Author: Dan Hiergesell

Reinier de Ridder continued his UFC takeover earlier tonight (Sat., Jan. 18, 2025) at UFC 311 live on ESPN+ pay-per-view (PPV) from inside Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, Calif., as the former ONE Championship double champion submitted veteran Kevin Holland with a first-round rear-naked choke.

If de Ridder was going to win this fight it was going to be with his submissions, but he needed to get Holland to the ground first. Luckily for “RDR,” it didn’t take him that long to secure a nice takedown and start to implement his ground game. Holland possesses good scrambling ability and sneaky submission of his own, but de Ridder is in a different league at 185 pounds.

The Dutch veteran eventually got a hold of Holland’s back and worked for the rear-naked choke. De Ridder snuck his arm under Holland’s chin and squeezed to force the tap. It was a nice performance considering Holland has only been submitted twice before in his lengthy UFC career.

Check out the video highlights below:

De Ridder, 34, was fairly hyped when he made his debut in late 2024 and he’s delivered on arrival. This is his second-straight submission finish over a battle-tested UFC veteran and more than enough to earn himself a shot at the top 15 next. UFC matchmakers may even throw “RDR” to the wolves with someone in the top 10. Either way, de Ridder is a sneaky contender to watch out for in 2025.

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For complete UFC 311 results, coverage, and highlights click HERE.

Former UFC welterweight title challenger Darren Till delivered the goods in his professional boxing debut earlier tonight (Sat., Jan 18, 2025) at Misfits Boxing 20 live on DAZN pay-per-view (PPV) from inside Co-op Live in Manchester, England, stopping combat veteran Anthony Taylor with a sixth-round TKO (punches).

Till, who made his exhibition boxing debut in July 2024 with a second-round TKO win over Mohammad Mutie, hasn’t really found his footing since a departure from UFC back in early 2023. Moving over to Misfits Boxing was supposed to rejuvenate Till’s once-promising career. The former UFC fighter was originally booked to fight Tommy Fury tonight, but after the social media boxing pulled out it was Taylor who filled in.

While Taylor has been around for a while and has more boxing experience than Till he still came into Saturday’s main event a betting underdog. Due in part to his size and reach, Till was looking at a potentially easy night against Taylor, who is nowhere near the caliber of striker that Till is. As expected, Till had his way with Taylor from the opening bell and landed some really nice punches in the early rounds.

Till’s efforts would come full circle in the sixth round when he connected on a clean straight left. Taylor crashed into the ropes and fell to the ground. The referee immediately moved in and waved the fight off. It was a great finish by “The Gorilla” as he starts the new year off on a memorable note.

Check out the knockout sequence at the top of the page.

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For complete Misfits Boxing 20 results, coverage, and highlights click HERE.

Alex Pereira may not be competing in L.A. this weekend, but that didn’t stop the reigning UFC light heavyweight champion from having a face-to-face staredown with Russian social media personality, Hasbulla.

As UFC returns to pay-per-view (PPV) later tonight (Sat., Jan. 18, 2025) to stage UFC 311 live on ESPN+ PPV from inside Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, Calif., the combat stars have begun to show out. This includes Pereira and Hasbulla, who touched down earlier this week in advance to Saturday’s massive card. “Poatan” usually attends the bigger UFC events when he’s not headlining them and Hasbulla is in attendance to support UFC 311’s co-headliners, Islam Makhachev and Umar Nurmagomedov.

While Hasbulla has been known to square off with some of the top fighters and personalities in combat sports today, scoring a face off with “Poatan” seems like an unlikely scenario. That’s because Pereira is one of the most intimidating fighters on the UFC roster right now and someone who typically likes to keep things serious.

That all changed when Pereira and Hasbulla crossed paths backstage at UFC 311’s ceremonial weigh ins on Friday (replay HERE). They eventually came face-to-face for a tense (and very hilarious) staredown. A few seconds later Hasbulla headbutted Pereira and knocked the UFC light heavyweight champion to the ground. Pereira played it up and allowed the tiny Hasbulla a moment of victory.

Check it out below:

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MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 311 fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the early Disney+/FX/ESPN+ preliminary card matches at 6 p.m. ET, followed by the remaining four-fight undercard balance on Disney+/ESPNN/ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET, before the UFC 311 PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.

To check out the latest and greatest UFC 311: “Makhachev vs. Moicano” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here. For the updated and finalized UFC 311 fight card and PPV lineup click here.

Paddy Pimblett had his hands full this week as the UFC lightweight contender choked out a former Oktagon MMA fighter to settle a social media feud.

The brash English star has been on fire since entering UFC back in 2021. “Baddy” has produced an undefeated record of 6-0 and is coming off a huge submission finish over veteran Bobby Green at UFC 304 in July 2024. In turn, Pimblett’s success has made him one of the most popular fighters on the roster today, especially when it comes to European talent.

