Tag: UFC

Gilbert Burns after UFC 299 loss: ‘I’m still alive in the division, I know can beat so many guys’

Gilbert Burns still thinks he has what it takes to become UFC welterweight champion.

[autotag]Gilbert Burns[/autotag] still thinks he has what it takes to become UFC welterweight champion.

Burns (22-7 MMA, 15-7 UFC) was just over a minute away from beating Jack Della Maddalena (18-2 MMA, 7-0 UFC) at UFC 299 before a costly mistake led to him being knocked out in Round 3. Two of the three judges had him up 20-18 heading into the third.

The former title challenger now has dropped two straight, but he won’t let those setbacks deter him from his title hopes.

“I’m 37, I’m not getting any younger, but I do believe I have everything I need to become a champion,” Burns said on his YouTube channel. “Concerning the footwork, the defense, technical stuff, combos. I was throwing a lot of single shots, but I’m still there.

“I’m still alive in the division. I know can beat so many guys. The dream is still alive. I still want to become a champion. It’s not just a dream, it’s my goal. Guess what? I’m going to work very hard for that. For sure a little clean-up, little things I need to do technically, mentally, physically. We always need to improve.”

Upon finding out that Della Maddalena broke his arm in Round 1, Burns’ respect for him grew even bigger.

“He broke his arm maybe from the first or second kick that I threw, and the guy didn’t show it,” Burns said. “Man, so much respect. I’m a bigger fan now already of Jack. I already liked the guy, I liked his style, I like that he goes forward, tried to finish the fight. After that performance, I’m more than a fan. I think he deserves it. Man, no excuses at all.”

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 299.

Steph Curry meets UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov after win vs. Raptors

Steph Curry gifted his game jersey from a win against the Raptors to UFC legend Nurmagomedov.

The Golden State Warriors picked up their third win of their current road swing and their eighth consecutive win on the road with a 120-105 victory over the Toronto Raptors.

Steph Curry put on a show with a special fan in attendance. In front of legendary UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, Curry tallied a game-high 25 points with seven made 3s.

After the game, Curry gifted his game-worn No. 30 jersey to Nurmagomedov. The two-time Most Valuable Player inked a message to Nurmagomedov on the jersey reading “all love champ!”

Following the game in Toronto, Nurmagomedov took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share a picture of the duo.

Via @TeamKhabib on X:

This post originally appeared on Warriors Wire! Follow us on Facebook and X! 

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Video: Michael Chandler invades WWE RAW, calls out Conor McGregor until red

TKO showed off some WWE/UFC synergy on Raw, with Michael Chandler cutting a promo on Conor McGregor.

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Michael Chandler wants the Conor McGregor matchup so badly, he’ll nearly turn purple asking for it.

Two days after Saturday’s UFC 298 at Honda Center, WWE Monday Night RAW held an event in the same venue. Chandler (23-8 MMA, 18-5 UFC) was not only featured prominently on the broadcast, he grabbed the microphone and cut an intense promo, which MMA Junkie was onsite for.

“What’s up, Anaheim? You are now in the presence of the most entertaining UFC fighter on the planet,” Chandler yelled in the microphone, as his face increasingly reddened. “Hey, now there’s a man from Ireland who’s been making me wait way too long and I still have got one dude on my mind. Conor McGregor, get your candy ass back to the octagon. We’ve got some unfinished business, boys. God bless. I’ll see you at the top.”

Chandler has been in a waiting pattern for well over a year as he awaits a teased but never confirmed fight booking against McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC), who remains on hiatus since a broken leg in 2021.

Outside of advertisements and occasional spectator appearances, blatant crossover content like Chandler’s callout hadn’t occurred since WWE and UFC merged under the TKO banner in 2023.

As for a matchup between Chandler and McGregor, it’s unclear when that fight will happen – if ever.

UFC CEO Dana White has recently said he hopes the fight can finally take place in the fall, though also indicated Saturday he’s not sure it’ll happen.

“I don’t know. Conor McGregor’s got a lot of money,” White said. “Any time we get Conor, we’ll be happy. You know, we’ll be thrilled when he comes and fights,” White said. “Money complicates a lot of things. He just filmed a movie. He’s got to do the press for the movie, and he’s got obligations with that. He does want to fight this year, but we’ll see what happens.”

This story first appeared on MMA Junkie. Be sure to visit MMA Junkie for all your coverage of UFC and more, and follow @MMAJunkie on Twitter.

Joe Rogan: Dustin Poirier better be ready for ‘f*cking killer’ Benoit Saint-Denis at UFC 299

“You look into that guy’s eyes, there’s hell going on behind those eyes,” Joe Rogan said of Benoit Saint-Denis ahead of UFC 299.

[autotag]Joe Rogan[/autotag] hopes [autotag]Dustin Poirier[/autotag] is aware of [autotag]Benoit Saint-Denis[/autotag]’ ferocity.

