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The “Suga Show” is still happening at UFC 264. 

The search for a new opponent for Sean O’Malley is officially over. He will still compete at UFC 264 next Saturday and now welcomes a promotional newcomer in Kris Moutinho.

O’Malley was initially scheduled to meet Louis Smolka on the main card of the pay-per-view event, but it was reported by Ariel Helwani that Smolka was forced to withdraw from the fight due to an undisclosed injury. Additional reporting from Marc Raimondi of ESPN revealed that Smolka had been dealing with a staph infection.

Upon hearing the news that O’Malley was in need of a new opponent, a number of bantamweight contenders such as Merab Dvalishvili and Ricky Simon took to social media to call for the short-notice fight. O’Malley seemed primarily interested in Simon, who nearly got the fight, but it did not materialize after a misunderstanding over what weight class it should be contested at. O’Malley moved on and later announced on his Twitch stream that Moutinho was his new opponent.

O’Malley returned to the win column recently with a ‘Performance of the Night’ awarded knockout of Thomas Almeida at UFC 260 in March. That performance came just months after he suffered the first professional loss of his career against Marlon Vera at UFC 252 last year.

Moutinho trains out of Regiment Training Center and holds an overall professional record of 9-4, with four of those nine wins coming by stoppage. He has competed for well-known regional promotions such as Classic Entertainment & Sports MMA (CES MMA) and Cage Fury Fighting Championships (CFFC). He last competed at CFFC 96, where he submitted Andrew Salas with an arm-triangle choke in the third round.

UFC 264 is headlined by the third and final fight between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier. The event takes place on Saturday, July 10, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Reigning UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes, who also wears gold in the featherweight class, has let it be known that she doesn’t expect much resistance from 135-pound contender Julianna Pena in the UFC 265 co-main event this August.

A claim she made not once, but twice.

But current women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, no stranger to wars against both Nunes and Pena, believes it would be a tactical error to overlook “The Venezuelan Vixen,” a massive betting underdog at +525.

“I think Julianna has a lot of chances, and definitely she poses a lot of physical challenges to Amanda, a lot of grappling maybe,” Shevchenko told Middle Easy. “This is what she’s going to do, right? She’s not going to stand with Amanda and strike with her and decide who has the stronger punch. I don’t think this is the idea of the fight, and I think she has a lot of opportunities to find the key for victory. It’s MMA, you never know what’s going to happen the next second.”

Nunes (21-4) is the winner of 12 straight with eight finishes, including her submission victory over Megan Anderson at UFC 259 in Las Vegas. Pena (10-4), currently ranked No. 6 at 135 pounds, was last seen choking out Sara McMann at UFC 257 in Abu Dhabi.

Shevchenko (21-3) is undefeated since dropping to flyweight in early 2018.

“Bullet” is expected to hang around at 125 pounds for the foreseeable future and will likely make her next title defense against Lauren Murphy. That said, an upset win for Pena could be enough to compel Shevchenko to make another run at the bantamweight strap.

Two years after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood hit theaters, Tarantino has a novelization of the movie to sell and controversial comments to make.

Tarantino pulls no punches, and claims the same was true of Bruce Lee. The auteur was on The Joe Rogan Experience to promote his latest project, a 400 page novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and talk quickly turned to Tarantino’s controversial take on the martial artist.

“Where I am coming from is I can understand his daughter having a problem with it. It’s her f—ing father. I get that,” Tarantino said, per IndieWire. “But anybody else, go suck a dick.”

Shannon Lee released a statement in the wake of of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s premiere, stating her displeasure with the characterization of her father. When Tarantino doubled down on the accuracy of his portrayal, Lee told Variety, “He could shut up about it. That would be really nice. Or he could apologize or he could say, ‘I don’t really know what Bruce Lee was like. I just wrote it for my movie. But that shouldn’t be taken as how he really was.’”

While Tarantino might sympathize with Shannon Lee’s reaction, he has no interest in taking her advice about shutting up about it, telling Joe Rogan, “Bruce had no respect for American stuntmen, he was always hitting them with his feet. It’s called tagging when you hit a stuntman for real. He was always tagging them with his feet and his fist and it got to the point where they would refuse to work with Bruce. He had nothing but disrespect for American stuntmen. It was probably just like, ‘Oh they’re just not good enough. They are pussies. I want to make it look real!’ But stuntmen don’t like that. That’s unprofessional.”

Tarantino then cited legendary stuntman Gene LeBell as the inspiration for character Cliff Booth, and the famous story about LaBell being asked to teach Lee a lesson on the set of The Green Hornet.

However, Tarantino mischaracterizes two important aspects of this story. By frequently repeating the word “always” and stating Lee had “nothing but disrespect for American stuntmen” the director makes it sound as if this was Lee’s lifelong stance and permanent way of being.

In fact, the role of Kato was Lee’s first big break in the US after previously performing in Hong Kong. Lee was green, eager to prove himself, and while he was “tagging” the other performers, it was not long before LaBell was brought on to fix the situation.

After LaBell humbled Lee—by simply picking him up and carrying him around—Lee quickly got over himself and wanted to understand how he had been so easily defeated. Lee became a student of LaBell’s, and in short order became an exceptional stuntman himself.

Lee’s desire to learn, change, adapt, and succeed made him a true trailblazer in American cinema, much as Tarantino has been. Perhaps if Lee had lived long enough he also would have eventually settled into stagnation.