on every win but also on every failure, people reaching out to me and saying stuff like that it’s so special and it’s something that you can’t really explain. Representation is such an important thing to some many people.

“I remember when I was a kid I wanted the Black Barbie because I was like, Yeah, that’s me.’ I would aways watch ‘Rugrats’ and get extra excited when Susie was on, so it’s just one of those little things that people who aren’t starved of it don’t realize that they would miss it if they don’t have it. If you’re white in America, you’ve never felt underrepresented.”

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Angela Hill says controversial loss only helped her mindset ahead of UFC on ESPN+ 35

Angela Hill still believes she beat Claudia Gadelha in their May contest, but she’s not letting the split-decision loss bring her down.

LAS VEGAS – [autotag]Angela Hill[/autotag] still believes she should have been granted a victory over Claudia Gadelha in their contentious May contest, but she’s not letting the split-decision loss bring her down. Instead, Hill said the result only served to inspire her progress a fighter – even if it did officially snap a three-fight winning streak.

“It just proved to me that I’m good,” Hill told MMA Junkie. “It was one thing beating those three girls beforehand. Those girls were either new to the scene or they hadn’t really proved themselves yet, but Gadelha, she’s been around. She’s been the No. 2 in the strawweight division for the longest time. So being able to go in there and perform that way against her, I felt like it was a huge confidence boost to me, and if anything, it just proved to me that, hey, I could have taken even more risk.

“I could have thrown a bunch of flying sh-t at her. I could have totally just unloaded on her and then circled on her, and I would have been able to unload on her again as opposed to have a fight where I was more picking my shots and being a little more cautious.”

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An incredible 13 of the 17 media scores tracked for the fight at MMADecisions.com awarded that fight to Hill, but judges Chris Lee and Dave Tirelli did not. But rather than complain about their evaluation of the fight, Hill said she was forced back to a realization she’s found before – that she must up her output to have full control over her own destiny.

“I felt like I fought a really good fight, a really technical fight,” Hill said. “I felt like I did more than enough to win, but that still wasn’t enough. So it just proved to me that, hey, if you don’t want that to happen again – because it’s like the third time that it’s happened to me – so I’m like, all right. You think I would have learned by now. But it’s like, hey, if you don’t want it to happen again, you need to unleash on these girls. You need to try to 10-8 them every round, and if I do that, then I’m definitely going to get a knockout.

“If I 10-8 them every round, I’m definitely going to get a knockout. Either that, or a girl is just going to be stupid tough and be all mashed up, and it’s still going to make me look good. So I know I can. I know I can do it. I know that I have the ability to do it. It’s just like a mental decision of OK, we’re going to push the pace now. And then now. And then now. Not second guessing myself or holding back at all.”

Hill (12-8 MMA, 7-8 UFC) will get a chance to show her progress when she takes on Michelle Waterson (17-8 MMA, 5-4 UFC) in the strawweight main event of Saturday’s UFC on ESPN+ 35, which streams live on ESPN+ from UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

It’s Hill’s fifth appearance in a 12-month span, and while she’s always fond of a short-notice fight, she’s known about this one for nearly four full months. Still, Hill said she thinks the key to success Saturday is to walk in with the same care-free attitude she does when she’s a late replacement.

“When you go in for a short-notice fight and you know you’re in shape, you know it’s a win-win,” Hill said. “You know no matter what happens, you’re not going to be penalized from the UFC for losing a short-notice fight, but you also have great chance to look like a ‘G,’ going out there and just dominating on like a week’s notice, so it’s always a win-win when you take those short-notice fights, and I’ve just been trying to embrace every fight like that.

“Even though I had like four months to prepare for this one, I’m just trying to – when I get there, I just try to focus on being in the moment and not worrying so much about what’s going to happen before or after or what they can possibly to do me. Still fighting smart, but not letting the pressure get to me. Not overthinking what people are going to think if I mess up – you know, all the negative thoughts that creep inside your head while you’re in there, so I’ve just been trying to focus on that. … I really feel like it’s helped me out.”

It’s certainly a big moment for Hill, who has seen her popularity rise in the UFC during her win streak, not to mention her entertaining social media presence. Now in her first UFC headliner, “Overkill” said she’s not out to prove anything but rather to just simply show fans what she learned from her recent setback.

“It feels really special, just the amount of posts online and the amount of people just adding me and cheering me on,” Hill said. “I can feel the crowd. Even though they’re physically not here, I can definitely feel their presence.”

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