Well, free if you have ESPN and/or ESPN+.

North American UFC fans are used to getting hosed when it comes to pay-per-view prices. Nowadays you gotta pay for ESPN+ for the honor of paying for $70 UFC pay-per-views while other countries get events for way less if not free. Of course if you want to watch the UFC in Europe you have to stay up til 5AM to do it, so there are plusses and minuses for everyone.

But in the case of UFC 267 on October 30th, we finally get a taste of what it’s like to get a free pay-per-view because of an unusual time scheduling.

The event, headlined by Jan Blachowicz vs. Glover Teixeira for the 205 pound strap and Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan 2 for the bantamweight belt, will be held in Abu Dhabi on Fight Island. And in order to offer the event up at primetime for the Middle East and Europe, the card will start at 11am. So rather than struggle to draw decent numbers, former ESPN reporter Ariel Helwani is reporting the UFC is going to give us this one to ESPN / ESPN+ subscribers for free.

This is great news and a nice present for UFC fans, who deserve a lot of credit when it comes to following the UFC to ESPN+ and paying for a subscription when the service first started. You can also see the UFC is thinking of it as an expensive commercial for UFC 268 in Madison Square Garden (COVID permitting). No word yet on what will headline that card, but you know the UFC likes to try and stack its NYC cards.

Cory Sandhagen said he didn’t want to be a ‘whiny baby’ and complain about the scorecards in his split decision loss to T.J. Dillashaw.

Cory Sandhagen saw his chance to fight for the UFC bantamweight championship hit a speed-bump at last night’s UFC Vegas 32. The top ranked fighter, who was coming off a sensational KO of Frankie Edgar, ended up on the wrong side of a split decision to former champ T.J. Dillashaw.

The fight was a close and hard fought affair with both men landing clean shots on the other. Ultimately, though, two of the three judges saw the contest for the man who was returning from a USADA enforced two-year absence.

In his post-fight comments Sandhagen expressed disappointment at the result. However, he spared the judges his ire and instead blamed himself for not doing more in the later portions of the fight.

“I don’t want to be a little whiny baby,” he said (ht MMA Junkie). “I’m going to take it. I’m going to get better from it. That’s what I’m going to do, and I’m still going to win a world championship hopefully still next year.”

“I know I had him hurt more times than me,” said Sandhagen when asked to break down how he felt the fight went. “I think I was landing the way cleaner shots. I was picking him apart. I guess I should’ve done more. That’s on me. … I told myself I was winning the fifth round. I thought that I did. I don’t know. What can you do? I thought I made really good adjustments as the fight was going on. What can you do? I guess I’ll learn from it. I’ll still be world champ. I’ll still do all the things I said I was going to do. I just have got to learn and get better, I guess.”

The loss sets Sandhagen back in his quest to be next man up for the UFC bantamweight title. That belt is currently held by Aljimain Sterling, who claimed it with a DQ win over Petr Yan earlier this year. Sterling and Yan are due to run it back at UFC 267.

Before losing to Dillashaw Sandhagen had back-to-back wins versus Edgar and Marlon Moraes. Prior to that he lost by submission to Sterling, which is his only other loss in the Octagon.

However, despite the loss Sandhagen is confident that he is still within striking distance of a title shot.

“Sean Shelby just talked to me in the back. I made him pinky-promise me that I’m one fight away from winning the title. He came back and said, ‘There’s nothing I can do about (the loss), but I promise you you’re still one fight away from the title.’ I said, ‘I’m going to make you pinky-promise me.’ He did, so that’s still what we’re looking at.”

We’d be shocked by the performance of Nevada judges at UFC Vegas 32 if weren’t so used to bad decisions over the past year and a half trapped in the UFC APEX.

UFC Vegas 32 went down on Saturday night from the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada and you know what that means: another night of accurate scoring from the crack team of judges assigned by the Nevada Athletic Commission.

Just kidding. It was a shitshow, again. As usual, we’d say at this point.

Since COVID-19 took the UFC largely off the road in March of 2020, the promotion has run a staggering 40 events out of the APEX, and you’d think after that many events even the historically lackluster team of Nevada judges would start to get a hang of this mixed martial arts scoring system thing. But it may actually be the opposite: they seem to be getting worse.

UFC Vegas 32 was certainly a low point amongst many. The main card featured three decisions, and all three were steeped in controversy. The judges had Maycee Barber defeating Miranda Maverick via split decision when it was clear as day that Maverick had won the first two rounds and Barber the third. Over on MMADecisions.com, media scores were unanimous: all 22 sites had it 29-28 Maverick. But Sal D’Amato and Dave Hagen handed the win to Barber, breaking Maverick’s five win streak.

Later in the night, Raulian Paiva pulled off an epic comeback decision win via majority decision over Kyler Phillips. Unfortunately, it was largely aided by more poor judging: Phillips beat Paiva up so badly in round one that half the internet was shocked the fight was allowed to continue. It was a textbook 10-8 round, even before the rules were updated to lower the bar for what constitutes a 10-8 round. Only one judge gave the 10-8. Eric Colon and Chris Lee scored it 10-9, and just like that fight was ruled a majority win for Paiva instead of a draw.

