Author: admin

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is holding on to play-by-play man Jon Anik (again), who joined the promotion back in 2011 before eventually replacing Mike Goldberg alongside Joe Rogan at the pay-per-view (PPV) desk in early 2017.

Smart move.

“So grateful,” Anik wrote on Twitter. “Grateful for the fighters. I hold you all in the highest regard. Grateful for UFC fans. Your support gives me great energy to perform! Grateful for my bosses, who entrust me with this tremendous responsibility. I’ll never take it lightly. And my colleagues…love ya!”

Perhaps there is also room for Anik in Dana White’s Power Slap League?

“I love slap fighting, Slap Fighting Championships,” Anik told MMA Junkie. “I’m so compelled by it. It’s also like professional wrestling. I’m not a professional wrestling fan. I’d be ill-equipped to be a WWE commentator, but if I’m flipping through the channels, whoever rarely that happens, I can’t stop watching professional wrestling. Slap fighting is that times 10. I can’t get enough of this stuff, but no, no one is calling my number for that just yet. But certainly, I hope before my career is said and done to call an NFL football game and to call a slap fight. I think it’s absolutely awesome.”

I wouldn’t bet against him.

The MMA Legend’s recent training camp stories have cast doubt over his scheduled celebrity boxing match against Jake Paul this weekend.

New developments could affect Anderson Silva’s boxing bout with social media superstar Jake Paul scheduled for this Saturday, October 29. Following the release of an interview recorded with Silva back in September, the Arizona Boxing Commission is putting statements made by Silva regarding his health under review.

During the interview with MMA Weekly, Silva described being knocked out twice by training partners while sparing during his camp. “I’m training hard for win—I’m training with the good boxers, high-level, and five guys come to help me,” Silva enthused. “And the last sparring with [my sparring partner], he is knocked me out two times, and when I finish my training, I talked to my coach and even said, ‘Coach, let me tell you something, why the guys knock me out two times?’ And the coach said, ‘You need to prepare for war, and you prepare for war.’”

Despite this statement, Silva’s longtime coach Luiz Carlos Dorea quickly denied the event in an interview with MMA Fighting.

“What I can say is that didn’t happen,” Dorea said. “Thank God we follow all the steps in training and Anderson did excellent sparring [sessions]. He’s 100 percent for the fight.”

The following saw Silva, 47, publicly walk back his story with a prepared statement published by MMA Fighting yesterday.

“After seeing the reports and concern for me, I’d like to clarify two important things,” Silva wrote. “One, I was NEVER knocked out in sparring. I misspoke in that interview as I sometimes do when interviewing in English and exaggerated the normal back-and-forth action that occurs in sparring. Second, this sparring session I referenced was in early September. The interview with MMA Weekly was done on Sept. 13 and, for some reason, just released this week. So, it wasn’t recent.”

Unfortunately this did not calm the commission’s concerns, which called for an emergency meeting scheduled this evening, October 27. According to MMA Fighting, the commission will meet for, “the review of additional documentation submitted by (Silva) to determine his eligibility to compete in an upcoming bout on October 29, 2022.”

A copy of the meeting schedule is featured below.

Currently, the fight is still scheduled for 9 pm, EST at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Ariz.

This story is developing, and Bloody Elbow will publish updates when available.

Jake Paul made quite the entrance at yesterday’s open workouts.

Jake Paul made quite the entrance at Wednesday’s open workouts by arriving at the boxing ring on horseback ahead of his highly-anticipated showdown with Anderson Silva on October 29.

Paul will look to extend his record to 6-0 and add another former MMA champion to his resume when he takes on UFC legend and former middleweight titleholder Silva this Saturday at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona. The YouTuber-turned-boxer boasts knockout victories over former UFC fighters and welterweight champions Tyron Woodley and Ben Askren, but Silva represents his toughest test to date.

Silva is considered one of the greatest strikers in MMA and proved, even at 47, that he can still hold his own in the boxing ring against the likes of former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and former UFC light heavyweight titleholder Tito Ortiz, both of whom he defeated last year after calling it quits in MMA.

Silva vs. Paul takes place this Saturday, October 29, at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.