Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Check out some of Holly Holm’s most popular Instagram posts.
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.
Check out some of the most popular Instagram posts from former UFC women’s bantamweight champion [autotag]Holly Holm[/autotag].
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from March 2023.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from March 2023: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Month award for March.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice.
“That’s when it just comes down to the value thing. O’Malley is a good fighter, but he’s not as tough of a challenge as Merab.”
[autotag]Cory Sandhagen[/autotag] is seeking the sternest tests in the bantamweight division in his quest for gold.
Sandhagen (17-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) called out [autotag]Merab Dvalishvili[/autotag] (16-4 MMA, 9-2 UFC) after he beat Marlon Vera at UFC on ESPN 43 nine days ago and views him as the best fighter in the division outside of the title fight between champion Aljamain Sterling and Henry Cejudo at UFC 288 on May 6.
While he acknowledges that [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] (16-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) arguably is the biggest name and draw in the division, that’s not what Sandhagen is after.
“That’s when it just comes down to the value thing,” Sandhagen said in an interview with Sportskeeda. “O’Malley is a good fighter, but he’s not as tough of a challenge as Merab. Am I going to call out that guy that I know is not that tough of a challenge just because everyone makes him out to be a very famous, popular guy?
“I don’t really care about the fame and the popularity too much. I’m going to operate on the value system that I have, which is ask for the toughest challenge – and that’s Merab. It’s not O’Malley. That’s hopefully who I get next.”
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O’Malley opted not to serve as a backup for Sterling and Cejudo’s title fight, but revealed that he’s recently spoken to the UFC and they’ve guaranteed him the winner.
“My next fight will be f*cking huge, guaranteed: winner of Henry-Aljo,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “I talked with the UFC. and that’s happening. It’s official: Winner of that fight, I’ll fight.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 43.
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As far as weekends go, Texas probably has had better – at least in terms of MMA. Our “Spinning Back Clique” panel discusses how to improve.
As far as weekends go, Texas probably has had better – at least in terms of MMA.
But at the big UFC show in San Antonio on Saturday, as well as at Fury FC 76 the night before, there were issues with judging and refereeing that had the MMA community raising its collective eyebrow the way of Texas and its athletic commission.
It’s not like the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation had a sterling reputation and Friday-Saturday was just a bump in the road. To paraphrase Stinger in the first “Top Gun”: “Let’s not bullsh*t, Texas. Your commission name ain’t the best in MMA.”
At Fury FC 76, referee Frank Collazo failed to see Edgar Chairez had choked Gianni Di Chiara Vazquez unconscious in the fourth round. Even though the broadcast team practically was screaming for him to stop the fight, he didn’t shut things down until Vazquez woke up from the choke and tapped to an armbar. The MMA world instantly was outraged at Collazo.
At UFC on ESPN 44 in San Antonio, a handful of judge scores were questionable, to say the least. And in a perfect storm of irony, Collazo was one of the judges at the event – though he didn’t have any referee duties.
So what’s going on with the Texas commission that its reputation for this kind of stuff precedes it – and we still have incidents that force the conversation? How can the commission make improvements, especially considering there is no shortage of events in the state?
That’s what we asked this week’s “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Brian “Goze” Garcia, Mike Bohn and Nolan King, along with host Simon Samano. Check out their analysis in the video above, and don’t miss this week’s full episode below.
“Spinning Back Clique” is released each Monday LIVE on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel.
The bantamweight rankings continue to see change after Cory Sandhagen’s UFC on ESPN 43 main event win over Marlon Vera.
The UFC bantamweight division has been the subject of some important fights in recent weeks, the latest being the main event of this past weekend’s UFC on ESPN 43.
Surging contenders [autotag]Cory Sandhagen[/autotag] and Marlon Vera collided in the main event at AT&T Center in San Antonio, and it was Sandhagen who emerged with the split decision win to put himself back in the title conversation.
Where does Sandhagen stand among all the 135-pound fighters across the globe at this point, though? And how does the loss for “Chito” impact his position in the weight class?
Check out all the latest pound-for-pound and divisional USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings below for the answers.
As impressed as Sean O’Malley was by Cory Sandhagen, he also expected more from bantamweight Marlon Vera at UFC on ESPN 43 in San Antonio.
As impressed as [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] was by [autotag]Cory Sandhagen[/autotag], he also expected more from [autotag]Marlon Vera[/autotag] at UFC on ESPN 43.
Vera (20-8-1 MMA, 14-7 UFC) dropped a split decision to Sandhagen (17-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) in this past Saturday’s headliner in San Antonio. Vera was outstruck and taken down three times in the fight.
O’Malley’s coach and co-host, Tim Welch, suggested “Chito” looked off, but O’Malley disagreed.
“I think Cory just outclassed him,” O’Malley said on his Timbo Sugar Show podcast. “I do think the big cage – it’s like if you’re playing a basketball game and you’re like, ‘Well, let’s just play half-court.’ That’s pretty much the difference between the small cage and the big cage. It’s 40 percent bigger, so it’s like a different playing ground you’re playing with. I think it would have favored ‘Chito’ a lot more in the smaller cage.
“I don’t think anything was wrong with ‘Chito.’ I think Cory’s that f*cking good, and that style beats ‘Chito.’ ‘Chito’s’ not very fast. He’s f*cking super good, super durable, well-rounded everywhere. Cory was focused for 25 minutes, did what he needed to do, wrestled more than I thought he would.”