Now to the main event of UFC Vegas 32, which saw Cory Sandhagen hit T.J. Dillashaw in the face from every angle while Dillashaw pushed forward relentlessly making things a dogfight. We’ve got a lot of respect for Dilly coming back after two years and gutting through a knee injury and horrific cut to stay in the fight, but anyone without blood in their eyes blinding them would have seen Sandhagen won that fight. It went to Dillashaw via split (47–48, 48–47, 48–47).

Judges will often score offensive pressure and positional dominance over damage in a fight, there’s nothing new there. But the big complaint with this one is that rounds 4 and 5 went to Sandhagen over Dillashaw in all departments, yet Junichiro Kamijo gave round 4 to Dillashaw and Sal D’Amato gave him round 5. That was enough to hand T.J. the split.

But hey, don’t take our word for it that the judging was whack. Here’s a bunch of current and past UFC fighters laying out just how messed the situation was on Saturday night. Given their paychecks and careers are on the line with every fight, they understand what’s at stake the most.

We’d say we hope things change, but as someone who has been covering this sport for 15+ years now … it isn’t going to change.

A rundown of the biggest headlines and news from the world of competitive grappling.

Given how impressive the lineup is for every Who’s Number One event, their first ever tournament was always going to be an amazing one, but not many people expected what we’re about to see. The first ever WNO Championships event will take place at 155lbs and will feature some of the best talent in the Jiu-Jitsu world and some of the most exciting prospects in that weightclass.

The eight-man lineup was released slowly over time but is now completely full, with the two favorites being Mikey Musumeci and Kennedy Maciel. Their victory is by no means assured however as Geo Martinez, Diego Oliveira, Joshua Cisneros, and Ethan Crelinsten are all more than capable of defeating them. The event also features two young prodigies eager to provide the upset in Kade Ruotolo and 15 year-old Art of Jiu-Jitsu blue belt Cole Abate.

Pedro Marinho comes out on top at Submission Underground 25

SUG 25 represented a change of pace for the promotion as it was the first event with neither of the promotion’s male or female absolute titles on the line since they were invented. The main event instead featured one of Gracie Barra’s most recent black belts, Pedro Marinho, submitting SUG veteran Andy Varela with a guillotine pressed up against the cage within the first two minutes of their match.

The co-main event featured another pair high-level match as Romulo Barral black belt Edwin Najmi took on UFC veteran and current Bellator fighter Jeremy Kennedy. While Najmi came close with a toehold attempt that troubled Kennedy early on in the match, neither man could get the finish in regulation time and the match went into EBI overtime. From there, Najmi won the match with an incredibly quick choke from the back.

Full results for the event can be found here.

Combat Jiu Jitsu Middleweight world championships is almost here

The next edition of the Combat Jiu Jitsu world championships are right around the corner as Eddie Bravo’s brainchild is ready to crown a Middleweight champion for 2021. The first few entrants have just been announced but with a little over two months left until the event, there’s still several spots to fill out of the sixteen-man bracket. One of the favorites to come out on top will be last year’s runner-up, 10th Planet’s Kyle Chambers.

The other favorite is Roberto Jimenez, the reigning CJJ Welterweight world champion who is looking to move up in weight and become the first man to hold two CJJ world titles at the same time. Brazilian Fight Factory’s William Tackett and MMA veteran Felipe Fogolin will both also have a great chance of victory, while Justin Renick, Javier Torres, and Matt Secor all have plenty of CJJ experience and the ability to come out on top too.

Five last-minute changes made to the Polaris Squads 3 lineup

After Polaris Squads 3 was delayed by a few weeks as a result of the ongoing pandemic, the promotion has now had to make several changes to both team lineups at the last minute. Only one of those changes apply to Team UK & Ireland as Polaris triple champion Ashley Williams has been forced to withdraw due to an injury and will be replaced with Jed Hue in the under 75kg half of the team.

Team USA has had to switch out two of the under 75kg competitors as Geo Martinez and Adam Benayoun replace Kade Ruotolo and Edwin Najmi respectively. Then in the under 95kg section, Roberto Jimenez and Mike Perez have stepped up in place of William Tackett and the original team captain, JT Torres. With the loss of Torres, Martinez and his older brother Richie will now be the co-captains of Team USA.

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Quick Hits

• Relson Gracie had some advice for his nephew, Kron Gracie, telling him to forget about boxing and get back to BJJ in order to succeed in his UFC career.
• The location and dates for the 2021 IBJJF world championships have finally been revealed as the event comes to California from December 9th to 12th.
• Gilbert Burns is eager to earn another Welterweight UFC title shot and has no issue with his fighting his way through Leon Edwards and Jorge Masvidal to get it.
• Nicky Ryan will be out for quite some time after suffering a knee injury at the Road to ADCC, and having to choose between a repair or full removal of his meniscus.

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Technique Corner

Reverse De La Riva to Backside 50/50, to Heelhook

Jumping Armbar from standing passing

Three options from Worm Guard