Poirier (29-8 MMA, 21-7 UFC) meets rising contender Saint-Denis (13-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) in a five-round co-main event at UFC 299 on March 9 from Kaseya Center in Miami. Boasting a 100 percent finish rate, Saint-Denis has stopped his past five opponents, most recently a Performance of the Night head-kick knockout of Matt Frevola at UFC 295. Rogan raved about the Frenchman’s abilities ahead of the biggest fight of his career.

“This is the big fight, Dustin Poirier and Benoit Saint-Denis,” Rogan said during the UFC 297 episode of his Fight Companion on Spotify. “That’s the big fight. That Saint-Denis guy is a f*cking killer. He’s such a killer, that guy’s such a scary guy.”

Saint-Denis, known as “The God of War,” opened up as a slight favorite over Poirier. Although Poirier is the far more experienced and accomplished fighter, Rogan expects it to be a tough fight for the former interim lightweight champion.

“I’m telling you, that Benoit Saint-Denis is next level,” Rogan said. “He’s got furnaces going in his eyes. You look into that guy’s eyes, there’s hell going on behind those eyes. He’s built for it. So, him vs. Dustin is very exciting, and Dustin better be ready to go. You better be ready to go with that guy, because he’s going to try and make a name off of him.”

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 299.

Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis take their vicious UFC 296 fight in crowd to social media

The two fighters went at each other as fans at UFC 296.

One of the biggest fights at UFC 296 wasn’t in the octagon.

Nope, it was in the crowd. But it was between two MMA fighters who will be facing each other in the future.

Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis will face each other at UFC 297 in January, and they had words for each other at a recent press conference. Oddly, the pair were seated near each other and came to blows in the crowd — MMA Junkie reports Dana White and security broke up the melee and Strickland was forced to leave.

But the fight didn’t stop there: The two called each other out on X (formerly Twitter):

And here’s footage of the fight:

Dana White says Vince McMahon ‘tried to f— me so many times for no reason’ but is a great partner now

UFC CEO Dana White wasn’t fond of Vince McMahon in the past, but his feelings have changed since they’ve teamed up at TKO.

You know the athlete you hate when they’re on another team but love when they play for your team? That’s a pretty apt analogy for how UFC CEO Dana White feels about Vince McMahon.

White and McMahon are now co-workers, of course, since UFC and WWE were merged into one company as TKO by Endeavor. Prior to that, however, they were competitors of a sort; not in the same business but certainly competing for the entertainment dollar.

And as White told Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, during that time, McMahon was “an absolute savage” who would try sticking it to him just to do it. Yet now that they are working toward the common success of TKO, things have changed significantly.

“My history with Vince isn’t a good one,” said White. “He tried to f— me so many times for no reason whatsoever except just to f— me. But that’s in the past. Now that Vince and I are allies, no one’s been a better partner than Vince.”

White added that he’s spoken to McMahon on the phone a number of times since the TKO merger was finalized, and that their talks have been “all added-value” conversations that he feels benefit both UFC and WWE.

Despite the fact that White has been overseeing the biggest promotion in MMA and McMahon has been the unquestioned master of pro wrestling for decades, both men have been working from parts of the same playbook when it comes to event promotion — whether they’d admit it publicly or not.

Both are also the type you’d much rather have on your side (in a business sense, anyway) instead of trying to work to defeat, so it makes sense that they’d find each other valuable teammates. Plus as White probably knows, people backstabbing each other and later becoming allies is a staple of pro wrestling, so perhaps he can chalk this up to a case of life imitating art.

WWE layoffs: Some executives released as TKO merger takes effect

Several WWE executives had their positions eliminated this week as the result of the TKO merger with UFC.

One unfortunate consequence of a merger between any two large companies is a round of layoffs as the new business identifies “synergies,” which is a nice way of saying two people who were more or less doing the same job. WWE president Nick Khan was up front about that being the case once the WWE-UFC merger to become TKO was finalized, which happened earlier this week, stating that there would likely be “aggressive cuts.”

Now some of those cuts are starting to take place. PWInsider has been reporting several departures already this morning, including:

  • Executive Vice President of Development and Digital Jamie Horowitz, who joined WWE from DAZN and was a somewhat controversial hire, as he was fired from Fox Sports after a sexual harassment probe in 2017. Horowitz’s departure was also confirmed by Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston and Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp.
  • Executive Vice President and Head of Marketing Catherine Newman, whose responsibilities included “Marketing, Brand, Community Relations, Entertainment Relations, Creative Services and Photography.” Her release was also confirmed by Sapp and Thurston.
  • Director, Enterprise Master Data & Governance Amanda Bloom, who PWInsider says was an important figure in watching over WWE’s metadata and how it was used and evaluated.

We’ll update the list if and when more names are reported throughout the day. Wrestling Junkie sends its condolences to all affected by WWE job cuts, today and going forward.