Earlier this week, Pimblett put his surging UFC career in danger to partake in a “smoker” showdown with a fighter he was beefing with on social media. It’s unknown at this time if this type of out-of-cage competition is prohibited under UFC contract, but Pimblett is running a risk either way. “Baddy” went toe-to-toe with former Oktagon MMA lightweight, Denis Frimpong.

Both fighters were wearing MMA gloves and protective shin guards, but they were going for the kill. Pimblett obviously had more to prove being a ranked UFC lightweight and luckily he was able to pull through. “Baddy” scored a takedown after a few minutes of standup and eventually worked his way towards back control. That’s when things nearly took a turn for the worse.

Pimblett would go on to find an opening for a rear-naked choke and took it. He started to squeeze and eventually forced Frimpong to tap, but Pimblett wasn’t letting go. Other gym members soon rushed in to yank him off before an all-out brawl could break loose on the mats. Check it out below and let us know your thoughts on Pimblett’s extracurricular activity:

UFC 311 takes place tonight (Sat., Jan. 18, 2025) in Inglewood (Los Angeles), Calif., from inside Intuit Dome, with the last-second, re-worked pay-per-view (PPV) main event between Lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev, and Top 10-ranked contender, Renato Moicano (Arman Tsarukyan-related injury details here).

And the dangerous Brazilian is, “ready to shock the world!”

In UFC 311’s pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event, Bantamweight roost-ruler, Merab Dvalishvili, defends his title against the formidable Umar Nurmagomedov, promising a battle of technique and power. UFC 311’s first event of the New Year will also feature the exciting Light Heavyweight clash between Jiri Prochazka vs. Jamahal Hill, as well as a Middleweight showdown between Kevin Holland vs. Reinier de Ridder.

All that and SO MUCH MORE!

UFC 311’s entire “Prelims” undercard will stream on ESPN+ (in English and Spanish), beginning at 6 p.m. ET / 3 p.m. PT before the PPV main card action kicks off at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT (also on ESPN+). Of course, UFC 311 odds and betting available at DraftKings Sportsbook.

MMAmania.com will deliver bell-to-bell results coverage of UFC 311 online LIVE all evening (late) night, including latest fight updates, fight recaps, video highlights, winners, losers, press conference streams and all the other post-fight fallout you can handle well into Sunday. Buckle up! We’ll have all the news that’s fit to print and much, much more. We’ve got UFC 311’s entire card — including “Prelims” undercard matches on ESPN+ — all covered below in our comprehensive story stream.

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Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 311 fight card right here, starting with the ESPN+/ESPNEWS “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET, before the main card start time at 10 p.m. ET (also on ESPN+).

To check out the latest and greatest UFC 311: “Makhachev vs. Tsarukyan 2” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here.

It was going to take something serious to knock Arman Tsarukyan out of his lightweight title fight opposite current champion Islam Makhachev later tonight (Sat., Jan. 18, 2025) at UFC 311 live on ESPN+ pay-per-view (PPV) from inside Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, Calif., but that’s exactly what happened during his last sparring session.

Tsarukyan, who is coming off back-to-back wins over Beneil Dariush and Charles Oliveira to push his current UFC win streak to four, undoubtedly earned his rematch with Makhachev. The 28-year-old contender looked primed to give the champion a real run for his money, but an unfortunate back injury during the final week of training knocked Tsarukyan out of UFC 311’s main event.

UFC CEO Dana White announced Tsarukyan’s official withdrawal on Friday and pegged Renato Moicano as his replacement.

At first, fight fans didn’t know the severity of Tsarukyan’s injury. Tsarukyan said he had to make the “hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my fighting career,” but exactly how bad was he hurt? On Friday, MMA Junkie caught up with Tsarukyan’s coach, “Parrumpa,” to get the finer details of his fighter’s injury.

“The last sparring session he tweaked his back a little bit,” he said. “It wasn’t too bad. We thought it’s just the end of the camp. The body’s feeling it. And then he took a few days off. He was fine. And then we start fight week and everything was going great. The spasm, the pain was there, but he was powering through it. He never thought about not fighting. Never. He did so much for this camp.

“On Wednesday night after the last training he was complaining a little more. This guy doesn’t complain. He’s not a guy that keeps complaining about every single pain in his body. So when he did complain on Wednesday night we had to listen to him. His weight was going down a little bit. He was really good on weight. So that’s one of the reasons why this back pain arouse because the weight was going down.

“Thursday we went to the press conference and after the press conference he had to go see a doctor. He still wanted to fight. Still wanted to power through it. We started the weight cut and then a few sessions in on the weight cut he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t even stand. He couldn’t even sit up. He had to stay laying on a bed.”

If Tsarukyan is able to heal up fast should he get another UFC title shot upon his return or is it back of the line for the Armenian contender?

Let us know!

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MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 311 fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the early Disney+/FX/ESPN+ preliminary card matches at 6 p.m. ET, followed by the remaining four-fight undercard balance on Disney+/ESPNN/ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET, before the UFC 311 PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.

To check out the latest and greatest UFC 311: “Makhachev vs. Moicano” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here. For the updated and finalized UFC 311 fight card and PPV lineup click here.