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Urijah Faber likely stands to lose quite a bit in July when the UFC’s deal with Reebok goes into effect. Faber is a co-owner of Torque, a lifestyle and apparel brand that sponsors multiple MMA fighters.

In recent years, Torque has taken off and become one of the most popular brands in the sport. But with Reebok coming into the UFC, fighters will no longer be able to wear the brand in the Octagon or during any UFC-related events.

Faber, though, won’t be coming out negatively against the UFC like many of his peers have recently.

“The UFC is helping themselves out on the business side,” he told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “It’s their business. I’m not one to whine about it.”

UFC fighters across the board stand to lose money without having the ability to wear their sponsors in the Octagon. Faber’s manager Mike Roberts, of MMA Inc., told MMAFighting.com last month that 85 to 90 percent of his clients will be hurt by the Reebok deal. Fighters with one to five fights in the UFC will make just $2,500 from Reebok per fight in the tiered structure. The highest payout is $40,000 for champions.

Faber, 36, is taking a long-term mindset with Torque. He has developed relationships outside of MMA with BMX rider T.J. Lavin and others in the X Games and extreme sports community. MMA was the biggest outlet for Torque and Faber said it will continue to sponsor fighters outside the cage.

“I think we have a bright future,” Faber said. “Our gear is looking better and better every new batch of designs is awesome. There’s the school uniform and what you throw on after school. That’s kind of the way I approach it.

“You got the blue slacks and you got the board shorts when you get out of school.”

UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw and Joseph Benavidez, Faber’s teammates at Team Alpha Male, have both left MMA Inc. in the wake of the Reebok uniform partnership. Benavidez told MMAFighting.com that the management firm was no longer benefiting him and that he’ll actually be making more money once the Reebok contract goes into effect.

“I felt like I could do it myself, and at this point in my career, save some money,” Benavidez said before his UFC 187 win over John Moraga last month. “I think managers are definitely gonna have to change their business model a little bit. For one, they’re gonna have to step up outside [the cage]. It’s not going to be as easy as, ‘Hey, be on the banner and pay us money,’ because that’s easy to do.”

Faber said the decision to depart by Dillashaw and Benavidez has no affect on their relationship or their standing with Team Alpha Male. It’s just business. However, Faber doesn’t think they should be self-managed for long.

“It’s not a good thing to be managing yourself in this sport,” he said. “As much as we’re buddies sometimes with the UFC folks, it’s good to have people looking out for you, people to bounce things off of. They still have that with me.”

Faber has been a pro MMA fighter since 2003. He’s a former WEC featherweight champion and still one of the most popular lighter weight fighters in the world. He’s seen a lot of things during his 12-year career. “The California Kid” knows the sport seems to always be in flux.

“The changing landscape of MMA is such an interesting thing,” he said. “Every month there’s a new rule or something new in place.”

Lance Palmer made it look easy.

The World Series of Fighting featherweight champion outlanded Chris Horodecki standing, took him down twice and finished with a rear-naked choke at 4:28 of the first round in the main event of WSOF 21 on Friday night in Edmonton. It was Palmer’s first title defense.

Palmer (10-1) landed good left hands and achieved back mount on Horodecki twice. The first time he cinched in a neck crank, but Horodecki was able to slip out. Horodecki wasn’t so lucky the second time around. Palmer flattened him out and locked in the choke. Horodecki had no choice but to tap.

Palmer, 27, won the WSOF featherweight belt by beating Rick Glenn last December. In all, he was won three straight and has rounded into a blue-chip prospect for WSOF — and maybe one of the organization’s biggest names. The Team Alpha Male product and former Ohio State wrestling All-American has just one loss and it came to Bellator top contender Georgi Karakhanyan.

Horodecki (21-6) has now lost two of three fights. The Canadian is a 10-year veteran of pro MMA with fights in WEC, Bellator and the IFL.

In the co-main event, Blagoy Ivanov won the WSOF heavyweight title by beating Smealinho Rama via submission at 2:17 of the third round. Ivanov, who was making his World Series debut, only made it to Edmonton from Las Vegas late last night after having visa issues and weighed in earlier Friday. The former Bellator fighter was stabbed and nearly died in 2012. This culminates an incredible comeback.

Ivanov (12-1) caught Rama with some big left hooks in the third round, dropping him. Once down, Ivanov pounced and as Rama tried to get up he snared his neck.

Ivanov, 29, was coming off a loss to Alexander Volkov in Bellator in May 2014. That’s the only loss of the Bulgarian’s career and he has beaten the likes of Ricco Rodriguez and Lavar Johnson. Rama (9-2) won the inaugural WSOF heavyweight belt by beating Derrick Mehmen last October. At 23, the Greece native and Canada resident remains a solid prospect in a thin division.

Hakeem Dawodu chewed Chuka Willis up with knees to the body in the main card opener, resulting in a TKO at 2:55 of the second round. Willis had enough and made that known to the referee. Dawodu (5-0), who is just 23 years old, has now won all of his pro fights — all in WSOF — by TKO.

