Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!
Welcome to Midnight Mania!
One of the more ridiculous stories in recent memory was Paulo Costa’s antics vs. Marvin Vettori. The Brazilian showed up to fight week outrageously heavy, forcing UFC to bump his main event match up to 205-pounds. Vettori gamely took the fight anyway, even after Costa threatened to walk if UFC fined him too harshly.
The result of the chaos? A pretty incredible five-round fight that proved “The Eraser” is still worth the price of admission, even if he lost the decision. Given both the chaotic nature of the week and Costa’s strong performance at 205-pounds, UFC President Dana White declared Costa would be forced to remain at Light Heavyweight for future bouts.
Perhaps there’s been change on that front? Paulo Costa’s manager, Wallid Ismail, promises that Costa’s next bout will be back at 185 lbs., despite the initial claims otherwise.
“The UFC is not the biggest fighting company in the world by chance,” Ismail told Sherdog. “They know that ‘Borrachinha’ was injured and that’s why he had problems with his weight. There is no doubt his next fight will take place in the middleweight division.
“We will fight whoever the UFC decides. I keep believing that ‘Borrachinha’ will be the champion,” Ismail said. “He just has to train right. His biggest problem is that he trains too much. If he trains correctly, I have no doubt no one in that division can beat him.”
For whatever it’s worth, Costa did indeed lay the blame for his scale fail on a blown bicep. If Costa is indeed back at Middleweight next time out, who would you like to see him face?
Insomnia
Johnny Walker is already hard at work for his recently announced bout vs. Jamahal Hill.
Why can’t focus on training? pic.twitter.com/nZNsIyFnGj
— Johnny Walker (@JohnnyWalker) January 3, 2022
How many of y’all spent nearly 100 hours watching UFC fights last year? Now just imagine how many hours of f—king Jose Cuervo ads are stacked on top of the numbers below!
If you’re one of the savages who watched all 509 @UFC fights in 2021, you spent 96 hours, 1 minute and 48 seconds of your life doing so (not including non-fight broadcast time).
That’s a new single-year high for cage time in company history. https://t.co/8emDma43s5 pic.twitter.com/fbva8erJV7
— Mike Bohn (@MikeBohnMMA) December 31, 2021
Rafael Fiziev has a talent for quality callouts.
As crafty as it gets:
If he does indeed return to action this year, who should Paul Felder fight?
At the age of 65, “Sugar” Ray Leonard is learning kickboxing!
Slips, rips, and KO clips
Body punches setting up head punches at the highest level:
2 piece heavyweight knockout https://t.co/kf3bewvvvO pic.twitter.com/lK9BDwSpQR
— StreetBeefs (@_StreetBeefs_) January 1, 2022
If you’re not absolutely disgusted with end of the year lists yet, KSW had some great finshes that flew under the radar.
Head Kicks
? Spinning Back Elbows
Devastating Left Hands
Powerful Ground & Pound
Even a KO with a Bicep….We saw it all last year!! Here are some of the best KSW KNOCKOUTS from 2021!! pic.twitter.com/1qMMLMcqmf
— KSW (@KSW_MMA) January 3, 2022
Pop the watermelon!
Random Land
For having absolutely no idea what he was doing, this man put in a serious effort to make it up the hill.
Midnight Music: I’m making a small change this year. As I’ve been posting songs five nights per week for the better part of three years now, most of my personal favorites — or, at least, most of the songs/albums/artists that I’m particularly knowledgeable about — have gone up at one point or another. If I still have a fun fact or relevant background info, I’ll include it as usual, but otherwise, I’m just going to drop the genre and year in this section.
Example: 1989, punk rock
Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.