Team Reebok continues to expand. Top-ranked middleweight contender Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza is the latest fighter to ink an exclusive sponsorship deal with the UFC’s uniform partner, Reebok officials announced Thursday in Rio de Janeiro.
Souza is the first Brazilian fighter to ink a specialized contract with Reebok, joining fellow international stars Conor McGregor and Joanna Jedrzejczyk among those with Reebok deals separate from the standard UFC uniform clause.
“We think ‘Jacare’ fits very nicely into what we’re doing, and for us he’ll be the face of UFC in Brazil, so it’s a big deal,” said senior director of Reebok combat training Michael Lunardelli. “He’s maybe one of the greatest jiu-jitsu artists who ever lived. He’s amazing. He’s a tactician of the sport.
“We love how versatile he is as a fighter, and we’re very excited to have him on our roster.”
Reebok previously looked to sign Brazilian featherweight champion Jose Aldo, however Aldo elected to remain with his longtime apparel sponsor Venum.
Souza (22-3, 1 NC) is currently the No. 2 ranked middleweight on the UFC’s official rankings. He is the former Strikeforce middleweight champion, and at 35 years old, holds a perfect 5-0 record in UFC competition.
Souza was in the running for the next UFC middleweight title shot, however his chances became slim when his opponent at UFC on FOX 15, Yoel Romero, withdrew from the event just one week out from fight night.
Souza ended up rematching Chris Camozzi as a late replacement, and though he easily dispatched Camozzi in under three minutes, the win was overshadowed by Luke Rockhold’s victory over Lyoto Machida on the same card, ultimately giving Rockhold the shot at UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman.
Team Reebok continues to expand. Top-ranked middleweight contender Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza is the latest fighter to ink an exclusive sponsorship deal with the UFC’s uniform partner, Reebok officials announced Thursday in Rio de Janeiro.
Souza is the first Brazilian fighter to ink a specialized contract with Reebok, joining fellow international stars Conor McGregor and Joanna Jedrzejczyk among those with Reebok deals separate from the standard UFC uniform clause.
“We think ‘Jacare’ fits very nicely into what we’re doing, and for us he’ll be the face of UFC in Brazil, so it’s a big deal,” said senior director of Reebok combat training Michael Lunardelli. “He’s maybe one of the greatest jiu-jitsu artists who ever lived. He’s amazing. He’s a tactician of the sport.
“We love how versatile he is as a fighter, and we’re very excited to have him on our roster.”
Reebok previously looked to sign Brazilian featherweight champion Jose Aldo, however Aldo elected to remain with his longtime apparel sponsor Venum.
Souza (22-3, 1 NC) is currently the No. 2 ranked middleweight on the UFC’s official rankings. He is the former Strikeforce middleweight champion, and at 35 years old, holds a perfect 5-0 record in UFC competition.
Souza was in the running for the next UFC middleweight title shot, however his chances became slim when his opponent at UFC on FOX 15, Yoel Romero, withdrew from the event just one week out from fight night.
Souza ended up rematching Chris Camozzi as a late replacement, and though he easily dispatched Camozzi in under three minutes, the win was overshadowed by Luke Rockhold’s victory over Lyoto Machida on the same card, ultimately giving Rockhold the shot at UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman.
A heavyweight bout pitting surging veteran Shawn Jordan against Dagestani prospect Ruslan Magomedov is the latest addition to UFC 192.
The Houston Chronicle first reported the bout.
Jordan (18-6), a native of Texas and former fullback for tw…
Jordan (18-6), a native of Texas and former fullback for two LSU national championship teams, is currently enjoying the best success of his UFC career. Of late, the 30-year-old has racked up a trio of knockouts over Jack May, Jared Cannonier and Derrick Lewis, the last of which ended with a memorable hook kick finish this past June at UFC Fight Night 68.
Jordan has earned two ‘Performance of the Night’ bonuses over the course of his win streak.
He’ll now meet Magomedov (13-1), a streaking 28-year-old who is undefeated thus far in his UFC career. Magomedov picked up back-to-back decisions over Viktor Pesta and Josh Copeland inside the Octagon, and his current run of eight straight wins includes victories over former UFC heavyweight champions Tim Sylvia and Ricco Rodriguez.
UFC 192 takes place Oct. 3 at the Toyota Center in Houston, TX. The main card airs live on pay-per-view.
The new era of UFC drug testing is underway, and policy officials were serious when they vowed not to discriminate in choosing their targets. UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, one of the promotions biggest stars, revealed Thursday that she has been randomly tested three times by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) ahead of her UFC 190 showdown against Bethe Correia in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“Once with blood and urine, and twice with urine,” Rousey said. “I love that we’re with USADA, the U.S. Anti-Doping, because I actually had the same lady who used to come and drug test me since I was like 14 to 21. She would just show up at my house, like ‘hey!’ Almost like, ‘oh, welcome! Come hang out and watch me pee!’ So you know, a different kind of familiarity, and it makes me feel so much better because I know that the testing is being done properly.”
