Midnight Mania! Poirier Calls For 165-Pound Division

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Dustin Poirier is no stranger to changing weight classes. After all, the best success of his career came after moving from Featherweight up to 155 lbs., where he captured an interim title last year. After unsuccessfully attempting to dethrone Khabib Nurmagomedov back in September, Poirier has chased big name foes like Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor, but those bouts failed to materialize.

Instead, Poirier opted for surgery and should be looking to schedule his return in the next couple months based on his original timetable. On Twitter, Poirier once again called for the creation of a 165-pound weight class, stating he’d much prefer a new division rather than continuing cutting to Lightweight.

There’s a good deal of logic behind changing the Welterweight division into two separate divisions at 165-pounds and 175-pounds. A great deal of the roster — including many of the sport’s most talented fighters — compete at Welterweight and Lightweight, so there is enough athletes to build an additional division.

Perhaps more importantly to UFC, there’s plenty of potential for big name fights at 165 pounds. That’s a division Conor McGregor would like fit into well, especially if he were awarded a title shot upon its inception. There’s definitely money to be made, but it remains to be seen if UFC will upset the status quo.

Insomnia

Mike Perry offers his own opinion on his upcoming jiu-jitsu match, and as always, the hashtags are where the real comedy is found.

A pair of jiu-jitsu’s best rolling:

Just Heavyweight things.

Before Gina Carano was a star:

Khalil Rountree is definitely one of those athletes who just hit absurdly hard.

A great scramble, one I don’t feel I have the knowledge to adequately explain. The wrestler in red is clearly quite good from that seemingly bad position of side-on leg entanglement, and he used the roll as a ploy to thread his leg deeper to the other side. Otherwise … I don’t know!

Slips, rips, and KO clips

It’s a common enough drill in practice to sprawl, quickly stand up, and immediately throw a flying knee, but the goal of that exercise is conditioning more than anything else. That doesn’t mean it cannot work (admittedly without the sprawl):

It’s easy to count Donald Cerrone out with all the hype and actual skill behind McGregor’s return, but he’s not that far removed from some seriously great performances himself.

That’s just a mean right hand.

Random Land

Kangaroo fight!

Midnight Music: At dinner tonight, the restaurant was playing a lot of indie music, and I was a bit stunned to hear Kadhja Bonet over the speakers. She’s not particularly well-known even in the states, but her unique brand of psychedelic soul is really cool.

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.