Jared Gooden will not be fighting at UFC St. Louis.
In fact, “Nite Train” never made it to the scale for the official weigh ins on Friday, getting yanked for that the promotion is calling “m…
In fact, “Nite Train” never made it to the scale for the official weigh ins on Friday, getting yanked for that the promotion is calling “medical reasons.” That suggests Gooden was having a problem making weight, leading doctors to pull the plug for his own safety.
Or perhaps Gooden was struck down by a late illness.
Either way, opponent Kevin Jousset will miss the opportunity to compete on the Sat. night (May 11) “Prelims” card from inside Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The kiwi tipped the scale at 170.5 for their welterweight contest and will likely be paid his “show” purse.
For complete UFC St. Louis weigh ins results click here.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC St. Louis fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the ESPN/ESPN+ preliminary card bouts at 4 p.m. ET, followed by the ESPN/ESPN+ main card start time at 7 p.m. ET.
To check out the latest and greatest UFC St. Louis news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archives here and here. For the updated and finalized “Lewis vs. Nascimento” fight card and ESPN/ESPN+ lineup click here.
Ahead of his return next month at UFC 302, undisputed lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev has once more turned down…
Ahead of his return next month at UFC 302, undisputed lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev has once more turned down a fight with recent BMF title winner, Max Holloway, claiming he first needs to focus on contenders from his own division.
As for Hawaiian favorite, Holloway, the former featherweight gold holder featured on the main card of UFC 300 last month, landing a spectacular buzzer-beating knockout win over former interim lightweight champion, Justin Gaethje.
Islam Makhachev rules out title fight with Max Holloway
And weighing up the possibility of taking on Makhachev as he appears to have the pick of the bunch of title fights off the back of his symbolic title fight win over Gaethje, Holloway’s chances of fighting for gold at 155lbs have been shot down definitively by the Russian.
“Honestly, Max (Holloway) has a job in his division,” Islam Makhachev said during an appearance on Good Guy / Bad Guy. “I don’t want to give a chance to Max because people are still talking about me not defending my belt against the lightweight guys.”
“I need some real contenders from my division,” Islam Makhachev explained. “I want to clean my division and fight for the welterweight [championship].”
Last featuring at UFC 294 back in October of last year in Abu Dhabi, Makhachev turned in a dominant victory over former featherweight champion, Alexander Volkanovski in the pair’s rematch, courtesy of a high-kick KO win in the Middle East.
Who wins in a potentialtitle fight: Islam Makhachev or Max Holloway?
Release the Pantoja cut! UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and UFC flyweight titleholder Alexandre Pantoja previously sparred against one another prior to their respective runs as division champions. Naturally, both sides …
O’Malley recently uploaded his side of the story, a brief clip that has Pantoja eating a hard body kick before calling a halt to the action.
“First-round TKO, 2016,” O’Malley wrote on Twitter. “Undefeated. Henry in his corner, he was crying.”
Fans are calling for O’Malley to release the full video.
“Suga” is expected to make his next 135-pound title defense against No. 1-ranked contender Merab Dvalishvili at some point later this year, possibly at UFC 306 inside The Sphere. As for Pantoja, he’s just a few days removed from his flyweight title defense against Aussie action man Steve Erceg at UFC 301.
“FedEx. We’ll get your sh*t there, but we’ll f*** it up,” White said. “My boy don’t give a f***.”
Although Dana White thought the video was comical, as did others, FedEx ended up firing the driver, which they revealed to TMZ Sports.
“The behavior depicted in the video is unacceptable and inconsistent with the professionalism FedEx demonstrates every day,” FedEx said to TMZ. “We are committed to treating our customers’ packages with the utmost care, and this driver is no longer providing service for our company as a result of this behavior.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise that FedEx ended up firing the driver as White captured the video which went viral and many customers were concerned that their packages were being treated like that.
Dana White says he’s in the business of making ‘holy s**t’ moments
Dana White has been the face of the UFC since 2001 and he has helped grow the sport massively.
The UFC has become a mainstream sport and after UFC 300 and Max Holloway’s KO, he said that is his job, which is creating holy shit moments.
Mandatory Credit: Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
“When we were sitting in that room, and we created the BMF, tonight totally embodied what that belt was built for,” White said after UFC 300. “There should be a picture in the f*king dictionary when you look up BMF. It was incredible. I don’t know if you guys noticed this, but that fight sucked the life out of everybody tonight. The next two fights, everybody was sitting there, like there was this adrenaline dump. People always ask me what I do, I sell holy sh*t moments for a living. That was the ultimate holy sh*t moment of all time.”
The UFC is set to return this Saturday for UFC St. Louis which is headlined by Derrick Lewis vs. Rodrigo Nascimento.
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is just over 24 hours away from the upcoming UFC St. Louis mixed martial arts (MMA) event, which is set to go down tomorrow night (Sat…
Photo by Pedro Vilela/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is just over 24 hours away from the upcoming UFC St. Louis mixed martial arts (MMA) event, which is set to go down tomorrow night (Sat., May 11, 2024) on ESPN and ESPN+ from inside Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri, featuring a heavyweight main event between record-setting knockout artist Derrick Lewis and Brazilian up-and-comer Rodrigo Nascimento, a five-round headliner with potential title implications for late 2024 and beyond.