Rousey’s familiarity with USADA stretches back to her younger days as an Olympic judoka. USADA is the national anti-doping partner of the Olympics, and Rousey spent much of her childhood training to compete in the Games, eventually becoming the first American women to medal in judo with her 2008 bronze medal campaign in Beijing.
Rousey transitioned to MMA two years later, where she quickly flourished as one of the top female competitors in the sport, claiming the Strikeforce bantamweight title then transitioning into the UFC’s first female champion. But after spending a lifetime competing under USADA’s strict anti-doping guidelines, Rousey was stunned to find the laxness with which MMA treated its drug testing protocols early in her fighting career.
“I was used to, you go in this beaker, you go in that beaker, then you check all the numbers, then you have a witness here, then you sign this form, then you take this thing out, then you put that over there, you put this tape over this, then you sign this,” Rousey said. “That’s what I was always used to growing up.
“I know when I first came to MMA and I saw the drastic difference between the U.S. Anti-Doping and the professional MMA doping, I was just like, it is so easy to cheat. I was shocked. Now it’s at a point where it’s like, okay, finally. It’s not like someone hands you a cup and is like, ‘go in that room over there and just come back with something.’ And I’d be like, ‘how is that even…?'”
MMA’s drug crisis likely always existed, but only recently did it come to the forefront of the discussion. Within a span of a several months in late 2014 to early 2015, former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, Nick Diaz, Hector Lombard, and Jon Fitch all tested positive for various substances, shining a light on an increasingly obvious drug problem within the sport.
The massive fallout from the string of testing failures led both the UFC and the Nevada Athletic Commission to overhaul their drug testing protocols and punishments, with the UFC ultimately bringing USADA into the fold as its chief partner in testing. That program went into effect on July 1, and Rousey is already emboldened by the results.
“It really encouraged me because I always thought that U.S. Anti-Doping was actually much more stringent than the international doping,” Rousey said. “The U.S., what I really like about their Olympic program, they are out to get their athletes. Like, they are not out to try and help them pass international tests, so I was always really, really proud of that. So now I’m really proud of the drug testing we have in MMA now.”
The new era of UFC drug testing is underway, and policy officials were serious when they vowed not to discriminate in choosing their targets. UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, one of the promotions biggest stars, revealed Thursday that she has been randomly tested three times by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) ahead of her UFC 190 showdown against Bethe Correia in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“Once with blood and urine, and twice with urine,” Rousey said. “I love that we’re with USADA, the U.S. Anti-Doping, because I actually had the same lady who used to come and drug test me since I was like 14 to 21. She would just show up at my house, like ‘hey!’ Almost like, ‘oh, welcome! Come hang out and watch me pee!’ So you know, a different kind of familiarity, and it makes me feel so much better because I know that the testing is being done properly.”
Rousey’s familiarity with USADA stretches back to her younger days as an Olympic judoka. USADA is the national anti-doping partner of the Olympics, and Rousey spent much of her childhood training to compete in the Games, eventually becoming the first American women to medal in judo with her 2008 bronze medal campaign in Beijing.
Rousey transitioned to MMA two years later, where she quickly flourished as one of the top female competitors in the sport, claiming the Strikeforce bantamweight title then transitioning into the UFC’s first female champion. But after spending a lifetime competing under USADA’s strict anti-doping guidelines, Rousey was stunned to find the laxness with which MMA treated its drug testing protocols early in her fighting career.
“I was used to, you go in this beaker, you go in that beaker, then you check all the numbers, then you have a witness here, then you sign this form, then you take this thing out, then you put that over there, you put this tape over this, then you sign this,” Rousey said. “That’s what I was always used to growing up.
“I know when I first came to MMA and I saw the drastic difference between the U.S. Anti-Doping and the professional MMA doping, I was just like, it is so easy to cheat. I was shocked. Now it’s at a point where it’s like, okay, finally. It’s not like someone hands you a cup and is like, ‘go in that room over there and just come back with something.’ And I’d be like, ‘how is that even…?'”
MMA’s drug crisis likely always existed, but only recently did it come to the forefront of the discussion. Within a span of a several months in late 2014 to early 2015, former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, Nick Diaz, Hector Lombard, and Jon Fitch all tested positive for various substances, shining a light on an increasingly obvious drug problem within the sport.
The massive fallout from the string of testing failures led both the UFC and the Nevada Athletic Commission to overhaul their drug testing protocols and punishments, with the UFC ultimately bringing USADA into the fold as its chief partner in testing. That program went into effect on July 1, and Rousey is already emboldened by the results.
“It really encouraged me because I always thought that U.S. Anti-Doping was actually much more stringent than the international doping,” Rousey said. “The U.S., what I really like about their Olympic program, they are out to get their athletes. Like, they are not out to try and help them pass international tests, so I was always really, really proud of that. So now I’m really proud of the drug testing we have in MMA now.”
