Tag: UFC on ESPN+ 7

UFC DC’s Ben Rothwell says much of his career has lacked happiness – except one thing

Ben Rothwell’s professional MMA tenure has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride.

WASHINGTON – [autotag]Ben Rothwell[/autotag]’s professional MMA tenure has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride.

Successes and failures, post-fight promos and suspensions – Rothwell (36-12 MMA, 6-6 UFC) has seen highs and lows. But according to the UFC heavyweight, the highs haven’t really been that high.

Ahead of his UFC on ESPN 7 bout Saturday, Rothwell was asked at a pre-fight media day at what point in his career he was the happiest. His answer was somewhat unexpected.

“Happy: It’s not really something I experience much,” Rothwell said. “I look at my life as a lot of mistakes and a lot of failure. I’ve been fighting my whole life. Some of my earliest memories have been fighting, whether it’s been fighting off bullies or fighting off disgruntled parents. It’s just a tough thing to think about, happiness in the sport. And I’m OK with that because it’s part of my driving force.”

So why does Rothwell do what he does? Why does he decide to compete in a profession that doesn’t provide him with happiness? The Wisconsinite said having a chip on his shoulder drives him to prove something to the world.

“I don’t do this for happiness,” Rothwell said. “I do this because there is something driving me inside. It’s something that goes greater than just getting my hand raised. I have something to prove. I have something to prove that’s going to go outside of me fighting just in a cage.

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If Rothwell does experience micro-moments of happiness, he said he attributes his joy to the fans. Random strangers will come up to Rothwell and ask him for an autograph or a picture – that’s the closest Rothwell has come to pure happiness during his MMA career.

“Still until this day, I can’t believe the fanbase and the people that reach out, and the people that are inspired and excited to have me,” Rothwell said. “You want to talk about happiness? It’s those few moments where people come up and ask for an autograph.

“I’m in awe that they want a picture or an autograph. They tell me how much it means to them to watch me fight and how excited they get. I’ll tell you, that means something to me – something I can’t put a price tag on.”

Relative to his scale of having fun, Rothwell indicated he is feeling better entering his UFC DC matchup against Stefan Struve (29-11 MMA, 13-9 UFC). It’s his second UFC bout since returning from a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) suspension.

“I just kind of had to get over everything,” Rothwell said. “That’s what I do. I pick myself up and carry on. It’s part of being a mixed martial artist – a lot of ups and downs, especially in my life. I have a long trail of failure, but somehow I’ve done enough. I’ve had some victories and I’m still standing here. I took the time to make the appropriate changes, and I’m ready for Saturday.”

UFC on ESPN 7 takes place Saturday at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The main card airs on ESPN following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.

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China’s Song Yadong sees UFC champ Zhang Weili beating Joanna Jedrzejczyk: ‘She has better striking technique’

UFC on ESPN 7’s Song Yadong sees women’s strawweight champion Zhang Weili beating former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248.

WASHINGTON – [autotag]Song Yadong[/autotag] doesn’t think the UFC’s strawweight champion will lose her belt in her next title defense.

The Team Alpha Male fighter, who’s set to compete at Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 7 in Washington, D.C., against Cody Stamann, thinks Zhang Weili will defeat Joanna Jedrzejczyk in her first title defense, scheduled for UFC 248 in March.

It’s hard to deny that Weili is a threat to anyone competing at 115 pounds, but Yadong (14-3 MMA, 4-0 UFC) sees Weili being better on the feet than Jedrzejczyk, who’s known to be one of the best strikers in women’s MMA.

“I believe she’s going to win her next fight,” Yadong said at Thursday’s media day for UFC DC. “She is faster, stronger, and she has better striking technique compared to her opponent.”

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Yadong, who like Weili is also from China, says things have changed back home ever since Zhang was able to dethrone then-champion Jessica Andrade in August.

“After Weili got her UFC title, there is more interest in getting to know UFC and MMA,” Yadong said. “More people now know China has its own champion, so it was a big improvement for MMA in China after she won.”

For more from Yadong, check out the full video interview above.

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Honey, I shrunk the ‘California Kid’? ‘Skyscraper’ Stefan Struve towers over Urijah Faber

The “Skyscraper,” Stefan Struve, absolutely towers over Urijah Faber in a photo taken at UFC on ESPN 7’s media day in Washington, D.C.

They don’t call him the “Skyscraper” for nothing.

During the UFC on ESPN 7 media day Thursday, [autotag]Stefan Struve[/autotag] and [autotag]Urijah Faber[/autotag] took a photo together.

