This evening’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, delivered in every sense of the term, with three hyped potential future stars picking up victories capped off by a classic win from an all-time great champion. In the main event, women’s featherweight champ Cris Cyborg stopped Yana Kunitskaya after […]
This evening’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, delivered in every sense of the term, with three hyped potential future stars picking up victories capped off by a classic win from an all-time great champion.
UFC 222 is here, and it goes down tonight (Saturday, March 3, 2018) from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass 6:30 […]
UFC 222 is here, and it goes down tonight (Saturday, March 3, 2018) from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass 6:30 p.m. ET.
Cris Cyborg vs. Yana Kunitskaya in a female featherweight title bout will serve as the headliner while Frankie Edgar vs. Brian Ortega in a featherweight bout will serve as the co-main event. Rounding out this fight bout card is Sean O’Malley vs. Andre Soukhamthath in a bantamweight bout. Stefan Struve vs. Andrei Arlovski in a heavyweight bout, and Cat Zingano vs. Ketlen Vieira in a female bantamweight bout.
According to oddsmakers, Cyborg is a -1700 favorite over Kunitskaya, who is a +1100 underdog. Other odds for the main card include Ortega being a +150 underdog against Edgar, who is a -170 favorite. Here are the full betting odds:
MAIN CARD (PPV/10 p.m. ET)
Cristiane Justino (-1700) vs. Yana Kunitskaya (+1100)
Frankie Edgar (-170) vs. Brian Ortega (+150)
Andre Soukhamthath (-140) vs. Sean O’Malley (+120)
Stefan Struve (-185) vs. Andrei Arlovski (+160)
Ketlen Vieira (-145) vs. Cat Zingano (+125)
PRELIMINARY CARD (FOX Sports 1/8 p.m. ET)
Mackenzie Dern (-380) vs. Ashley Yoder (+315)
Beneil Dariush (-380) vs. Alexander Hernandez (+315)
She may be facing by far the toughest test of her MMA career when she meets Cris Cyborg in the main event of this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, but Yana Kunitskaya says she isn’t feeling pressure. Speaking up during an interview with MMAJunkie, the […]
She may be facing by far the toughest test of her MMA career when she meets Cris Cyborg in the main event of this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, but Yana Kunitskaya says she isn’t feeling pressure.
Speaking up during an interview with MMAJunkie, the Jackson-Wink product said she watched Cyborg throughout her five-round victory over Holly Holm at December’s UFC 219 and noticed holes in the bruising Brazilian’s game ‘everywhere’:
“I don’t feel any pressure. Everyone has weaknesses, and her last fight with Holly (Holm), it was five rounds, and it showed a lot. I was getting ready for everything and find holes everywhere – in stand-up and the ground in wrestling. I’m trying to get ready for everything.”
After winning the vacant Invicta FC bantamweight title last year, Kunitskaya was originally set to make her UFC debut against a much less high-profile opponent, but when Max Holloway was forced out of his scheduled UFC 222 main event with Frankie Edgar, the chance to meet Cyborg on short notice arose.
It was obviously an opportunity she couldn’t pass up, one that she revealed she’d been dreaming about ever since Cyborg was dominating her opponents in Strikeforce:
“Since she started fighting in Strikeforce (I’ve been thinking about it),” Kunitskaya said. “I wanted to fight in Strikeforce, but I couldn’t get a visa, an American visa. After she was fighting in Invicta and then in UFC. All my career I was thinking about this; one day I would fight her. I’m happy this is happening in big show in the UFC, and it’s a good chance for me.”
The bout came to fruition in a somewhat haphazard manner, but Kunitskaya said she was already training so it didn’t affect her camp as much. With dates, times, and opponents constantly shifting, she said she was pleased to finally get the biggest opponent possible:
“I was in my camp for a couple months and was getting ready, and the UFC kept changing everything for me,” Kunitskaya said. “Dates, weight class, girls. So I was just training very hard and was ready for any moment. Three weeks before they told me Cris Cyborg, so I was excited and kept training hard.”
The excitement soon waned, however, and she knew she would be in for the biggest challenge of her athletic career. But even though she believes Cyborg is a strong fighter, perhaps her claimed lack of intimidation comes in the form of her belief that Cyborg doesn’t have real knockout power:
“I know that she’s strong, but I don’t think she has that strong of knockout power,” Kunitskaya said. “She has no clean knockouts where girls go down, like Holly (Holm) have. But yes, she’s very tough. She finishes all the fights by technical knockout. I think I’m strong, too, strong enough to compare with her.”
