Author: Dan Hiergesell

Paulo Costa is the newest member of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) roster to express his desire to box. Like most of his peers, Costa’s potential combat crossover is fueled by money.

Costa, who began his professional MMA career with a 13-0 record, is widely regarded as one of the best power punchers in the sport today. However, Costa’s ability to knock people dead hasn’t helped him over his last two fights, which resulted in losses to current UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and perennial contender Marvin Vettori. A badly botched weight cut before his last trip to the Octagon certainly didn’t help his UFC stock either.

With so many fighters expressing their interest to move over to boxing it isn’t surprising to see Costa’s name pop up. The Brazilian fighter already had issues with UFC over pay back in 2021. He even refused to fight in a main event because he wasn’t being paid enough money. Add in the recent weight issues and Costa is a prime candidate to jump ship when his UFC contract is up.

“Boxing is in now. It’s a new opportunity. It’s just something to consider for now. I’m still under contract with the UFC, so I can’t really do anything. First, I have to finish the contract,” said Costa during a recent interview with Ag Fight.

That said, Costa understands the risk of leaving a massive promoter like UFC in favor of the unknown boxing landscape. UFC may not pay its fighters enough, but a knockout specialist like Costa will be promoted beyond belief as a member of the massive MMA promotion. It’s not necessarily something “Borrachinha” would get fighting somewhere else even though the money may be better.

“This is a tough question to answer.” Paulo continued. “Boxing pays more, much more, in a shorter period of time. However, it doesn’t have the promoting power that the UFC has. The UFC pay is low, but they have a high promoting power. It’s ideal to have both. Take the best of both worlds. That’s what Ngannou did. He became an UFC champion with a really bad purse. Now he’s doing the right thing. He’s taking advantage of the fact that he’s at the top to get in a better financial situation, outside of the UFC.”

What do you think, fight fans? Do you want to see Costa compete inside of the boxing ring? How would he do?

Let’s hear it!

The upcoming Triad Combat 2 event set to go down on Feb. 26 live on Triller from inside Toyota Center in Houston, Tex., has been canceled due to rising COVID-19 concerns in the area. This is according to a recent report by Ariel Helwani.

MMA Junkie later confirmed the news and obtained the following statement from Triller regarding the cancelation:

“We made this hard decision out of an abundance of caution for the Fight Club athletes and fans of Triad and Jason Aldean. We determined that, given the current state of the Omicron virus, it was in our collective interest to postpone this large arena event. All tickets will be refunded and stay tuned for very exciting news for where and who will be fighting and rocking our next event!”

It is unknown at this time when and where Triller will reschedule Triad Combat 2, but it’s only a matter of time. The inaugural Triad Combat event took place this past November and produced some entertaining results (watch HERE).

This cancelation is bad news for all involved, but especially for former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos. “Cigano” was scheduled to compete in the main event against former boxing champion Kubrat Pulev, who just decimated Frank Mir back in November. It was supposed to be JDS’ first big fight since parting ways with UFC in 2021 and his soft introduction into the world of boxing.

The Triad Combat 2 card was also expected to feature the likes of Vitor Belfort, Jimmie Rivera, Sam Sicilia and Joe Schilling, who will now have to wait a little longer to get inside of the famed triangle.

Jon Jones is back to calling his own shots and this time it revolves around former UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic.

After vacating his UFC light heavyweight title back in 2020 Jones planned to move to heavyweight for a potential superfight with Francis Ngannou. It was a dream matchup concocted in combat heaven, but contract negotiations and legal troubles for Jones ultimately slowed down his move to heavyweight.

Ngannou, on the other hand, tried to stay active and is now coming off his first official UFC heavyweight title defense after beating rival Ciryl Gane at UFC 270. The victory helped solidify Ngannou as the best heavyweight fighter in the world today, but he is now running the course with his own UFC contract negotiations and that could take forever. Not to mention the injured ACL/MCL that could keep “Predator” sidelined through all of 2022.

With Ngannou no longer a relevant option for his heavyweight debut Jones is now turning his attention to Miocic. While Miocic doesn’t hold the undisputed UFC heavyweight title he’s clearly the next best thing. Miocic is widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight of all time and easily has one of the best resumes in the history of the division.

Jones indirectly called Miocic out during a Twitter post on Friday (shown below):

“The greatest heavyweight of all time versus the greatest light heavyweight, who wants to see it? I’m game.”

Ironically, Jones’ biggest rival, former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, called for this matchup just this past week. With Ngannou out for potentially the next 10 months and Jones needing a big name for his long-awaited heavyweight debut it makes sense to bring Miocic back into the mix.

Miocic, who is coming off a devastating title loss to Ngannou at UFC 260 in Mar. 2021, deserves a high-profile fight against Jones at this point in his career. The 39-year-old former champion may only have a few fights left in the tank so it’s only fitting that Miocic gets another big-time opponent for his return to the Octagon.

All of that said, Jones still needs to get with the UFC and figure out how he’s going to be properly compensated moving forward. “Bones” wasn’t too happy about his paychecks before he vacated his light heavyweight strap so that’s probably something both parties need to figure out before any matchups are booked.

What say you, Maniacs? Is Jones vs. Miocic the fight to make?

Sound off!

Newly-minted UFC women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Pena will be going back to her roots when she coaches the upcoming season of “The Ultimate Fighter” opposite former UFC double champ Amanda Nunes.

