Author: Anton Tabuena

This is UFC 285 in a few short tweets.

UFC 285 is in the books, and it saw two new champions crowned.

Jon Jones was triumphant in his long overdue heavyweight debut, submitting Ciryl Gane really early and making it look easy. Make no mistake, Francis Ngannou is still the lineal champion and deserves to be ranked higher, but Jones had an impressive return to competition after a long layoff and made quick work of the number two (or three) heavyweight.

In the co-main event, Alexa Grasso pulled off an insane upset as she came back to submit the long dominant champion in Valentina Shevchenko. As she won the belt and ended that historic title reign, Grasso became the third Mexican UFC champion now.

Below, we analyze the pros and cons of each of the key bouts, with a quick twitter thread that’s short and fitting for people’s social media era attention spans:

And that’s about it. For more social media musings, follow me on twitter over at @antontabuena, and of course you should do that for Bloody Elbow’s official twitter account as well.

It’s fight week, and this is what Jon Jones will look like in the cage.

After over a decade of him teasing it, Jon Jones will finally make the move up to heavyweight, as he takes on Ciryl Gane at UFC 285

The former light heavyweight champion spent the last three years pretty much showing off his powerlifting and talking about his physique at heavyweight. During his “bulking phase” Jones said he “can’t wait for you all to see your boy in actual fight shape.”

Fight prep is done and it’s UFC 285 fight week, so it seems like that day has come.

After a portrait shoot wearing his UFC fight kits, we now have a pretty good idea of how Jones will actually look during his heavyweight debut on Saturday.

Below are before and after photos of Jones taking similar studio poses as a light heavyweight during his last bout in 2020, and now three years later as a heavyweight in 2023.

You can also check out more of the studio photos from Jones as a heavyweight below:

Jones, now 35, hasn’t fought since a controversial decision win over Dominick Reyes in 2020. The former light heavyweight champion has a record of 26-1 with 1 no contest, and recently said that he was “chosen by god himself to be an undefeated fighter.”

The highly anticipated fight has been officially announced.

After all the talk and a lot of negotiations, undefeated boxing stars Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia are officially set to fight.

Both boxers along with their respective broadcast partners all made the official announcements on social media, noting how the fight will happen on April 22 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Garcia also noted that it will be a joint PPV event with Showtime and DAZN.

With these two young, undefeated, and very popular hard hitters, it’s not only an intriguing bout in the lighter weights, it’s also one of the biggest fights to be made in boxing overall right now.

Garcia is only 24, with the interim WBC lightweight champ also finding success at super lightweight in his most recent bout against Javier Fortuna. That last KO win improved the popular boxer’s record to 23-0.

The also undefeated Davis is 28-years-old, with the former Mayweather protege being known for his impressive KO power after finishing 26 of his 28 opponents.

Both men have each fought at 140 lbs once — Garcia’s last bout in 2022, and Davis’ 2021 win, before he dropped back down to 135 lbs — but this super-fight will reportedly be at a catchweight at 136 lbs.

Although it hasn’t really affected his previous fights, Davis has had multiple legal troubles as of late, involving him pleading guilty to a hit-and-run incident, and a domestic violence arrest that had the accusations later walked back by the woman. Davis is scheduled to be sentenced on May 5, which would be two weeks after this scheduled bout against Garcia.

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About the author: Anton Tabuena is the Managing Editor for Bloody Elbow. He’s been covering MMA and combat sports since 2009, and has also fought in MMA, Muay Thai and kickboxing. (full bio)

Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz next?

Jake Paul still has to fight Tommy Fury this weekend, but he already has his next opponent in mind. According to the YouTuber turned boxer, his next fight will likely be a big one against UFC superstar and new free agent Nate Diaz.

“I think (Nate Diaz’s team is) ready. I’m getting through Sunday (against Tommy Fury) and we’re gonna line that one up ASAP. I think that’s next,” Paul said on the MMA Hour. “Probably mid-year, maybe sometime summer.

“I think that’s what the fans want, and that’s who I want. There’s been a lot of back and forth, we’ve said our stuff, but it’s time to get down to business,” he said.

Paul, who previously said he’d fight Diaz both in boxing and MMA, claims he’s actually serious about the idea.

“I want to do one fight boxing, one fight MMA, but I’m not sure if Nate’s team is like fully aligned on that yet. Or I don’t know if they realize how serious I am about that,” Paul said. “I think they thought I was just doing it for hype, but I’m dead ass.”

Paul is 6-0 in boxing and will be a lot younger at 26-years-old, while the 37-year-old Diaz is 21-13 in MMA. Before any of that can happen though, Paul still has to handle business this Sunday, when he finally faces the 8-0 Fury in Saudi Arabia.

It was David vs Goliath in Spain.

We’ve seen quite a number of freakshow fights and open weight matches throughout MMA history, and that tradition continued in Barcelona, Spain.

Friday night, in a promotion aptly called “Dogfight Wild Tournament,” the Spanish MMA promotion put on a David vs Goliath bout. It was a 5-foot-4 flyweight in Raymison “Formiga” Bruno taking on a much bigger 6-foot-6 heavyweight Roger “Goliat” Dalet.

Formiga has a 12-4 record, while Dalet is a basketball player that doesn’t have any pro bouts, at least on his online record.

Could that significant skill advantage overcome an insane amount of size and strength?

It was a hilarious visual seeing two men with such a big size difference, but on this occasion, skill beat size. Formiga closed the distance, took him down, and dominated on the mat against a strong, but clueless opponent on the ground.

Watch video of the fight below, courtesy of the inimitable Caposa:

Although it won’t be on their official records as it was an exhibition match, Formiga won the match by armbar at 3:16 mark of the very first round.

Can Nonito Donaire become world champion again?

Back in 2021, Nonito Donaire became the oldest to win a bantamweight world championship, at age 38. Can he keep fending off Father Time and beat his own record at age 40?

The legendary four-division champion has been stopping fighters much younger than him in recent years, and only lost his WBC title after running into Naoya Inoue again, who is arguably the pound-for-pound fighter today.

After Inoue became a rare undisputed world champion by winning every single bantamweight world title in 2022, the undefeated Japanese knockout artist decided to move up a division and vacate all his titles. As the sanctioning bodies try to shape the post-Inoue landscape at bantamweight, Donaire will get another opportunity at winning a world title.

With Donaire being the WBC’s number one ranked bantamweight, Mauricio Sulaiman announced that they have given approval to have the 40-year-old Filipino star get a shot at their vacant title. Donaire will face Alexandro Santiago on a date yet to be determined.

Filipino Reymart Gaballo will also take on Thailand’s Nawaphon Kaikanha in a bout that will likely determine the next challenger for that WBC belt.

As for the rest of the titles Inoue vacated, our friends over at Bad Left Hook summed up what’s next:

Takuma Inoue will face Liborio Solis for the WBA belt on April 8th.

The IBF has ordered the aforementioned Rodriguez to fight Vincent Astrolabio, the latter of whom recently burst onto the international stage with an upset of Guillermo Rigondeaux.

Moloney, Astrolabio, and Rodriguez are the top three WBO contenders, followed by Gaballo. If Astrolabio elects to fight Rodriguez and Gaballo goes the WBC route, Melvin Lopez would be next in line.

Donaire, 40, is 42-7 in his Hall of Fame-worthy career. His next opponent, Santiago, is only 27-years-old and is fresh off a stoppage win over Antonio Nieves that improved his overall record to 27-3-5.