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Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Safe to say, MMA fighters are not exactly thriving in these random boxing crossovers. Of course, a great deal of that has to do with where these matches take place. With the notable exception of James Toney vs. Randy Couture circa 2010, it’s largely been MMA fighters stepping into the ring rather than the opposite. That’s where the money is, even if the losses are piling up for the MMA community.

The latest such match up to materialize is the hypothetical Georges St. Pierre vs. Oscar De La Hoya. At 48 years of age, De La Hoya is further removed from his best days than “GSP,” who won a world title in November 2017. Regardless of the age discrepancy, the Canadian legend would be a massive underdog, which is perhaps why UFC President Dana White shut down the whole thing.

Former UFC double champ Daniel Cormier offered his thoughts on the match up, labeling the bout “too risky” for MMA.

“I gotta be honest, I don’t know,” Cormier said on DC & Helwani (via BJPenn.com). “I think it’s too risky for us as a community to have a guy like Georges St-Pierre boxing Oscar De La Hoya. Great for ‘GSP’ in terms of the money he will make but too risky. Because even at—I don’t know if Oscar’s gotta be mid-50s at this point—it’s too risky for ‘GSP’ to go and fight him because if he gets beat, if he gets starched, it’s a bad look when the greatest fighter of all time is out there getting beat or knocked out or just dominated by a 55-year old boxer.

“You can not possibly believe Georges St-Pierre beats Oscar De La Hoya in a boxing match. Like, reality. Does not matter, dude’s an Olympic champ boxer. No, man. That’s why I don’t want to see it. It’s too risky. Maybe GSP does win but I don’t believe he does so whatever. Might as well not even do it.”

It remains to be seen if De La Hoya can find an MMA fighter outside of UFC’s contract with a big enough name for his return bout.

Insomnia

Jan Blachowicz has a Rocky moment.

Don’t go raging about politics in the comment section (spoiler: at least one person will anyway), but One Championship’s new Heavyweight kingpin Arjan Bhullar getting a shoutout from Justin Trudeau is pretty neat.

Ryan Hall vs. Ilia Topuria is something of a step up for both men, and it’s definitely going to be a quality fight!

Conor McGregor is a top-tier opportunist.

I don’t know who made this, but I love it.

Arman Tsarukyan calls out Grant Dawson for a clash of Lightweight grapplers/prospects:

Some interesting stats regarding UFC fighters who compete after bouts with COVID-19 (note that this Tweet was pre-UFC Vegas 27).

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Paul Felder climbed higher than anyone would’ve really expected, and he did so via grit and spinning sh*t.

This man never truly recovered after the elbow.

Laguna gets some solid height on this jump knee!

Random Land

No fewer than half-a-dozen people sent this to me, so I guess I oughta post it!

Midnight Music: Pink Flag by Wire is a punk/post-punk mega classic. It’s worth the full listen!

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.

Juliana Velasquez will attempt to defend her Bellator MMA women’s Flyweight title for the first time when she faces the promotion’s 125-pound kickboxing champion, Denise Kielholtz, in the main event of Bellator 262 on July 16, 2021.

The promotion announced the booking of the headlining title fight — which will take place inside Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., and airs live on SHOWTIME — earlier today (Fri., May 21).

Undefeated at 11-0, Velasquez won the 125-pound title by defeating Illami-Lei McFarlane at Bellator 254 in Dec. 2020, handing her the first loss of her mixed martial arts (MMA) career. Velasquez (34) is 6-0 so far inside the Bellator cage.

“I’m extremely excited and happy to get back in the BELLATOR cage and defend my title for the first time,” said Velasquez via a press release. “I’ve been training really hard, and I’m fully prepared to put on an incredible performance for my fans. Denise has been a great champion in the BELLATOR kickboxing ring, but this MMA belt is mine and it will be going back to Brazil with me after the fight.”

Kielholtz, meanwhile, is looking to add the 125-pound MMA title right alongside the Bellator MMA kickboxing title that is already in her possession. In the MMA arena, Kielholtz is 6-2 which includes 6-1 record for the promotion. The striking specialist has won her last four fights via stoppage, earning two submission and two knockout wins to give her the shot at the title.