And nope, this is not Photoshopped. The 7-foot Struve absolutely towered over the 5-foot-6 Faber in a photo that almost doesn’t look real.

There are weight classes in this sport for a reason.

Struve fights on Saturday’s main card at UFC on ESPN 7 in Washington, D.C, against fellow heavyweight Ben Rothwell.

Faber is in town to corner one of his teammates, star pupil Song Yadong, who takes on Cody Stamann in a pivotal bantamweight clash. Faber returns to the cage next week at UFC 245 against Peter Yan in Las Vegas.

The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.

Virna Jandiroba says loss to Carla Esparza opened her eyes to skill level in the UFC

Virna Jandiroba’s loss to Carla Esparza in her UFC debut opened her eyes to the skill level in the UFC.

[autotag]Virna Jandiroba[/autotag] suffered her first career loss in her UFC debut, and it forced her to make some changes.

The former Invicta FC strawweight champion drew a tough opponent in her promotional debut when she stepped in on short notice to take on former UFC strawweight champ Carla Esparza in April. She lost the fight by unanimous decision, but said she learned many lessons.

“It was a good fight, but I made a few errors regarding my strategy,” Jandiroba told MMA Junkie. “My timing was off. I had some ring rust. Losses are a natural part of the life of an athlete – of the life of any person, to be honest. It was a good thing, as it helped me further improve. The skill level in the UFC is very high. The bout with Carla opened my eyes to that fact. Some aspects of my career were being neglected. I was forced to rethink my priorities.”

Jandrioba (14-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) was expected to face Cortney Casey on Saturday at UFC on ESPN 7, but Casey was forced out and replaced by Livia Renata Souza. However, Souza also withdrew, and Jandrioba will now face Mallory Martin, making her the third opponent change.

“In MMA, we have to be ready for everything; anything can happen,” Jandiroba said. “This is now my third opponent. I’m very happy that the UFC was able to find me a new matchup with roughly 15 days to go. Mallory Martin is also a grappler. Of course, everyone has their particular skills. We didn’t change too much in training, as there isn’t much time for adjustments. I saw that she has good ground-and-pound skills. I’m ready for her.”

Martin, who came through Dana White’s Contender Series, has won her past five fights. With all the opponent switches, Jandiroba was able to work on all aspects of her game, making her confident going into Saturday.

“I was originally booked against Cortney Casey, who is a hybrid fighter – she strikes but is also willing to go to the ground,” Jandiroba said. “Then, I was supposed to face Livinha Souza, who’s also hybrid, though with a different style. And now I get to fight Mallory Martin. I think I got to train with every possible type of female fighter during this camp. Ultimately, we have to be ready for any change, and for any type of fight.”

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The MMA Road Show with John Morgan, No. 245 – Dallas – Holiday headlines

Episode No. 245 of “The MMA Road Show with John Morgan” podcast is now available for streaming and download.

Episode No. 245 of “The MMA Road Show with John Morgan” podcast is now available for streaming and download.

MMA Junkie lead staff reporter John Morgan hosts the show while traveling the world to cover the sport.

John Morgan is visiting his family in Dallas, but that’s not going to stop him from sitting down to discuss a week that wasn’t heavy on MMA headlines but still had some interesting moments for the MMA Junkie crew.

Check it out on iTunes or at themmaroadshow.com. You can also subscribe via RSS.

Yana Kunitskaya explains how broken nose helped her prepare for Aspen Ladd bout at UFC on ESPN 7

Yana Kunitskaya explains how broken nose helped her prepare for Aspen Ladd at UFC on ESPN 7

WASHINGTON — [autotag]Yana Kunitskaya[/autotag]’s injury in her last fight wasn’t all negative, after all.

The Russian fighter suffered a broken nose in her last trip to the octagon in March against Marion Reneau – a fight she won via unanimous decision. Now, leading up to her next contest at Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 7, Kunitskaya’s recuperation process from the broken nose played a role in preparing her for the challenge in front of her – Aspen Ladd, who’s known for her strong and dominant grappling.

“Usually, I’m trying to prepare for every kind of situation, I’m not waiting that she will only be wrestling,” Kunitskaya said at Thursday’s UFC on ESPN 7 media day. “I think she’s improved in her striking too, but because my nose was broken, I couldn’t spar for a long time. I spent a lot of time wrestling and grappling, so I was kind of forced to spend a lot of time and improve in wrestling. But I try to be ready for every situation not only wrestling. I’m ready for striking, or if the fight goes to the ground, I’ll be ready for that too.”