Last week, absent UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor ‘confirmed’ his MMA return with the mere flick of an Instagram post before taking it a step further and claiming he even offered to fill in for featherweight champ Max Holloway against Frankie Edgar at this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from Las Vegas. Even […]
Last week, absent UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor ‘confirmed’ his MMA return with the mere flick of an Instagram post before taking it a step further and claiming he even offered to fill in for featherweight champ Max Holloway against Frankie Edgar at this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from Las Vegas.
Even though the potentially monstrous comeback fight never came close to materializing due to the UFC saying they didn’t have enough time to capitalize, the claim understandably set a big news-starved MMA world (with much of it due to ‘The Notorious” hiatus) afire for at least one night.
Both Edgar’s manager Ali Abdel-Aziz and boxing coach Mark Henry were quick to fire back at McGregor with seething responses to the outlandish news, but “The Answer” stayed relatively mum on the dream match-up. Until now, that is, as the former lightweight champ spoke up about the never-to-be fight to Ariel Helwani on today’s episode of The MMA Hour. The New Jersey ironman said he awoke to see rumors of it online, but that was the fist he had heard of it:
“I woke up from a nap and I saw it on Twitter. That’s the first I heard of it.”
Apparently, word later arrived that McGregor did offer to fight at UFC 222, but wanted it to be for a never-before-contested 165-pound belt, something Edgar called ridiculous considering McGregor was yet to defend either his lightweight or featherweight belt:
“I mean, come on, there is no 165-pound belt. You know what I’m saying? I want to fight on the moon. You know what I mean? Come on.
“He doesn’t want to defend his own belt. What, he wants to fight me? I mean, hey, that’d be great. That’d be great for me. Let’s be real. I’m not scared to fight anybody. Come on, I’ve been doing this too long to be scared to fight anybody. I mean, if anything, that would be very good for me, to fight Conor McGregor.”
Mandatory Credit: Steve Flynn-USA TODAY Sports
And while Edgar would love to face McGregor and the payday he brings in the Octagon, he didn’t believe it was close to true because Dana White didn’t call him – even if he would fight McGregor at any weight:
“I would’ve fought him in any weight class, to be honest with you.
“I think if it was real, Dana would’ve called me personally. He’s done it before. With something like that, Dana would’ve called me personally, and he didn’t, so I have to think that it wasn’t real.”
To “The Answer” – and many others – McGregor was simply keeping his name in the news, something he does perhaps better than any fighter other than his forever-rival Floyd Mayweather.
With that taken into consideration, Edgar said he wouldn’t let the Irishman get him sidetracked. He has his hands full with Ortega – a hungry, rising contender who is active in the UFC unlike ‘The Notorious’:
“I don’t know, I think Conor’s just being Conor, man. He’s the best at it, right? He’s the best at making news and staying relevant. I don’t mean relevant, he’s the most popular guy in our sport, this and that, but staying in the news cycle. He does it better than anybody, except maybe Floyd Mayweather.
“I’m not surprised by it, and I’m not getting sidetracked by it because it doesn’t matter,” Edgar added. “It’s non-news to me. Because the news is I’m fighting a guy who fights in the UFC right now, Brian Ortega.”
Despite the drama, Edgar doesn’t believe he and McGregor will ever fight because of the opportunities they’ve had to do so when McGregor was actually at featherweight and it didn’t happen.
So ‘The Answer’ put the talk about the unlikely payday with McGregor aside because he is aware of the dangerous challenge he has waiting in only five days:
“If we’re going to fight, we’ll fight. But I doubt it,” Edgar said. “I really don’t think we’ll ever cross paths. I really don’t. … We’ve had many times it could’ve been real, and it just never materialized. And if it didn’t materialize then, I just don’t see why would it happen now.
“I’m putting it totally aside, because it’s easy with this whole Conor news and Max, it’s easy to get sidetracked and think about Max, think about Conor,” Edgar said. “I’ve got to focus on Ortega, man. It’s a dangerous fight. Everyone says, ‘Oh, it’s a risky fight,’ and they’re right. I’m putting a lot of the line and that’s my focus.”
Earlier this week, March 3’s UFC 222 from Las Vegas got a late-notice main event when news came that women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg would be meeting Invicta FC bantamweight champ Yana Kunitskaya. Back when the event was scheduled to be headlined by an anticipated featherweight title clash between champion Max Holloway and Frankie Edgar, […]
Earlier this week, March 3’s UFC 222 from Las Vegas got a late-notice main event when news came that women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg would be meeting Invicta FC bantamweight champ Yana Kunitskaya.