“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for since I was a child,” said Kielholtz. “My journey in martial arts started when I was nine years old. I have earned multiple championships from kickboxing and judo and I feel like the universe has put everything together. All the hard work, all the sacrifices I have made in my life have all led me to this opportunity. This will be the crowning achievement of my career. This is mine.”

The event will allow a limited number of fans to attend, with tickets going on sale for as low as $60 starting with a special pre-sale on Thursday June 3.

To check out the latest Bellator MMA-related news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive news archive right here.

Check out the current fight card for the June 26th Fight Night event headlined by heavyweights Ciryl Gane and Alexander Volkov.

Almost exactly one month from now on June 26th is a Fight Night event that will serve as the last UFC show before the trilogy between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor. In the main event of this card is what should be an intriguing heavyweight bout between strikers Ciryl Gane and Alexander Volkov. We have every reason to believe that fight will be better than Gane vs. Jairzinho Rozenstruik was.

There’s no co-main event announced as of yet. The next most notable fight is light heavyweights Ovince Saint Preux and Maxim Grishin. We do get to see Anthony Hernandez back in action after his shock win over Rodolfo Vieira, as he faces Punahele Soriano. Renato Moicano also returns to the cage versus Jai Herbert.

The main card will be at 4 PM ET/1 PM PT while the prelims are at 1 PM ET/10 AM PT, so you get some Saturday morning/afternoon Octagon action to look forward to.

Here is what is on tap, knowing we’ll have a couple more fights added to the lineup:

Ciryl Gane vs. Alexander Volkov

Ovince Saint Preux vs. Maxim Grishin

Anthony Hernandez vs. Punahele Soriano

Danilo Marques vs. Ed Herman

Renato Moicano vs. Jai Herbert

Ike Villanueva vs. Marcin Prachnio

Tim Elliott vs. Su Madaerji

Michel Prazeres vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov

Justin Jaynes vs. Charles Rosa

Timur Valiev vs. Raoni Barcelos

Warlley Alves vs. Ramazan Emeev

It’s been a pretty sharp fall from grace for Tyron Woodley, who went from being the UFC welterweight champion for two years to immediately hitting a four fight, 16 round losing streak. The last loss, a first round submission loss to Vicente Luque in March 2021, marked the last fight on Woodley’s UFC contract. And with that the former champ is no longer with the UFC.

On the plus side, this gives him more time to devote himself to his music career, which he clearly still enjoys. More than cagefighting after a 10+ year career? Hey, there’s nothing wrong with following new passions. Woodley has been putting out new raps and collabs and music videos alongside friends and partners for a couple of years now.

In May of 2020 he released a UFC comeback track called ‘Revenge,’ which he said was ‘a reflection of struggle. The highs and lows. Tragedy and Triumph!’ Now he’s done talking about fighting and just playing eye candy for a new video from St. Louis-based pop/R&B singer Mai Lee. Woodley is heavily featured in her video ‘Redd (Swim)’ and gets to be the lucky man Lee crawls all over for three and a half minutes.

I’m sure we can expect more music from Woodley now that he’s no longer stuck trying to regain the glory he held at welterweight during his career peak. But can we expect more fighting? Woodley is clearly willing to compete again for the right kind of paycheck, and set himself up as a viable contender in the Jake Paul freakshow fight sweepstakes when he instigated a confrontation with one of Paul’s boxing coaches, J’Leon Love, on the night of the Ben Askren bout.

We doubt Paul is willing to step in there with Woodley, who still has that piston of a right and is about a million times more dangerous than Ben Askren. But a match between Woodely and Love? Now that’s the kind of undercard bout that could draw in a couple extra eyes and integrate another of Paul’s crew into the money making process.

Really, we’re just hoping Woodley gets himself a couple more juicy paydays out of his combat sports career. The more money, the more baller music videos and slick studio productions we can expect! Win, win, right guys?