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The broken nose in the Reneau fight wasn’t a pretty sight, but in the grand scheme of things, Kunitskaya (12-4 MMA, 2-1 UFC) doesn’t think it was a bad injury.

“No, it’s just taking a long time to heal, but I think it was a small simple injury.” Kunitskaya said. “It was really bloody, but I know it’s healing up. If you get knocked out, like (Ladd) has, or you have a ligament problem, that’s much worse. So it’s just healing up and it’s fine.”

Kunitskaya enters Saturday’s bout with back-to-back wins over Reneau and Lina Lansberg. A win against a skilled contender like Ladd (8-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) paired with two straight wins could put Kunitskaya in a very good position in the women’s bantamweight division. Yet, despite the potential implications, the 30-year-old fighter is not trying to look ahead.

“For me, every fight is really important no matter the opponent,” Kunitskaya said. “So yeah, this fight with Aspen Ladd is very important for me. I’m focused 100 percent, but not looking over at the title shot or something, just focused on Aspen.”

UFC on ESPN 7 takes place Saturday at Capital One Arena. The main card airs on ESPN following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.

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Cynthia Calvillo: Ex-roommate Paige VanZant shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as me

Cynthia Calvillo apparently got a lot of flak from Paige VanZant fans after ripping former teammate ahead of UFC on ESPN 7.

WASHINGTON – [autotag]Cynthia Calvillo[/autotag] apparently got a lot of flak from [autotag]Paige VanZant[/autotag] fans after ripping her former teammate ahead of UFC on ESPN 7. Now she’s putting an end to it.

Ahead of Saturday’s matchup with Marina Rodriguez, which serves as the co-headliner, Calvillo (8-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) has been asked about VanZant and a potential matchup between the two. Calvillo (8-4 MMA, 5-3 UFC) dismissed it as anything that would be competitive, and laid into VanZant in the process.

Not only were Calvillo and VanZant former teammates at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, Calif., but they used to be roommates, as well. That’s why Calvillo thinks she has a deeper insight into who VanZant is as a person.

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“It’s different when people have their opinion when they don’t really know,” Calvillo said at UFC on ESPN 7’s media day Thursday. “I know her very well. I know Paige VanZant very well. We used to live together. So there’s a lot of people out there who want to put their two cents in and a lot of stuff. I don’t want it to get more blown up, more out of proportion than it needs to be. It is what it is.”

The comments “definitely” got a lot of heat from VanZant fans, Calvillo said. She’s able to handle any pushback without issue, but given she’s about to meet Rodriguez in a key strawweight bout at Capital One Arena on Saturday and VanZant is set to fight out her UFC contract in March, Calvillo sees no point in continuing to talk about it.

“At this point, I’m just done giving her attention,” Calvillo said. “It’s just pointless. I don’t really care to talk about that anymore. She’s just getting pretty much what she wants. I feel like they keep interviewing me about it nonstop, and that’s all we see and we’re on two different journeys, two different levels. We shouldn’t even be talked about in the same sentence, honestly.”

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UFC on ESPN 7 breakdown: Overeem vs. Rozenstruik might as well be a coin flip

It’s that close, but MMA Junkie fight analyst Dan Tom makes his pick for the UFC DC heavyweight headliner.

UFC on ESPN 7 takes place Saturday and features a heavyweight headliner that pits 52 fights of professional MMA experience vs. just nine.

In the main event, former Strikeforce, K-1 and DREAM champion [autotag]Alistair Overeem[/autotag], whose career kicked off way back in 1999, takes on undefeated up-and-comer [autotag]Jairzinho Rozenstruik[/autotag], who debuted in the UFC earlier this year and looks to cap off 2019 with a fourth victory.

As mentioned, the pairing of Overeem (45-17 MMA, 10-6 UFC) and Rozenstruik (9-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) is a clash of fighters whose experience levels couldn’t be wider. However, the matchup remains tricky to pick.

For a closer look, watch MMA Junkie fight analyst Dan Tom’s breakdown in the video above.

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UFC on ESPN 7 takes place at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., and airs on ESPN following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.

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Jairzinho Rozenstruik explains origin of ‘Bigi Boy’ nickname ahead of UFC on ESPN 7

UFC DC headliner Jairzinho Rozenstruik explains how he got the ‘Bigi Boy’ nickname ahead of his heavyweight clash against Alistair Overeem

WASHINGTON – [autotag]Jairzinho Rozenstruik[/autotag] knows his name is not easy to pronounce.

The Suriname fighter, who’s scheduled to headline Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 7 against Alistair Overeem, has had the inconvenience of people having a hard time with his name far before rising into contender status in the UFC’s heavyweight division. And that’s where his nickname “Bigi Boy” comes in.