The prelims featured a very bizarre scenario. Matt Baker was supposed to meet Marcus Hicks, but Hicks had a tough weight cut and withdrew from the fight Friday. With Baker needing a fighter, his own teammate and cornerman Thiago Goncalves stepped in to fight him.

The two went at it for two rounds, but Baker didn’t seem to be motivated to hurt his close friend. After the second round, he told the referee he had a hand injury and verbally tapped. Goncalves will go down as the victor.

Also on the prelims, Justin Sander made his pro debut by beating Dan Lariviere by second-round submission and Michael Hay dispatched Louie Grover via first-round submission.

Francisco Rivera was en route to one of the best performances of his life against his toughest opponent. After a very close first round, one in which many thought Rivera won, Urijah Faber put an open hand out to get distance as Rivera feinted.

As Faber’s hand extended, one of his fingers poked Rivera deep in his left eye. Rivera was immediately blinded in both eyes and staggered. Referee Mario Yamasaki didn’t see it and Faber capitalized with a flurry against the cage and a choke that finished the fight.

The whole scene at UFC 181 last December went by so fast, Rivera says now. He was completely frozen by the poke and then terrified of what kind of damage had been done.

“I was scared,” Rivera said. “When it happened, I didn’t know what eye he poked. That’s what it felt like. It felt like his whole hand went in both my eyes. If anybody has gotten poked in the eye, it’s not a good feeling. You can’t really just fight with one eye open the whole time. You can’t be in a fight without your eyes. I just didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know if it was the ref in front of me or Faber. Next thing you know I was getting choked out. It sucks.”

Rivera (10-4, 1 NC) makes his return after six months against Alex Caceres at UFC Fight Night: Henderson vs. Boetsch on Saturday night in New Orleans. The Orange County, Calif., native needed laser surgery to repair a cracked retina. The entire ordeal was tough on him. Initially, Rivera didn’t just fear he would never fight again — there was a possibility he would be blinded in one eye.

“It was pretty intense when it happened,” Rivera said. “I was hoping it wasn’t as bad it looked. I was hoping it just looked really bad. I didn’t want to have a Michael Bisping torn retina or something where I could never fight again. It’s scary, especially with the eye.”

Rivera, 33, appealed the result of the fight with the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC), but lost the battle in February when the NAC determined that it didn’t have the jurisdiction to reverse it. In order for a fight to be a no contest in that situation, the eye poke would have had to actually ended the fight directly. Instead, Faber used a choke to finish Rivera. Yamasaki just missed the poke.

Rivera was bummed that the appeal didn’t work out. He also asked UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby for a rematch with Faber, but that didn’t pan out, either.

Rivera has to settle for Caceres (10-7, 1 NC) and that isn’t a bad deal. “Bruce Leeroy” is a fairly well-known name who had his own success against Faber last year. Rivera has lost two in a row on paper, including a unanimous decision to Takeya Mizugaki in May 2014, but remains ranked No. 11 among bantamweight contenders.

“I’m definitely going to be the stronger person,” Rivera said of Caceres. “I’m definitely going to be the more powerful puncher. I’ve seen him fight. I’ve seen how he punches, how he fights. His technique is more flashy, karate style. And mine is more boxing type, compact.”

Most importantly, Rivera’s eye is feeling fine. He thought he would feel something during training camp, maybe see spots when he was hit. But that didn’t happen. After getting cleared twice by doctors, Rivera is 100 percent and ready to get back to executing his come-forward style.

“It’s hard to tell what’s gonna happen, but I’m definitely confident,” Rivera said. “I’m definitely gonna go in there and do what I do best, which is fight. Everybody knows when I step in the cage, I come to fight. I don’t come to do anything else.”

He had a bad break in his last fight, but in a way he was lucky. Rivera could be in much worse shape six months after a bad eye injury than he is now.

“Thank God my eye is OK,” he said. “Thank God it wasn’t worse. It could have been worse. It could have been the end of my career right there.”

The ambition for almost every MMA fighter is to become UFC champion one day. It’s the same way for Lance Palmer, except a little more complicated than that.

The World Series of Fighting featherweight champion is very happy with where he is. He just signed a new four-fight contract extension with WSOF and meets Chris Horodecki in the main event of WSOF 21 on Friday night in Edmonton.

Palmer (9-1), a four-time wrestling All-American at Ohio State, is poised to become one of the faces of WSOF. He believes right now he’s making more money for the smaller organization than he would with the UFC and “it’s not even close.”

“My end goal is to have the belt in whatever the best and biggest organization is and right now every body is happy saying that the UFC is the best organization,” Palmer told MMAFighting.com. “For competition, yes. For pay and being able to make a living, I wouldn’t say so much for most guys. There’s a few guys that make a great living with the UFC, but overall I think a lot of guys are way underpaid.”