Benson Henderson isn’t yet ready to return, but he’s getting close. The former UFC lightweight champion is “on the verge” of being medically cleared from the injury he suffered in May, MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani reported Wednesday on UF…
Benson Henderson isn’t yet ready to return, but he’s getting close. The former UFC lightweight champion is “on the verge” of being medically cleared from the injury he suffered in May, MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani reported Wednesday on UFC Tonight.
Henderson (22-5) has been sidelined since removing his name from a planned bout against Michael Johnson at The Ultimate Fighter 21 Finale. Henderson attributed the withdrawal to injury, but repeatedly declined to elaborate on the nature of the damage, stating only that “it was in [the] area” of his eye.
“I probably won’t ever say exactly what it is, you know?” Henderson told MMAFighting.com in late May. “With some of those injuries, you’re hurt, you are injured, but the rest of your body feels perfectly fine. So in that sense, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.”
Johnson previously speculated that a detached retina was the culprit, though that claim was never substantiated.
Regardless, Henderson appears to be nearly out of the woods now, and he intends to continue where he left off.
“Smooth” is targeting a return to action in November, ideally as the headlining act of the UFC’s introduction into South Korea on Nov. 28. That fight would serve as the last of his current UFC contract. Henderson is Korean-American by blood on his mother’s side, so the booking makes sense.
The 31-year-old ex-champion will return to a curious dilemma, as well. Henderson spent a career fighting as one of the unquestioned best lightweights in the world, even tying B.J. Penn’s hallowed mark with three consecutive UFC title defenses. But back-to-back losses to Rafael dos Anjos and Donald Cerrone caused Henderson to journey up to welterweight, where he met behemoth prospect Brandon Thatch on less than two week’s notice at UFC Fight Night 60.
Despite being vastly outsized, Henderson won the back-and-forth fight with a fourth-round rear-naked choke, then called out Rory MacDonald, paving a potential road to welterweight title contention.
He said this week that he doesn’t care which weight class he returns to, whether it’s 155 or 170 pounds, as long as he returns to a compelling, high-profile fight.
Alistair Overeem wants a fight with Junior dos Santos, and he’s willing to wait to get it.
According to a report from MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani on UFC Tonight, Overeem (39-14, 1 NC) was briefly under consideration to fight on Sept. 5 a…
According to a report from MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani on UFC Tonight, Overeem (39-14, 1 NC) was briefly under consideration to fight on Sept. 5 at UFC 191, but after talks fell through, he has resolved to sit out and wait for dos Santos.
The hard-hitting Brazilian is currently sidelined by the dual knee and nose surgeries he underwent following his Dec. 2014 win over Stipe Miocic at UFC on FOX 13. He is targeting a return to action later this year, and it looks like Overeem may be there to greet him.
Of course, it won’t be the first time. The two heavyweights have been linked together for several years now, beginning in 2012 when Overeem was slated to challenge for dos Santos’ UFC championship. A rivalry between the duo grew quickly, however the match-up sunk when Overeem popped positive for elevated levels of testosterone in a pre-fight drug test.
The two adversaries largely went their separate ways following the incident. Dos Santos defeated Frank Mir in a replacement bout then dropped his title in a pair of harrowing losses to Cain Velasquez, before rebounding to defeat Miocic in yet another grisly back-and-forth fight. Overeem, meanwhile, served a nine-month suspension only to be knocked out in three of his first four fights back.
Overeem ultimately picked up the pieces to score the first two-fight win streak of his UFC career, but still, neither heavyweight was assumed to be in true title contention until Fabricio Werdum’s victory over Velasquez at UFC 188 dramatically shifted the landscape of the division.
Now both dos Santos and Overeem are in prime title position, particularly because they are the only two men to defeat Werdum since 2008.
The heat in the dos Santos-Overeem rivalry also remains strong, as is evidenced by dos Santos’ recent conversations with MMAFighting.com where he dismissed Overeem as “a better talker than a fighter” and appeared baffled by the continual questions he faces about the Dutchman. In all, there’s been no shortage of back-and-forth chatter between the two heavyweights, and if Overeem gets his wish, both may get a chance to replace those words with haymakers by the end of the year.
On the third episode of UFC 190 Embedded, Stefan Struve makes a grocery run, Ronda Rousey goes through the fight week motions, Rousey’s mother discusses Saturday’s main event, Bethe Correia and Shogun Rua arrive in Rio de Janeiro, Antonio Silva che…
On the third episode of UFC 190 Embedded, Stefan Struve makes a grocery run, Ronda Rousey goes through the fight week motions, Rousey’s mother discusses Saturday’s main event, Bethe Correia and Shogun Rua arrive in Rio de Janeiro, Antonio Silva checks his weight, and much more.