“The nickname ‘Bigi Boy,’ I’ve got since I was a child, like when I was 9 or 11,” Rozenstruik said at a Thursday media day. “I was playing basketball and not everybody knew how to pronounce my name, so when I used to take a shot, they would say, ‘Hey, you. Make the ball, “Bigi Boy.”‘ And from that day, everybody started calling me ‘Bigi Boy,’ and still to this day.

“Everywhere I go, everyone is like, ‘How do you pronounce your name?’ So if you call me ‘Bigi Boy,’ that’s OK.”

People around Rozenstruik (9-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) struggled with his name even at an early age. Rozenstruik’s name is actually Portuguese and not Dutch, which is the main language of his home country of Suriname.

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Rozenstruik will be looking to elevate his name (or nickname) on Saturday night, as he looks to remain unbeaten in MMA and get a win over one of the biggest names in heavyweight history.

“It’s a big chance, it’s a big opportunity,” Rozenstruik said. “Alistair is really famous. He’s a legend of the game. He’s been around forever. It’s a good chance, and I’m going to make it happen and make myself a legend, too.”

Overeem has been on Rozenstruik’s radar for quite some time, but he said that won’t affect him come fight night.

“No jitters,” Rozenstruik said. “I still like him as a fighter. He was doing his thing back in the day with Brock Lesnar and I was like, ‘Hey, that guy is really strong,’ me and my friends. And now I’m facing him in real life. So it’s crazy. But in the same way, it’s awesome – feels great.”

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UFC DC: Aspen Ladd says weight-cut questions are ‘kinda boring’ ahead of Yana Kunitskaya bout

UFC women’s bantamweight contender Aspen Ladd wants to move on from questions about her weight cut and claim victory over Yana Kunitskaya at UFC on ESPN 7.

WASHINGTON – UFC women’s bantamweight contender [autotag]Aspen Ladd[/autotag] says she has put her weight cutting dramas firmly behind her. She just wishes everyone else could do the same, too.

Ladd said she was feeling “pretty darned good” as she prepares for her final cut down to the 136-pound bantamweight limit for her fight with Russian Yana Kunitskaya at UFC on ESPN 7, and said she didn’t foresee any issues ahead of weigh-in day on Friday.

“We woke up at 143.4 (pounds), still hydrated,” she said at a Thursday media day. “We’ve gotta go cut after this and rest all day, and go heat off the rest if there is any.”

Ladd’s last interaction with the official scale wasn’t a happy occasion. Clearly in significant discomfort, Ladd successfully made weight for her bout against Germaine de Randamie at UFC on ESPN+ 13 in July. But she gained a whopping 18 pounds between weigh-in day and fight night, prompting the California State Athletic Commission to suspend her bantamweight license until she provides “extensive medical documentation” to prove she’s capable of fighting safely in the division.

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However, Ladd has no such barriers to competition elsewhere, and she is cleared and ready to fight at bantamweight this weekend. And, perhaps understandably following all the drama surrounding her recent weight cuts, she admitted she’s grown a little tired of the constant questions about her weight.

“It comes up a lot – frequently,” she said. “The last one was pretty rough, but I still made the weight, so it’s something I still get asked a lot. It’s kind of like a redundant question. Like, ‘How do you feel in fight week?’ You hear it 5 million times. So it’s kinda boring.”

Ladd says her confidence ahead of weigh-in day comes from a more integrated approach to her weight-management in the lead-up to fight week, citing the closer working relationship between her team and the sports scientists at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas.

Now Ladd’s focus is firmly on claiming victory over Kunitskaya on Saturday night, and she says she won’t let her recent quick-fire TKO loss at the hands of de Randamie affect her confidence heading into the contest.

“I kind of look at this thing regardless as a marathon, not a sprint,” she said. “It’s a rough night, don’t get me wrong – it’s not fun. Nobody likes to lose, and this is your career, your job. But at the same time, you can’t get too headcase-y over it because at that point, it’s on to the next. You’ve gotta get ready and get back on the horse.”

Following her failed appeal against what she perceived to be an unfairly swift intervention by referee Herb Dean to stop her last contest, Ladd says she’s leaving the past in the past and focusing on the job in hand this weekend.

“I’ve put a lot of that behind me and out in the media if you want to go and find it, kinda thing. But it’s really not worth talking about at this point,” she said. “As far as when I have a fight, it’s the end of the world – nothing exists beyond it. So that’s the only point I’m trying to get to, because nothing matters after that. I need to go out and perform, and the next step in your life can start (after that).”

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