Author: Anton Tabuena

Megan Anderson and her former team are in a pretty ugly and public feud.

MMA coach and notorious gambler James Krause is currently in the middle of a controversy, with his pupil Darrick Minner’s bout with Shayilan Neurdanbieke being investigated for suspicious betting activity. The bout quickly ended due to injury, with Minner seemingly coming in severely compromised.

The suspicious betting and the subsequent investigation came just days after the UFC banned fighters and their teams from betting on fights.

Krause is also now involved in a separate issue, with his former pupil Megan Anderson airing some dirty laundry, and slamming how she was coached for her title bout against Amanda Nunes. In a since deleted tweet, Anderson claimed that Krause played favorites in the gym, and didn’t put much effort in training her for the biggest fight of her life.

She also says that Krause never helped with picking training partners or coming up with a game plan.

“When you only received 1 x 30min pad session a week for the entire 7 months I was I camp and received no other individual coaching, no one picking my training partners/rounds or even coaching me through those rounds the entire time, when no matter how many times I asked to sit down and talk about a game plan an excuse was always given for it to never happen then its not throwing them under the bus… its saying exactly what happened,” Anderson wrote in a tweet that has since been deleted.

“Now Brandon (Moreno) had a personalized session every single day, whenever he traveled for the UFC Spanish broadcast the coach travelled with him to make sure he had personalized training at all times,” she wrote about Krause. “If you’re telling me that just 1 x 30mins pad session a week is enough for a world title fight against the greatest female fighter of all time is enough coaching then you’re delusional.”

Anderson, who has since retired from MMA and is now with ESPN, also had a couple of follow up tweets about it.

Krause, who is in the middle of other controversies, has remained silent about this issue. But it was Anderson’s former teammate, Jeff Molina has since responded with more accusations in what quickly turned personal and ugly.

The UFC flyweight, who has “MMA gambling degenerate” on his twitter bio, claimed that Anderson is lazy and has an “alcohol problem.” He also said Anderson hurt lower level training partners in the gym.

“This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Way to wait until MMA twitter is trashing JK for his fighter fighting injured just like 90% of fighters do just cause u want some Twitter clout,” Molina wrote.

“I was there your entire training camp for Nunes. You sat out 99% of the live rds, you would ask your training partners “jokingly” to let you win the rd, you were the laziest training partner always talking about how tired you were 5min into drilling, you would intentionally hurt training partners who were new and had an obvious skill gap (you broke a soccer moms nose in probably one of the few rds of sparring you did outside of practice), you have an alcohol problem and we’re sloshed a month and a half before your title fight, you burned bridges with every single person in the gym including the front desk guy because of how much of a head case you are. Don’t forget how Krause talked you off the ledge before every fight and how complimentary you were of him for changing your career and life.

“You lose one fight and now evervthing changes? Take some accountability for yourself. You lost that fight the second you signed the dotted line-look in the mirror that’s why you lost that fight.”

If that wasn’t personal and ugly enough, Anderson also implied that Krause allegedly had an affair with UFC commentator Laura Sanko, who used to be her co-host on a podcast that ended in 2019.

Anderson, a former Invicta FC champ, retired after losing her UFC title shot against Amanda Nunes in 2021. She left fighting with an 11-5 MMA record, and now serves as an analyst and commentator for ESPN and other outlets.

Former heavyweight champ vs current UFC lightweight champ?

For years, Khabib Nurmagomedov was notorious for outwrestling far bigger training partners in the gym. Could his heir to the throne also earn that mantle?

Newly crowned UFC lightweight champ Islam Makhachev recently posted a video with him taking on former heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, and claiming his wrestling is better.

“Finally, everyone will find out the truth, who’s wrestling is better. I warned you DC Make sure watch the video guys,” Makhachev wrote.

The short clip shows a playful training session, with Makhachev taking down the much heavier Cormier.

Cormier has since responded to Islam’s post, claiming the footage was doctored.

“Don’t buy the video,” Cormier responded on ESPN. “First off, Makhachev has the greatest video editors of all time! Because yes, he did get points there, he got four points there in wrestling.

“But Ryan (Clark), he didn’t put the rest of the match! If you scroll through those videos, there’s a guy named Romero Cotton that was the official, he was scoring the points. By the end of the match, I was the guy with my hand raised! I won the match!”

We found the longer clip of the training session, which was originally posted two years ago, long before Makhachev became champion. It was a light and playful session, with Cormier talking trash and calling Makhachev a “JV” level wrestler. Cormier wasn’t at all serious and was going very light, but for what it’s worth, it doesn’t quite end up the same way as either guy described.

