Diego Sanchez’s Coach Details Drill Where He Chased UFC Fighter With Blade

Diego Sanchez’s coach has explained why he chased UFC welterweight Emil Meek with a blade during a training session. Sanchez’s coach, Joshua Fabia, has been under fire as of late. Many have criticized Fabia’s corner advice. This dates…

Diego Sanchez’s coach has explained why he chased UFC welterweight Emil Meek with a blade during a training session. Sanchez’s coach, Joshua Fabia, has been under fire as of late. Many have criticized Fabia’s corner advice. This dates back to July 2019 when Sanchez was defeated by Michael Chiesa via unanimous decision. The “Nightmare” split […]

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UFC Fighter Details ‘Crazy’ Training Session With Diego Sanchez’s Coach

UFC welterweight Emil Meek had quite the training session with Diego Sanchez’s coach, Joshua Fabia. Much has been made over Sanchez’s current camp situation. Since splitting from Jackson-Wink MMA, Sanchez has aligned himself with Fabia. Cri…

UFC welterweight Emil Meek had quite the training session with Diego Sanchez’s coach, Joshua Fabia. Much has been made over Sanchez’s current camp situation. Since splitting from Jackson-Wink MMA, Sanchez has aligned himself with Fabia. Criticisms poured in over Fabia’s corner advice during the “Nightmare’s” bout with Michael Chiesa. Those concerns didn’t subside following Sanchez’s […]

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3 Fights Added To UFC Auckland Following Felder vs. Hooker

Following the news that Paul Felder and Dan Hooker would headline the UFC’s return to Auckland on February 23, another three fights have been added to the card. Light heavyweight Tyson Pedro features as he returns to action for the first time since his TKO defeat to Mauricio Rua last year against Vinicius Moreira. Pedro […]

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Following the news that Paul Felder and Dan Hooker would headline the UFC’s return to Auckland on February 23, another three fights have been added to the card.

Light heavyweight Tyson Pedro features as he returns to action for the first time since his TKO defeat to Mauricio Rua last year against Vinicius Moreira.

Pedro has lost three of his last four bouts after entering the promotion as an unbeaten prospect. A win against Moreira — loser of his last three outings — would signal the Aussie’s first win in nearly two years.

Another Aussie in Jake Matthews will look to make it two wins in a row when he faces Emil Meek in a welterweight bout. The 25-year-old was previously on a three-fight winning streak until he was submitted by Anthony Rocco Martin in December last year. He would bounce back with a conservative unanimous decision win over Rostem Akman at UFC 243 last month.

Meek, meanwhile, is on a two-fight losing streak and hasn’t fought since getting outpointed by Bartosz Fabinski in July 2018. His loss before that was a unanimous decision defeat to current welterweight champion Kamaru Usman.

Lastly, Ben Sosoli looks to get his first UFC win when he meets Marcos Rogerio de Lima. Sosoli made his debut in a now-overturned decision defeat to Greg Hardy last month.

Rogerio de Lima, on the other hand, has been alternating between wins and losses since 2015. His last outing was a submission defeat to Stefan Struve.

What do you think of the UFC Auckland card so far?

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Dana White Destroys Kamaru Usman’s Post-Fight Trash Talk

With six straight wins in the talented and tough UFC welterweight division, No. 10-ranked contender Kamaru Usman is looking to break through into the true 170-pound elite with a huge fight his next time out to the cage. That may be tough following his dominant, wrestling-heavy win over Emil Meek at last night’s UFC St. […]

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With six straight wins in the talented and tough UFC welterweight division, No. 10-ranked contender Kamaru Usman is looking to break through into the true 170-pound elite with a huge fight his next time out to the cage.

That may be tough following his dominant, wrestling-heavy win over Emil Meek at last night’s UFC St. Louis, however.

After a grinding showing where he repeatedly ground “Valhalla” with impressive slams and relentless chain takedowns but did little else to threaten a finish, Usman got on the mic to say that he was only ’30 percent’ for the bout before calling out top-ranked contender Colby Covington.

