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Glover Teixeira’s first light heavyweight title defense is in the works for May.

The next UFC light heavyweight title fight has been known for months, but now we have a date.

ESPN’s Brett Okamoto reported on Saturday that new champion Glover Teixeira is lined up to fight Jiri Prochazka at UFC 274 on May 7th.

Teixeira (33-7) made history last October when he submitted Jan Blachowicz in the UFC 267 main event. Not only did he finally fulfill his goal of winning a UFC title, he became the oldest first-time champion in UFC history at the age of 42. Teixeira had previously challenged for the belt and lost to Jon Jones way back in 2013, and few would’ve predicted he would get another shot eight years later. Glover is currently on a six-fight winning streak, with his last loss coming against Corey Anderson in July 2018.

Prochazka (28-3-1) is the former RIZIN FF light heavyweight champion who came into the UFC with a lot of hype after all of his success in Japan. The Czech knockout artist made a major statement in his Octagon debut when he KO’d Volkan Oezdemir at UFC 251 in Abu Dhabi. He elevated to main event status for his next (and most recent) fight, a spectacular spinning elbow KO of Dominick Reyes with under a minute left in the 2nd round. Two fights, two knockouts over former title challengers, and now he gets a title shot.

No location or venue has been revealed for UFC 274.

Longtime MMA fighter Maiquel Falcao was stabbed to death on Sunday morning in his hometown of Pelotas, Brazil, according to local news outlet Gaucha ZH.

The UFC and Bellator vet was stabbed twice in the stomach outside of a bar around 3AM in the morning. He was taken to the hospital but died soon after. Police are now in the process of investigating his murder.

Falcao was a one-and-done fighter for the UFC way back in 2010. A hot Chute Boxe prospect with a 24-3 record at the time, Falcao beat Garald Harris by unanimous decision at UFC 123. Soon after that win, though, disturbing stories about his background began to emerge and the UFC cut him from the roster over a 2002 arrest for assaulting a woman in a nightclub.

Two years later Falcao would return to the major leagues with Bellator, going 3-1 with the promotion between 2012 and 2014. He was then released by the promotion after footage of a gas station brawl emerged, once again showing Falcao getting into a physical altercation with a woman. Things quickly spiraled out of control and Falcao’s friend was beaten with a board, putting him into a coma.

Falcao continued to compete regularly across South America, Europe, and Russia as recently as October of 2021. But his past five years saw him in serious decline, going 2-8 with five losses via strikes.

The 40-year-old athlete was found lying on a street and died on the way to the hospital in his hometown.

One-time UFC fighter and three-time Bellator MMA competitor Maiquel Falcao has died in in his hometown of Pelotas, Brazil.

According to local news outlet GZH, the 40-year-old was found lying on a street with two stab wounds in his stomach, in a front of a bar around 3 AM on Sunday. Although ‘Big Rig’ was taken to the hospital, he succumbed to the injuries shortly afterwards.

The local police are investigating the case, but so far no other follow-ups to Maiquel’s death have been announced.

Falcao made only one UFC appearance in his career, at UFC 123, when he defeated Gerald Harris via unanimous decision, back in November 2010. After that, the Brazilian competed in several other notable promotions, including Bellator, KSW and Fight Nights Global, among others.

Maiquel’s last outing happened in December 2019, when he was submitted by Sergey Romanov, at Krepost Fighting Championship. The Brazilian’s last win was a TKO victory over ex-UFC fighter Igor Pokrajac, in May of the same year, at Serbian Battle Championship 21.

During his 15-year career Falcao fought many well-known names across middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight. Among those are UFC veteran Fabio Maldonado, former KSW champ Mamed Khalidov, and former Bellator champion Alexander Shlemenko.

In an unrelated event, back in 2013, Falcao was also involved in a gas station altercation, where he assaulted a woman and knocked a man to the ground. Falcao tried to flee the scene, but got involved in a fight with more men who gave chase. This skirmish ended up in Falcao being expelled from his team, Renovacao Fight Team, and in his Bellator release.

Falcao is survived by his wife, Natalia, and their son.

Vanessa Demopoulos may have just retired from exotic dancing to train MMA full time, but she’s found multiple uses for her past skillset in the Octagon.

There’s no shortage of fighters early in their UFC career that arrive with second jobs, but we think strawweight Vanessa Demopoulos may have one of the most interesting. Demopoulos survived a nasty knockdown early into her UFC 270 fight against Silvana Gomez Juarez to come back and win via first round armbar (watch the finish here).

After the win, “Lil Monster” surprised everyone again with a front flip into the splits to celebrate the victory. That’s a move, she says, that she mastered during her decade plus career as a stripper.

“That’s my stripper guard, right there,” Demopoulos said at the UFC 270 post-fight press conference. “I don’t think it’s a secret I was an exotic dancer for thirteen years and I didn’t actually say this on the mic but I’d like to say it right now: I walked away from being a stripper to continue this camp. I quit dancing about six to eight weeks ago just so I could focus on MMA, take this extremely seriously in the gym every single day.”

“But yeah, that’s where that background comes from and that’s where the splits come from. And a lot of my jiu jitsu, actually, comes from my expertise as a pole dancer!”

She’s leveraged that expertise beyond just jiu-jitsu: Demopoulos is also the author of an ‘instructional how-to’ book on exotic dancing called “The Stripper Bible” and is a second generation talent.

“I just kind of followed the family footsteps right there,” she explained to Cageside press back in 2020. “My dad was a DJ and my mom was an entertainer and that’s how they initially met. So when I was growing up, it was a very common discussion. Talking about the clubs, the scenes. When I became an entertainer, my father actually taught me how to hustle and how to be a professional in the industry. So it was kind of nice to have that support.”

The win over Juarez puts the former LFA women’s champion back in the win column after a tough run in the UFC that saw her lose a Contender Series fight and then drop a decision in her promotional debut against J.J. Aldrich.

Not only did she earn the victory in the cage at UFC 270, she won over the fans and Joe Rogan with her infectious positivity and enthusiasm. We look forward to seeing more of Demopoulos and her pole-inspired grappling moves in the future.