Sean O’Malley has started a rumor about former two-division champion Henry Cejudo being broke and desperate.

Sean O’Malley has started a rumor concerning former two-division champion Henry Cejudo, stating that he’s broke and desperate to unretire.

“I heard from someone close to Henry that he’s got like $37 in the bank and he’s literally just trying to do anything to get some money and trying to book a fight,” O’Malley said on The MMA Hour.

O’Malley brought up these alleged money issues again later in the interview, when discussing T.J. Dillashaw fighting at the same card with a badly injured shoulder.

“I don’t know why (Dillashaw) would go into a fight that high level and fight for a title, when you’re that compromised. Unless you’re hurting like Henry, and you need some extra cheddar. That’s the only thing I could think of. I like TJ, I don’t mind the guy, but I don’t understand why you’re going through with that fight.”

At the end of the day, O’Malley believes the next title fight that should be booked is him vs Aljamain Sterling, which the champion seems to agree on.

“I don’t know, Henry’s like opening main card, co-main event kind of a dude. Even if him and Aljo go fight it’ll be some co-main event on some card,” O’Malley said. “It’s just hard to say. I feel like every time we talk about this guy, it’s like is he actually coming back? I don’t know, I don’t really put much thought into that.

“I can’t imagine them wanting that Aljo vs Henry — like does anybody really want that? I don’t really see (UFC) being like ‘oh we want this,’” O’Malley said. “I really am the money fight, as far as if we’re trying to sell pay-per-views. I’ll obviously do five times whatever Henry would do.”

According to O’Malley he will also need to sit down with the UFC and get a new deal before anything else.

“I want to sit down and renegotiate my contract too because I’ve been in a lot of big pay-per-views. I know where I stand as far as selling pay-per-views,” O’Malley said. “Some people, I get it, I understand why they’re not getting pay-per-view points, but I should be.”

It’s worth noting that Cejudo being linked to a possible bout against Sterling could be enough reason for the current number one ranked bantamweight in O’Malley to start this rumor and campaign for a title shot. That being said it’s not hard to imagine finances being a primary motivating factor for Cejudo’s return.

Cejudo pretty much admitted that retiring as a two-division champion was a negotiation tactic to get more money, but unfortunately for him, it just didn’t pan out. UFC has largely ignored his pleas, even after years of constantly calling everyone out from three divisions, and returning to the USADA testing pool. He still doesn’t have a fight booked, but by the time he returns, it’ll probably be three years since his last bout — and last fight purse.

It’s also interesting to see if UFC will also cave to O’Malley’s demands for pay-per-view points, or if those negotiations will also put him on ice and open up an avenue for Cejudo to jump the line and actually come back for real.

Jake Paul vs Anderson Silva sales weren’t as big as they expected.

Jake Paul may have gotten more respect after notching the biggest win of his career by beating Anderson Silva, but the event did not sell as much as he would have liked.

“It’s weird. Halloween, world series, Sunday football — this is the worst time of the year to fight, but guess what, I had to fight,” Paul said on his brother Logan Paul’s podcast.

“All my fights from now on will be in the summer. There’s no sports. There’s like this perfect gap in July slash early August where there’s no sports. And by the way, all of my other fights were during COVID, when no one had anything to do, anything to watch.”

Paul gave a low buy rate estimate for his bout against the UFC legend. He says the timing wasn’t good but he had to fight after losing money marketing and promoting two events already that were both cancelled.

“I had to fight this year. I had to get it f—ng done, bro. I’m sick and tired of waiting around,” he said. “Not only did I make zero (this year before the fight), I lost like millions of dollars just running a goddamn organization with 15 employees.

“I don’t (know the official PPV buyrate yet). I think it’ll probably go around like 200 to 300,000, really which is kind of upsetting,” he said.

Paul believes the fallout from Silva’s comments about getting “knocked out” in training hurt both the PPV and ticket sales.

“The pre-buys were going crazy up up, and one Wednesday when the news came out about Anderson saying he got knocked out or whatever, and the fight was in jeopardy and all this press came out, the pre-buys tanked all the way down,” he said.

“The general public sees that and thinks like ‘oh it’s not happening.’ Tommy pulled out, Hasim pulled out. ‘Oh, Jake f—ng Paul can’t get an event together. This is done.’ It killed ticket sales. We were still selling, then that day, everything went to zero.”

Apart from the other sports Paul mentioned, his fight happened on the same day as a UFC event, and two other important boxing events that featured the biggest female boxing star in Katie Taylor, and the return of Vasiliy Lomachenko.