Before the ESPN and ESPN+ live streams get underway this weekend in “The Show-Me State,” which also include the welterweight showdown between Joaquin Buckley and Nursulton Ruziboev, all 24 fighters must hit the scale to prove themselves worthy. Note: Missouri Office of Athletics affords a one-pound allowance in non-title fights.
The UFC St. Louis weigh ins will stream LIVE in the embedded video player above beginning promptly at 10 a.m. ET (9 a.m. CT). We’ll also have real-time text updates for the “Lewis vs. Nascimento” weigh ins listed below, updated as they happen. Remember too that ceremonial weigh ins (and fighter staredowns) will take place later today at 5 p.m. ET HERE.
Complete UFC St. Louis weigh ins text results below:
265 lbs.: Derrick Lewis vs. Rodrigo Nascimento 170 lbs.: Joaquin Buckley vs. Nursulton Ruziboev 205 lbs.: Alonzo Menifield vs. Carlos Ulberg 155 lbs.: Diego Ferreira vs. Mateusz Rebecki 145 lbs.: Alex Caceres vs. Sean Woodson 265 lbs.: Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs. Robelis Despaigne
155 lbs.: Chase Hooper vs. Viacheslav Borshchev 155 lbs.: Terrance McKinney vs. Esteban Ribovics 115 lbs.: Tabatha Ricci vs. Tecia Pennington 170 lbs.: Billy Goff vs. Trey Waters 170 lbs.: Jared Gooden vs. Kevin Jousset 125 lbs.: JJ Aldrich vs. Veronica Hardy
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC St. Louis fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the ESPN/ESPN+ preliminary card bouts at 4 p.m. ET, followed by the ESPN/ESPN+ main card start time at 7 p.m. ET.
To check out the latest and greatest UFC St. Louis news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archives here and here. For the updated and finalized “Lewis vs. Nascimento” fight card and ESPN/ESPN+ lineup click here.
Urijah Faber and Sacramento State University president J. Luke Wood are set to make history with a revolutionary collegiate…
Urijah Faber and Sacramento State University president J. Luke Wood are set to make history with a revolutionary collegiate program that’s meant to guide young aspiring fighters and give them a foot in the door to the fight game.
A trailblazer in MMA, Faber has towed the line between fighting and being a coach himself for many years. He runs a very successful gym called Team Alpha Male, which has seen rise to multiple UFC champions. Now, thanks to the wit of one student traveling to Sacramento State from overseas, paired with a flourishing relationship between Urijah Faber and president J. Luke Wood, the world’s first-ever collegiate MMA program will be coming to life in Northern California.
Speaking to LowKick MMA reporter Makoa Goble, Urijah Faber detailed this revolutionary new program, which is to be called Combat U. Combat U will help students develop as mixed martial artists while also giving them a promotion to fight for, as Faber owns his own promotion called A1 Combat.
Urijah Faber details Combat U and its inception
When asked how the idea of such a revolutionary program came to be, Faber explained a few factors that led to it. He spoke of how President Wood was a fan of combat sports, and actually even trained at Faber’s gym. Then, a female mixed martial artist from India got into contact with President Wood and told him how she decided to go to the school because of how close it was to the Team Alpha Male gym.
All of these factors led to an idea, and it was a very brilliant one. How about a collegiately backed program that is aimed to usher in an entirely new generation of combat sports athletes? It was made even more convenient by the fact that Faber’s gym is so close to the campus. As Faber continued to explain things, it was as if all the building blocks perfectly fell into place, as if it was all meant to be.
Faber on the unclear pathway for young fighters, and what the program could mean for them
“We have a strong history of being a host to young athletes (at Team Alpha Male), but they’ve always had to take a fork in the road: pursue academics, or pursue a career in the fight game,” Urijah Faber said. “…We actually have some of our current fighters that are interested in being a part of the program.”
Mandatory Credit: Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
“So, we already have guys that were waiting to go back into their education afterwards (after their fight career is over), that is going to start doing it (going back to school) now. It’s still really raw, there’s still really no pathway. I’ve got a bunch of things outside of this that I’m working on to help really get that dialled in.”
Urijah Faber would go on to speak about how he’d like to work in conjunction with what the UFC is already doing, which is trying to open the floodgates and more easily allow aspiring fighters to walk the path. He brought up how more classic sports, such as football or basketball, already had very set paths for athletes to follow. The sport of MMA, however, does not have the same easy canals for young prospects to float down.
Young prospects must lead a difficult life of balancing working, training, and fighting. If a fighter is lucky, somebody will invest in their future and allow them to focus solely on training and fighting. However, this could be considered quite rare, and most fighters just have to work while also undergoing gruelling training and then pitting themselves against other young and hungry fighters in the cage.
Now, though, everything could be changing. If the Combat U program at Sacramento State is a success, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more colleges around the country and world provide a similar program. All of which would supply young fighters with a solid support system to make following their dreams a little easier.
What are your thoughts on Urijah Faber and Combat U?
Ahead of his return next month at UFC 302, undisputed lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev has once more turned down…
UFC CEO Dana White recorded a FedEx driver throwing packages into his truck which went viral, and the driver…
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Urijah Faber and Sacramento State University president J. Luke Wood are set to make history with a revolutionary collegiate…