MMA reporter Ariel Helwani was first to report Pena and Nunes as the frontrunners to coach the 30th season of TUF, but more details were made available on Friday. According to MMA Junkie, Pena and Nunes will coach teams comprised of four women’s flyweights and four men’s heavyweights. Filming is expected to begin later this month in Las Vegas.

Pena, who won her own season of TUF back in 2013, made an appearance on “Ellen” on Friday to discuss her upcoming coaching stint and what it means to her to return to the show that sparked her MMA stardom.

“I was the first (woman) to (win) on that show, ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ I won the whole season,” Pena said. “I’m going to now be giving back to these young fighters. I am going to be the coach on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ for this next season coming up. Amanda will be coaching alongside me. So it will be me and Amanda’s teams. It’ll be my team vs. Amanda’s team and then at the end of the season, we’re going to rematch.”

In case you forgot, Pena is coming off a legendary upset win over Nunes back at UFC 269 this past December. She was a massive underdog, but ended up submitting “Lioness” and snapping her incredible 12-fight win streak in the process. The two women are expected to meet in a highly-anticipated rematch later this year following the conclusion of TUF. Nunes will likely be a heavy betting favorite yet again considering she is recognized as the greatest female fighter of all time.

Late Friday, UFC.com revealed the contestants for the upcoming TUF season. Check them out below:

Men’s Heavyweights

Nyle Bartling | 29 | 6-0 | Unadilla, NE

Chandler Cole | 27 | 8-3 | Coeburn, VA

Jordan Heiderman | 30 | 5-0 | Norfolk, NE

Bobby Maximus | 43 | 5-4 | Salt Lake City, UT

Zac Pauga | 33 | 5-0 | Denver, CO

Eduardo Perez | 27 | 4-1 | Berkeley, CA

Mitchell Sipe | 25 | 5-2 | Bakersfield, CA

Mohammed Usman | 32 | 7-2 | Denver, CO

Women’s Flyweights

Chantel Coates | 34 | 2-1 | Leavenworth, KS

Claire Guthrie | 26 | 3-1 | Denver, CO

Juliana Miller | 25 | 2-1 | San Diego, CA

Kaytlin Neil | 30 | 5-4 | Lindon, UT

Kathryn Paprocki | 28 | 3-2 | Denver, CO

Melissa Parker | 35 | 2-1 | Houston, TX

Helen Peralta | 33 | 4-2 | Fairfield, IA

Brogan Walker | 32 | 7-2 | Guam

Francis Ngannou retained his UFC heavyweight title last night (Sat., Jan. 22, 2022) at UFC 270 live on ESPN+ PPV from inside Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., when “Predator” outlasted Ciryl Gane in the main event with wrestling and grappling. Also, Deiveson Figueiredo won back his UFC flyweight title with a unanimous decision win over Brandon Moreno in the co-main event (highlights HERE)

In addition to the two title fights, UFC 270 delivered in waves from start to finish. It may not have been the most stacked PPV card to spark 2022, but the action was memorable to say the least. Check it out below:

• Women’s strawweight prospect Vanessa Demopoulos pulled off an incredible comeback submission to stop Silvana Gomez Juarez (highlights HERE)
• Matt Frevola scored four devastating knockdowns before stopping lightweight newcomer Genaro Valdez via first-round TKO
• Australian prospect Jack Della Maddalena banked an impressive TKO finish in his Octagon debut in a matchup with Pete Rodriguez (watch HERE)
• Welterweight newcomer Michael Morales scored a brutal TKO finish over former middleweight Trevin Giles
• Said Nurmagomedov put the UFC’s bantamweight division on high alert with his 47-second submission win over Cody Stamann

In order to sift through the action and see which fighters took home a cool $50,000, we take a closer look at the official UFC 270 post-fight bonus winners below:

• Fight of the Night: Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno
• Performance of the Night: Said Nurmagomedov
• Performance of the Night: Vanessa Demopoulos

For complete UFC 270 results and coverage click here.

Francis Ngannou may not have finished Ciryl Gane last night (Sat., Jan. 22, 2022) at UFC 270 live on ESPN+ PPV from inside Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., but the UFC heavyweight champion showed new levels to his game en route to a unanimous decision win.

Both heavyweights picked their shots in the early going. Ngannou was patient with his power punches and even utilized some crisp knees in the clinch. Gane was able to move around the cage with ease and evade most of Ngannou’s advancements. Gane really started to tag Ngannou to the body in the second as the champion fought flat-footed and reserved. “Bon Gamin” was flowing with his strikes and never put himself in range of one of Ngannou’s power shots. He even found a home for a spinning wheel kick.

The third round saw Ngannou display new levels to his game. He was able to slam Gane for a takedown and then control the fight on the ground. The champion also landed a nice throw once the action returned to the feet. Ngannou went back to the well late into the round to end the frame on top again.

Gane continued to try to chip away in the fourth before Ngannou took him down two more times. Ngannou didn’t do a ton of damage, but he was beginning to rack up the top time and control the flow of action. Gane came out firing in the fifth round and struck with a little more urgency. “Bon Gamin” then landed his own takedown and had Ngannou on his back. Gane tried to go for multiple leg locks, but it allowed Ngannou to transition and get back to full mount to ride out the round and seal his victory.

Check out the full fight video highlights below:

For complete UFC 270 results and coverage click here.