Palmer, 27, isn’t even necessarily talking about the UFC’s new deal with Reebok, which will cut heavily into many fighters’ sponsor money. The Team Alpha Male product just doesn’t think the fight purses are as much as they should be in the UFC.

“I just think if I was offered $100,000 a fight, I wouldn’t give a sh*t about sponsors,” Palmer said. “They can pay me a dollar from Reebok and I wouldn’t care. If I was making 50 and 50 to fight, then I wouldn’t care, but I wouldn’t go there for less than that. You’re fighting the best guys in the world and I feel that I’m a top-10 guy in the featherweight division. I definitely wouldn’t go to the UFC for less than 50 and 50 to fight those top caliber guys. I don’t see myself going in the UFC and fighting anybody out of the top 10 in my first fight.”

In the next four fights, Palmer does have a chance to make himself into one of the hot young commodities in MMA. That all begins Friday night against Horodecki, a veteran of WEC, Bellator and the IFL. The two men are the same age, but Horodecki (21-5-1, 1 NC) is a 10-year MMA pro. Palmer has only been fighting professionally for four years.

“He’s already been there,” Palmer said. “He’s already had his shot at a young age and didn’t accomplish the goals he probably wanted to accomplish. I think it’s my time now. He’s already passed up his chance. He’s definitely a tough fighter and he’s been around for a long time, but I’m going to out there and just impose my will and my offense. The belt is going to stay with me.”

Palmer won the title from Rick Glenn last December. His only career loss came against Georgi Karakhanyan, the current Bellator featherweight top contender, back in 2013. Palmer has won his last two fights with rear-naked chokes and he’ll be looking for a similar result against Horodecki, who will be fighting in front of his home country’s fans.

“I don’t know if I’d be happy with a decision,” Palmer said. “You can’t really let it go to decision being in Canada with judging in MMA nowadays. But I’m definitely gonna try and get the finish. That’s my goal.”

Palmer wants to hold the WSOF belt for as long as possible and then take things from there. He said one of the drawbacks to not being in the UFC is that many casual fans still equate the sport of MMA with the high-profile organization. Other than that, though, Palmer is very content with World Series of Fighting and expects to be for some time.

“That’s nothing against the UFC, but I just think they have too many guys on the roster and they’re just spreading their money too thin,” Palmer said. “I think they should have a smaller roster of guys that are really the elite guys. Even if it’s only 50 guys in each weight class or whatever it is.”

And after July when the Reebok deal kicks in, he’s hoping some of the sponsors that used to work with UFC fighters will come over to him.

“I don’t know what needs to change [for the UFC], but I know that Reebok deal doesn’t help any of those guys and it’s gonna help me, that’s for sure,” Palmer said. “I’m happy where I’m at right now.”

MMA Fighting has WSOF 21 results for the Palmer vs. Horodecki fight card Friday night at the Edmonton Expo Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

In the main event, Lance Palmer will defend his WSOF featherweight title against Chris Horodecki.

Check out the WSOF 21 results below.

Main card (NBC Sports at 9 p.m. ET)
Lance Palmer vs. Chris Horodecki
Blagoy Ivanov def. Smealinho Rama via submission (guillotine) at 2:17 of R3
Hakeem Dawodu def. Chuka Willis via TKO (strikes) at 2:55 of R2

Undercard (WSOF 21 live stream online now)
Thiago Goncalves def. Matt Baker via submission (verbal tapout) at 5:00 of R2
Justin Sander def. Dan Lariviere via submission (arm triangle) at 2:52 of R2
Michael Hay def. Louie Grover via submission (armbar) at 2:17 of R1

Undercard (After main card)
Stephen Beaumont vs. Jose Rodriguez
Tim Smith vs. Spencer Rohovie
Garrett Nybakken vs. Nick Hrabec
Roger Alves vs. Danny Doig

GLORY is hitting Sin City and bringing a title fight with it.

Dutch knockout artist Nieky Holzken will take on the always-exciting Raymond Daniels for the welterweight title in the main event of GLORY 23 on Aug. 7 at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, sources confirmed with MMAFighting.com. The bout will be officially announced Friday during the GLORY 22 broadcast on Spike TV.

Sherdog originally reported the Holzken-Daniels fight.

Joe Valtellini had to give up the belt this week due to a bout with post-concussion syndrome, according to Bloody Elbow. There is no timetable for his return.

Holzken, 31, beat Valtellini for the welterweight title in December 2013, but had to forfeit it due to a shoulder injury last year. Valtellini, 30, claimed it by beating Marc de Bonte at GLORY 14 last June. Daniels, 35, has lost to both men, but is known as one of the most electrifying athletes in kickboxing — and a master of spinning techniques.

Holzken won the GLORY 19 welterweight contender tournament in February by beating Alexander Stetsurenko in the semifinals and Daniels via third-round knockout in the finals. Daniels is coming off a 51-second knockout of Justin Baesman at GLORY 21 last month in San Diego.

The GLORY 23 main card will air live on Spike TV. It marks the first time the leading kickboxing organization comes to Las Vegas.