Author: Anton Tabuena

It was more like a real fight.

Floyd Mayweather’s return to Japan and Rizin produced another knockout. Once again billed as an exhibition, Mikuru Asakura and Floyd Mayweather treated it like a real fight instead.

Asakura landed a few clean shots early that got Mayweather to smile and take it more seriously. The undefeated boxer turned it up in the next round though. As Asakura tried to get aggressive, Mayweather flipped the script. He landed flush and dropped Asakura with a right hand in the second round. The Japanese fighter was wobbly and clearly hurt as he tried to get back to his feet, prompting the referee to stop the fight.

“I’m happy that we were able to give the fans excitement tonight. Thanks for having me. I’ll be back,” Mayweather said after the fight.

His former rival Manny Pacquiao was also in attendance, hinting at a possible future rematch between the two.

Watch videos from the three round exhibition fight below:

Watch Shakur Stevenson vs Robson Conceicao highlights.

Shakur Stevenson looked good on his bout against Robson Conceicao on Friday night, in Newark New Jersey. Unfortunately his weigh-in snafu sucked some of the air from the contest and his performance.

Stevenson won a pretty one-sided decision, getting scores of 117-109, 117-109, and 118-108 after a dominant performance. That wide scores even included a point deduction for Stevenson’s illegal takedown during the ninth round.

Instead of notching another successful title defense though, Stevenson was forced to vacate his WBC, WBO and Ring titles after missing weight the day prior.

The 25-year-old Stevenson now says he will move up a division and that “everybody at 135 gonna get it. Anybody.”

With the victory, Stevenson improved his unblemished record to 19-0. He’ll have a lot of interesting potential match ups at lightweight against stars such as Devin Haney, Vasyl Lomachenko, George Kambosos Jr and others.

Check below for highlights from the Stevenson vs Conceicao bout:

Kevin Holland made a surprise retirement announcement.

Kevin Holland caught fans off guard on Thursday, after suddenly announcing that he has “retired.”

Along with a peace sign emoji, the UFC welterweight posted a photo on Instagram that wrote “Had a good run. 30 in a little over a month. Got paid, I’m out.” He even polled his followers asking what his “next career choice” should be.

Holland also followed up with an Instagram story that wrote “Retired before 30.”

Holland said he got paid well for the last minute switch at UFC 279 that had him facing Khamzat Chimaev on a day’s notice. So if this retirement actually sticks, then he just might have played the game well. This is prizefighting after all, and the goal should be to get in, get paid, and get out before it’s too late.

That being said, retirements in combat sports are often temporary, and this just feels like it could get walked back earlier than most.

As he alluded to, Holland will only turn 30 on November 5.

He just lost what he called a “grappling match” with Chimaev, and then he called for a bout with Stephen Thompson about a week before this announcement.

Holland has a record of 23-8 with one No Contest. He currently holds the UFC record for most wins in a calendar year after notching five victories in 2020.

Khamzat Chimaev’s teammate responded to Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Khabib Nurmagomedov recently criticized Khamzat Chimaev for his infamous botched weight cut that forced several last minute changes to UFC 279. The retired former UFC champion questioned Chimaev’s team, saying he badly needs more Muslims around him, especially now that he’s becoming “famous and rich.”

“If you are a Muslim, you should have good people around you – Muslims who can say: ‘Hey, don’t do this,’” Nurmagomedov said. “I followed what was happening with his weight and looked at his team. There are no Muslims around him and this is very bad. Because if you are a Muslim, you need good, strong people around you. [They] will say: “Come back, do this.”

Chimaev’s longtime teammate Reza Madadi has since posted a lengthy response to those comments. The UFC veteran and fellow Muslim respectfully shot down Khabib’s points in an Instagram post:

“Dear @khabib_nurmagomedov , my muslim brother ?? ,” Madadi wrote. “Firstly I would like say I have a huge respect for you as an athlete and for all your achievements in our beloved sport of MMA. I am also very proud of how you represent our religion, belief and God in all your interviews and appearances.