Back when the event was scheduled to be headlined by an anticipated featherweight title clash between champion Max Holloway and Frankie Edgar, the promotion drew a large amount of criticism for the original poster online for what was viewed as having a very weak fight between heavyweights Andrei Arlovski and Stefan Struve as the co-main event.
Well, they released an all-new, revamped poster today, and it’s safe to say it does look at least a little bit better now that Edgar moved into the co-headliner versus surging young contender Brian Ortega. Check it out right here:
With Cyborg a justifiable -1000 betting favorite heading into her bout with Kunitskaya, who will make her UFC debut, the general opinion is that she’s going to run through the Invicta bantamweight champ like she’s run through the rest of her opponents.
That’s really all there is in the UFC’s women’s featherweight division right now, however, so in that sense, it’s business as usual.
But the co-main between Edgar and Ortega is a great fight, one where Edgar is taking all of the risk in fighting a highly dangerous opponent to essentially save his spot as the No. 1 contender. That itself has made the new UFC 222 poster much better than the first.
When UFC 1 took place on a cold November night back in 1993 from McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado, it ignited the beginning of the world’s foremost mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, fueled by the concept of the best fighting the best to call themselves champion. It may have been extremely rough around the edges in […]
When UFC 1 took place on a cold November night back in 1993 from McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado, it ignited the beginning of the world’s foremost mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, fueled by the concept of the best fighting the best to call themselves champion.
It may have been extremely rough around the edges in those ‘dark’ days where the sport having few rules and regulation had it on the precipice of doom, but the opposite is very much true today. After the Fertitta brothers along with Dana White purchased the UFC for a paltry sum and turned it into a legitimately regulated competition watched on pay-per-view the world over, the UFC exploded into a global brand that put shows on nearly every weekend.
When its popularity peaked in 2016 on the heels of the Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz rivalry, the Fertitta brothers saw an opportunity to cash in, and cash in they did. Selling the UFC to Hollywood talent giant WME-IMG (now Endeavor) for a then-record $4.2 billion, one of the biggest franchise sales in sports (of any kind) history was complete. But all was not rosy. This year has seen the advent of some truly horrific pay-per-view and television ratings, with UFC 213, UFC 215, and UFC 216 ranking as three of the lowest-watched PPVs ever, while December’s TUF 26 Finale was the least-watched UFC live event of all-time.
So while it was undoubtedly rough around the edges in its infancy, the UFC is dealing with a whole different set of problems heading into 2018, and many would argue that the UFC owners don’t exactly know what they’re doing. A growing sense is that the Hollywood agency is now trying to book the more mainstream, over-the-top spectacle fights rather than those that clearly have a more legitimate meaning based on meritocracy.
It’s lead to a steady stream of criticism that the UFC is becoming more like pro-wrestling and their WWE counterpart, obviously not the most endearing of words from fight fans. The argument, unfortunately, cannot be totally denied. Let’s take a look at the reasons why:
Jason Silva/Zuma Press/Icon Sportswire
5.) Titles Mean Next To Nothing:
Endeavor has to be commended for finally getting the middleweight division moving in the right direction by booking Robert Whittaker vs. Luke Rockhold for UFC 221, but there is one weight class that is an absolute mess in the UFC.
It’s obviously Conor McGregor’s held-hostage lightweight division, where “The Notorious” fought once and won the belt way back at UFC 205 in November 2016 before leaving to box – and lose – to Floyd Mayweather for the entirety of 2017. McGregor made the record-setting payday he was always looking for and can’t be blamed for doing it, but the fact remains the 155-pound landscape, which is still one of the most talented in MMA, has no clarity whatsoever at the current moment.
An interim belt was given to Tony Ferguson at October’s UFC 216, but without a path to a unification bout with McGregor, he opted to have elbow surgery, leaving not one but two champions on the sidelines with no real news about a return. Take into account the middleweight situation as well, where Michael Bisping was allowed to avoid the top 10 contenders by facing a retiring No. 14 Dan Henderson and an unretiring Georges St-Pierre, who had never even fought in the division. St-Pierre won and vacated the belt hardly a month later.
Interim titles are also created around much more frequently, making them seem more like the WWE titles that are handed over and won back on a never-ending cycle.
Because of these occurrences, UFC titles seem like little more than gold belts to be flaunted after a win rather than symbols of true MMA supremacy to be defended with pride.