(Editor’s note: The difference between the 25-foot “small cage” in the UFC, used in smaller venues and the UFC Apex, and its standard 30-foot “big cage” actually is 20 percent, not 40 percent.)
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O’Malley, whose lone loss came to Vera in 2020, expected Vera to be more active off of his back.
“You know what surprised me a lot was the first two rounds when Cory took ‘Chito’ down,” O’Malley said. “It didn’t look like he was trying to get his guard back, didn’t look like he was trying to wrist control and get up. I was super surprised at the lack of skills – I don’t think he’s lacking those skills, but he wasn’t using them. He just laid on his back. … ‘Chito’ looked like he was just giving up that position.”
O’Malley currently is the No. 1 contender at bantamweight as waiting for the winner of bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling and Henry Cejudo, who throw down in the UFC 288 headliner May 6.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 43.
Trevin Giles bounced back from a two-fight skid and has back-to-back wins after a decision over Preston Parsons in San Antonio.
SAN ANTONIO – [autotag]Trevin Giles[/autotag] beat Preston Parsons with a split decision Saturday on the preliminary card at UFC on ESPN 43 at AT&T Center in San Antonio.
Take a look inside the fight with Giles, who has bounced back from a two-fight skid with back-to-back wins.
Daniel Pineda beat Tucker Lutz, the biggest favorite on the card, with a second-round submission Saturday at UFC on ESPN 43 in San Antonio.
SAN ANTONIO – [autotag]Daniel Pineda[/autotag] beat Tucker Lutz with a second-round submission Saturday to close out the preliminary card at UFC on ESPN 43 at AT&T Center in San Antonio.
Take a look inside the fight with Pineda, who returned from a lengthy layoff for his first win since August 2015.
UFC bantamweight champ Aljamain Sterling thinks friend and teammate Merab Dvalishvili’s pace and cardio would be too much for Cory Sandhagen
[autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] thinks [autotag]Merab Dvalishvili[/autotag]’s pace and cardio would be too much for [autotag]Cory Sandhagen[/autotag].
Following his win over Marlon Vera in this past Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 43 headliner in San Antonio, Sandhagen (17-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) called out Dvalishvili, who welcomed the challenge.
Dvalishvili (16-4 MMA, 9-2 UFC) also is coming off a decision win over former bantamweight champion Petr Yan at UFC Fight Night 221. “The Machine” broke the record for most takedown attempts in that fight and Sterling expects him to overwhelm Sandhagen too.
“I think Round 1, Merab takes him down multiple times,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “The difference is keeping him down. But I think seeing how Sandhagen slowed down in Rounds 3, 4 and even 5, I can see how Merab can break him. I think that would be the difference in that type of matchup, that pace, that style and keeping Cory on his back foot.”
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Based off what he saw in Sandhagen’s performance against Vera, Sterling thinks Dvalishvili has the style to prevail. Sterling holds a win over Sandhagen in 2020 in which he quickly got him down and submitted him in 88 seconds.
“You even notice with ‘Chito’ when Sandhagen was pressing forward and ‘Chito’s’ on his back foot, he couldn’t really kick the way that he wanted to – couldn’t let them things fly,” Sterling said. “But the moment that he let ‘Chito’ press forward and some of the Rounds 3, 4 and mostly 5, he was able to get off some of those kicks a little bit more and find more range and find a home for those strikes a little bit more often. But when you push a guy like that backward between Chito and Sandhagen, they’re forced to just use their boxing predominantly.
“That’s the difference. So keep them on the back foot, time those takedowns. And if you don’t get the takedowns, come up with strikes off the break and just mix it up. (If) you mix it up better, you’re usually going to win the fight – and whoever has the better gas tank, which we all know ‘The Machine’ is ‘The Machine” for a reason. I like that matchup. So if Cory’s feeling froggy, let’s go. We can line that one up, too. Let me do my job here with Henry in six weeks and we’ll see what happens with the division, and how everything’s playing out.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 43.
Our “Spinning Back Clique” debates if Holly Holm will reclaim UFC gold before she hangs up the gloves.
Former women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm is still here, looking fantastic at 41.
In the co-main event of UFC on ESPN 43, Holm (33-2-3 MMA, 8-6 UFC) won a clear unanimous decision against Yana Santos, and even proved she’s still adding new wrinkles to her game. There were a few times in the fight “The Preacher’s Daugher” threatened to record the first submission win of her career, in addition to beating Santos wherever the fight went.
After the win, Holm finds herself in an interesting position, especially considering she just signed a new six-fight deal with the UFC.
Since her massive upset knockout of Ronda Rousey at UFC 193 in 2015, Holm has gone 5-6 overall, but more importantly, winless in four title fights during that stretch. However, when paired against contenders, Holm has shined, leaving few options that make sense for her next step.
Is it time to run it back with the champ Amanda Nunes? If not, which opponent makes sense for Holm? Is it possible that Holm could win a UFC title again before hanging up the gloves?
Our “Spinning Back Clique” of Mike Bohn, Nolan King, and Brian “Goze” Garcia gave their thoughts along with host Simon Samano. Check out their discussion in the video above, and don’t miss this week’s full episode below.
“Spinning Back Clique” is released each Monday LIVE on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel.
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