MMA

You can tell a great deal about a UFC fighter’s journey by his next opponent. Thiago Santos has 32 career fights, including a TKO victory over Jan Blachowicz three years ago. The win over the former champion earned him a title shot against Jon Jones. Santos went on to lose to Jones via split decision,

Patricio Freire and A.J. McKee won’t complete their trilogy just yet. Instead, featherweight champion Freire will put his title on the line against Adam Borics in the Bellator 286 main event Oct. 1 at Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, Calif. McKee also will compete on the card and make his lightweight debut against Spike

USATSI We’ve reached the midpoint of the year and UFC has seen incredible action in the first half of 2022. The promotion has had champions unexpectedly retain their titles, massive upsets and more drama than usual among its star athletes.  International Fight Week saw City Kickboxing continue its run of dominance with both Israel Adesanya

8:00 AM ET After two title fights stole the show in Dallas last weekend at UFC 277 to end the month of July, the promotion will turn the page, starting with a stacked schedule in August, which will feature two UFC Fight Nights before UFC 278 on Aug. 20. With a busy month ahead, our

There was a time, not that long ago, when Amanda Nunes had lapped the field by such a margin that you almost felt sorry for her opponents when a fight was booked. Those days are long gone, even though on Saturday in the main event of UFC 277 at the sold-out American Airlines Center in

Getty Images Women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Peña is out to prove she’s more than a one-fight wonder when she takes on former champion Amanda Nunes in a rematch Saturday to headline UFC 277. Their main-event showdown tops the UFC 277 fight card (10 p.m.) from American Airlines Center in Dallas. Peña’s willingness to take on

9:16 AM ET JULIANNA PEÑA IS one of the youngest members of a long line of Peña family members who are unbothered by judgment or criticism. Her father, Ernie, left a small agricultural village in Venezuela when he was 12 in search of better opportunities. He eventually emigrated to the U.S. through a scholarship program

Six years ago, Amanda Nunes took less than one round to batter Miesha Tate into submission at UFC 200 and become champion of the women’s bantamweight division. She quickly asserted herself as the most-feared woman in MMA and became the promotion’s third fighter in history to hold two titles simultaneously. After knocking out Cris Cyborg

As the second round of the women’s bantamweight title fight at UFC 269 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas unfolded, it looked by all appearances that it was about to get ugly for Julianna Peña. She found herself standing across from champion Amanda Nunes — widely proclaimed as the greatest women’s MMA fighter in history

When Brandon Moreno made the walk to the Octagon in January as the reigning flyweight champion at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, to defend his belt against arch-rival Deiveson Figueiredo, the roar from the crowd when he became visible in the arena was so loud it was difficult to hear the person next to

6:35 PM ET Brett Okamoto Close ESPN Staff Writer MMA columnist for ESPN.com Analyst for “MMA Live” Covered MMA for Las Vegas Sun Marc Raimondi What were the biggest moments at UFC Fight Night in London? Brett Okamoto and Marc Raimondi offer up their takeaways from an action-packed event in England. What does the UFC

Getty Images For nearly the entirety of UFC London, the local fans had been given plenty to cheer about. That came to a very unfortunate end in the heavyweight main event as Tom Aspinall suffered a knee injury that ended his fight with Curtis Blaydes in just mere moments. Aspinall stayed true to his word,

Paul Craig is ranked eighth in the UFC’s light heavyweight division, one spot ahead of Volkan Oezdemir, whom he will fight Saturday on the main card of UFC Fight Night in London. That makes sense, given that Craig has won five in a row and six of his last seven. His last three victories were

Tom Aspinall has been increasingly impressive in each of his five UFC bouts, all of which he’s finished. In his last time out, he stamped himself a legitimate contender for the heavyweight title by submitting Alexander Volkov with a straight armbar in the first round. Aspinall’s performance was met with rave reviews. But Aspinall said

Getty Images Those who have been waiting to see Sean O’Malley take a major step up in competition appear to be just months away from getting their wish. O’Malley announced on ESPN’s “DC and RC” that he is fighting former bantamweight champion Petr Yan at UFC 280. “I’m getting a fight that I wanted and

8:25 AM ET Jeff WagenheimESPN Chris Curtis dreamed about fighting inside the Octagon for over a decade as a professional mixed martial artist. Now that his UFC debut was happening, though, it was turning nightmarish. He was in a UFC 268 prelim last November in New York, and Curtis was getting beaten to the punch

Getty Images Lauren Murphy is far from finished with the UFC women’s flyweight elite. Murphy defeated former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate in a three-round decision at UFC Fight Night in Long Island on Saturday. Murphy and Tate fought for 15 hard minutes to open Saturday’s main card. Their outputs on the feet were

Despite the anticlimactic ending, Yair Rodriguez did what he had to do Saturday and scored the win over Brian Ortega. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC) The disappointment at the ending of the featherweight bout between Yair Rodriguez and Brian Ortega on Saturday at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, will probably never fully dissipate. There’s