Directly after his victory, he reiterated that in a post-fight appearance online, adding that he was also the most dominant welterweight on the planet:

Statements like that are never met with much forgiveness in the fight game, as assigning an arbitrary number to your overall performance is impossible to quantify and also leads to a murky cloud of jumbled perceptions about just what the statement means.

Not surprisingly, UFC president Dana White was among the doubters of his strange post-fight antics, noting on the FOX Sports 1-aired post-fight show that Usman’s words were legitimately one of the ‘most ridiculous’ things he had ever heard when asked about it by show co-host Michael Bisping:

“I agree with you. First of all, you don’t come out, when you have a performance like that – I didn’t love that fight by the way – yeah, he’s a tough guy, yeah, he can impose his will, but then you don’t jump up and start talkin’ smack like you just knocked somebody out or somethin’ and say you only went 30 percent. So what’s that mean? So what if you’re on a pay-per-per-view, you use 60 percent? It’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard somebody say. And you’re gettin’ booed out of the arena on top of it, so, I don’t know, we’ll see what’s next for him.”

As the backlash grew for his self-gauged status number, Usman got online and explained he meant that he was only 30 percent healthy for the fight and still picked up a one-sided victory:

His win streak has put him up among the best welterweights in the UFC as of right now, no small in and of itself. However, in today’s promotion-focused MMA era, being palatable to fans in both in-cage fighting and outside-the-cage appearances is of critical importance.

Usman seemed to make few new fans last night in that regard, and he may have lost some he had. It’s fitting for him to meet Covington, also a surging wrestler with a strong win streak intact, as both have grown in terms of their heel status recently and are now alike in more ways than just their go-to skillset.

There’s little doubt that Usman can give even the best welterweights in the octagon issues with his smothering top game, but with a champion who often wins in a similar fashion already at the top of the division, will he ever be able to become a true star?

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Rising Contender Says Colby Covington Refused To Fight Him

Surging welterweight contender Kamaru Usman says he was offered a fight against fellow prospect Colby Covington, but Covington declined to sign the contract to do so. Instead, Usman will face Emil Meek, best known for starching Rousimar Palhares in less than a minute prior to signing with the UFC. However, Usman is still disappointed that […]

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Surging welterweight contender Kamaru Usman says he was offered a fight against fellow prospect Colby Covington, but Covington declined to sign the contract to do so.

Instead, Usman will face Emil Meek, best known for starching Rousimar Palhares in less than a minute prior to signing with the UFC. However, Usman is still disappointed that he wasn’t able to fight Covington.

The former Blackzillian revealed how it all went down on this week’s edition of The MMA Hour:

“We were offered Colby Covington, he said no. Right away he said, ‘No, I don’t want anything to do with that guy.’

“They tried to make fight again two weeks later. Then something transpired, I don’t know what it was, but they tried to make fight again, and Colby said no, absolutely not. Then for the third time they offered it, this was supposed to be my main event, Jan. 14, my main event. Obviously you see why it took so long get a headliner for that card. It was supposed to be me and Colby to headline that card. But he turned it down.”

Covington has become a high profile prospect since defeating Demian Maia and beginning his own brand of trash talk, which has caused him some trouble amongst Brazilian fans and fighters.

Usman says that Covington strategically avoided him as well as other young, top welterweights in an effort advance in the division against what Usman says is older competition:

“Colby only wants to go after the guys he feels that are old and have an athletic advantage and cardio advantage to maybe try to push them into deep waters,” Usman said. “He knows that plays no part with me. You can’t out-wrestle me, you can’t out-strike me, you don’t have more power than me. Basically he sees this, he’s so afraid to where he was running to nobody but all the older guys who are on their way down. That’s all they want.”

What are your thoughts on the always-controversial Colby Covington? Is he avoiding fighters like Usman on his way to a title shot?

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