“But, I would like to give my point on your opinion on @khamzat_chimaev not having a muslim team around him and that was supposed to be the reason of him missing the weight. I have to disagree with you on this part.

“Not only have Khamzat had muslim friends and teammates such as me around him from day 1, but also from many other religions and backgrounds, The have been people that have been with him from the start, giving him love, sharing blood, sweat and joy and done everything to bring him to where he is now.”

Madadi went on to say that having a specific religion won’t make anyone perfect, and also pointed out how Khabib himself had numerous issues with weight cuts in the past.

“Being a muslim doesn’t mean we are perfect and flawless, trust me, I have done many mistakes in my life as many people know. With all due respect, so have you,” Madadi wrote.

“So mentioning having muslim team will make you perfect, I have to disagree, having a team that cares about you. in good times and bad times, no matter what belief or religion they have is far more important. And that is something Khamzat has.

“There are several issues that made Khamzat miss the weight but those reasons stay in the team. But he is still young and he will learn from his mistakes,” he wrote. “If a big Champion like you, did learn from your mistake when you missed weight, I have no doubt that our brother Khamzat will do as well.”

Tom Hardy won gold again in back-to-back BJJ competitions.

Tom Hardy won gold in a jiujitsu competition last August. Less than a month later, he did it again.

After winning in both gi and no gi last month, the famous actor quietly entered another event in England last weekend, as he signed up at the 2022 UMAC Milton Keynes BJJ Open. Hardy joined the Blue Belt Masters 3 division (for those over 40) at 82.3 kg.

He won gold again just two days after his 45th birthday.

Hardy’s division had five competitors in total, with three others getting a “bye” during the bracket draws and being automatically slotted in the semifinals. This meant that the three other competitors would only need two wins to take gold, while the 45-year-old actor needed three.

That extra match didn’t seem to have bothered him much, as Hardy went on to beat all three opponents to take home another gold medal. The actor beat Krzysztof Golinski, Gavin Marsh and Andy Leatherland, impressively submitting all three and without a single point being scored against him.

Watch his last two matches below, where he pulled off a bow and arrow choke in the semi-finals, and a straight footlock in the finals to win gold:

With two events in less than a month, Hardy was able to get three golds after seven matches and seven submission wins.

Hardy reportedly started training sporadically after his role in the 2011 MMA movie Warrior, before taking it more seriously in recent years. He is currently a four stripe blue belt in jiujitsu, but after his recent success in actual competition, we could see The Dark Knight Rises and Peaky Blinders star get promoted to purple belt soon.

The actor currently has several upcoming projects lined up, including starring roles in the third installment of Venom and the Netflix movie Havoc.

Headlining ADCC 2022 was Gordon Ryan vs Andre Galvao.

In a super-fight years in the making, Gordon Ryan and Andre Galvao faced each other to cap off the ADCC 2022 event. After all the talk online — and even a few slaps and altercations — it finally happened.

Galvao, who is turning 40 this month, is one of the all-time greats, with five IBJJF world championships and six ADCC titles. He faced a much younger opponent that’s in his prime, in the 27-year-old Ryan, who has been unbeaten in the last four years. The brash and loud American came in as a four-time ADCC champion, after winning the +99 kg division earlier in the day.

It was a legend vs today’s most dominant grappler, and it was the latter who came up on top.

Ryan held top control early, and immediately moved to a more dominant position right at the halfway mark of the match, once points started to count. Ryan eventually took the back, and once he got there, he kept switching the body lock from side to side, making sure to rack up points. He was up 12-0, and had Galvao’s arm trapped for several minutes as he kept hunting for the rear naked choke.

With four minutes left to go, Ryan sunk it in deeper, completed the choke and forced Galvao to tap.

With the victory, Ryan capped his incredible run this week with two titles, for his fifth in ADCC championship.

Check here for full results from the ADCC 2022 event. Any and all highlight clips from the match will be updated and put below.