If his estimate is accurate, 200-300K PPV buys would actually be pretty respectable, considering the schedule and how heavyweight star Deontay Wilder’s bout reportedly drew a measly 75,000 buys just two weeks prior. It does show though that Paul still isn’t a surefire “must watch” and draw just yet.

The Paul-Silva bout reached a lot of mainstream and casual fight fans and clearly generated a lot of buzz online — far more than most recent UFC cards — and it’ll probably the same if he does book a similar high profile opponent next. But social media and online traffic doesn’t always translate to PPV buys, and it’ll be on Paul and his team’s to find a way to convince those people to actually shell out $60 for his next fights.

Silva is a UFC legend, but perhaps this is why Paul is looking to book a bigger attraction in Nate Diaz next, who has been a proven draw both as the A-side and the B-side.

Join us for Kenshiro Teraji vs Hiroto Kyoguchi.

Tuesday night in Japan, the Saitama Super Arena will host what’s arguably the biggest boxing event this month. Kenshiro Teraji will take on Hiroto Kyoguchi in a light flyweight (108 lbs) title unification, with the WBC, WBA and Ring titles on the line.

Kyoguchi, who holds the WBA and Ring light flyweight titles, became a two division champion in just his 12th fight, and is now 16-0. The WBC champ Teraji is 19-1, with him recently avenging his only loss by knocking out Masamichi Yabuki last March.

Another light flyweight title bout is also on the stacked card, with Jonathan Gonzalez defending his WBO belt against undefeated Shokichi Iwata.

Join us live starting at 4:30 a.m. ET, with the main event expected around 6:50 a.m. ET.

How to watch: The card can be streamed live on ESPN+ for USA, DAZN for Europe, Amazon Prime Video for Japan.

Full fight card and results:

Kenshiro Teraji def. Hiroto Kyoguchi by TKO, R7 [WBC, WBA, Ring light flyweight titles]

Jonathan Gonzalez def. Shokichi Iwata by unanimous decision (117-111, 116-112 x2) [WBO light flyweight title]

Junto Nakatani def. Francisco Rodriguez Jr by unanimous decision

Shuichiro Yoshino def. Masayoshi Nakatani by TKO, R6

Who’s next for Jake Paul?

Jake Paul got the biggest win of his career, knocking down Anderson Silva in the final round and winning a well earned decision.

Perhaps it was Father Time finally catching up to the 47-year-old UFC legend, old habits showing up, or a bit of both, but Silva again spent too much time being tentative or playing to the crowd. Like many of his past MMA fights, Silva’s output was way too low and he just waited for long stretches, giving up important rounds even when he had clear advantages in many areas.

Every time Silva pressed and put Paul on his back foot, he looked like the much more technical and more complete boxer, despite lacking that pro boxing experience on paper. Unfortunately, he didn’t do that enough, and sat in the middle of the ring and unnecessarily allowed Paul to play his game.

Maybe it was age and his body not being able to keep that pace up, but Silva lacked urgency and only tried to pressure forward in spurts. Paul didn’t really get to truly impose his game, as much as Silva just decided to fight his kind of fight, but to his credit, Paul did very well every time he got — or was given — those chances. He was obviously more comfortable from distance, and when Silva engaged him there, Paul was able to rack up his punch count, bloody his nose, and take pivotal rounds.

Maybe it was also a good sign of late fight adjustments, but that the knockdown at the end was actually from an exchange on the inside, landing a right as Silva was trying to break away. I’m not sure about the two other wide scores, but Paul clearly deserved that hard fought decision.

As expected, the YouTuber turned boxer still clearly has a lot to improve on — like his footwork, inside-fighting, and even his basic composure when he fights off his back foot — but he passed an important test at this point of his young career.

• Paul probably deserves a good step up next, but I’m not sure he will get it. They’re already hyping up a future bout against UFC superstar Nate Diaz, which will be a much more lucrative show than this, but I’m not sure if it will actually be a harder fight.
• Askren and Woodley were both undersized against Paul, but Diaz has even fought a division lower than them both. Diaz will be the much smaller man, which means Paul’s power will probably translate better than it did against Silva here. Even with his toughness and historically good chin, I’m not sure if a past-prime Diaz can still push a high pace against the larger, younger opponent. I do hope he gets that payday though.
• UFC vet Uriah Hall was on the undercard, and while he also had spurts of tentativeness that he (and Silva) have both been criticized for before, he did pitch a shutout. Hall won his pro boxing debut, taking all four rounds against NFL vet Le’Veon Bell. He then called out Jake Paul, but without a highlight reel finish and with more lucrative match ups available, I’m not sure why the YouTuber would accept it.