First-Ever UFC Women’s Flyweight Bout Booked For UFC Fight Night 89

At the UFC Fight Night 89 event scheduled for this June in Ottawa, history will be made inside the Octagon.

It was announced this week that at UFN 89, the first-ever UFC Women’s Flyweight bout will take place.

Former TUF veteran Joanne Calderwood…

joanne-calderwood

At the UFC Fight Night 89 event scheduled for this June in Ottawa, history will be made inside the Octagon.

It was announced this week that at UFN 89, the first-ever UFC Women’s Flyweight bout will take place.

Former TUF veteran Joanne Calderwood will meet former UFC Women’s Strawweight title contender Valerie Letourneau in a Women’s Flyweight bout.

It was noted that this is a “special attraction fight” and not the “launch of a new UFC division,” however it has been said that UFC is looking into the possibility of adding the diviison in the future.

UFC Fight Night 89 is scheduled for June 18, 2016 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Fight Night 72 Results: Bisping Outpoints Leites, Dunham Tops Pearson, Duffy Continues to Wow + More

(via UFC on FOX)

Following a brutal, nearly unbearable two day stretch without a UFC event to lift us above the suffocating mediocrity of our everyday lives, the world’s premiere MMA organization returned on Saturday morning for Fight Night 72: Bisping vs. Leites. And what an event it was, jam-packed with ferocious knockouts on the undercard and the opposite of that on the main card. Booyah, Glasgow!

In the main event of the evening, Michael Bisping did his Michael Bisping thing, stickin-n-movin his way to a split decision win over a game Thales Leites. While the fight wasn’t exactly the most memorable thing (especially given every card that’s led up to it in these past couple weeks), it did showcase the continuously evolving arsenal of Leites even in defeat, especially in the striking department. First Werdum, now Leites, it’s like Brazil is finally starting to catch up to the sport they invented. (commence Internet outrage….now!!)

In related news you never would have seen coming, bisping used the win to call out “cheating, scumbag motherf*ckers” Vitor Belfort and Dan Henderson, then a title shot. Which, aside from the lulz I got from that last part, LOL at the first part!

Elsewhere, the Fight Night 72 card featured a one-sided grappling clinic between journeyman lightweights and a women’s strawweight battle for the ages, so check out all the highlights and results from Saturday’s card after the jump.

The post Fight Night 72 Results: Bisping Outpoints Leites, Dunham Tops Pearson, Duffy Continues to Wow + More appeared first on Cagepotato.


(via UFC on FOX)

Following a brutal, nearly unbearable two day stretch without a UFC event to lift us above the suffocating mediocrity of our everyday lives, the world’s premiere MMA organization returned on Saturday morning for Fight Night 72: Bisping vs. Leites. And what an event it was, jam-packed with ferocious knockouts on the undercard and the opposite of that on the main card. Booyah, Glasgow!

In the main event of the evening, Michael Bisping did his Michael Bisping thing, stickin-n-movin his way to a split decision win over a game Thales Leites. While the fight wasn’t exactly the most memorable thing (especially given every card that’s led up to it in these past couple weeks), it did showcase the continuously evolving arsenal of Leites even in defeat, especially in the striking department. First Werdum, now Leites, it’s like Brazil is finally starting to catch up to the sport they invented. (commence Internet outrage….now!!)

In related news you never would have seen coming, bisping used the win to call out “cheating, scumbag motherf*ckers” Vitor Belfort and Dan Henderson, then a title shot. Which, aside from the lulz I got from that last part, LOL at the first part!

Elsewhere, the Fight Night 72 card featured a one-sided grappling clinic between journeyman lightweights and a women’s strawweight battle for the ages, so check out all the highlights and results from Saturday’s card after the jump.

You know that thing I said earlier about Brazilians learning to strike? Well, the British should really take a page out of their book and apply it to wrestling. (Bring it on, 3 people who still comment here!!) 

Evan Dunham thoroughly outgrappled Ross Pearson en route to a unanimous decision victory, nearly finishing things in the first with this INSANE armbar that Pearson somehow gritted through. The Brit’s enthusiasm for matwork was almost non-present from then on, which he later blamed on his opponent’s love of lay-n-pray. To which I always say, “If a guy can win a fight simply by laying on you, aren’t *you* mostly to blame?” (Internet outrage meter: Critical.)

Anyways, the loss crushed any hope Pearson might’ve had of winning back-to-back fights for the first time since 2013, while Dunham did exactly that for the first time since 2012.

JoJo, we need to have a talk. You need to stop scaring me so bad in the early going of your fights, mmmmkay? You are my Khaleesi, my moon and stars, and I’m 90% sure that your laugh could cure cancer, so please, stopping letting these last-minute replacement opponents pummel the piss out of you for the first minute of the fight. Also, will you please return my calls? I don’t care what the judge says, we belong together.

All kidding aside, it seemed as if Joanne Calderwood needed to get punched in the face a few times by the unheard of Cortney Casey on Saturday before she could came to the Jason Bourne-esque revelation that she was a trained killing machine. Maybe it was a confidence thing, but JoJo weathered the early onslaught and took over, blistering Casey with nasty knees, body kicks, and the occassional butthole punch or two en route to a unanimous decision victory.

A credit is due to Casey for the heart she displayed while being absolutely savaged in the latter rounds, and we can’t wait to see what she looks like with a full training camp under her belt. My guess: Cortney Casey w/full camp > Mendes full camp > TRtor > Motivated Penn.

Joseph Duffy is for real, ladies and germs. Yes, the man known best as The Last Guy to Beat Conor McGregor™ once again impressed against Ivan Jorge, who I’m just going to assume was a competitor on one of the Brazilian TUFs. (I’ll admit, I’m just trying to piss people off at this point.)

After displaying his smooth, smooth boxing skills early, Duffy snatched up one of the smoothest triangle chokes you will ever see during a scramble midway through the first round. Though it at first seemed like Jorge would grit his way out of it, the Duffman We Deserve™ would simply not be denied. Duffy now sits at 2-0 in the UFC’s lightweight division and will mostly certainly be receiving a step up in competition soon.

The full results from Fight Night 72 are below.

Main card (FOX Sports 1 at 1 p.m. ET)
Michael Bisping def. Thales Leites via split decision (47-48, 49-46, 48-47)
Evan Dunham def. Ross Pearson via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Joseph Duffy def. Ivan Jorge via submission (triangle choke) 3:05 of round 1
Joanne Calderwood def. Cortney Casey-Sanchez via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)
Leon Edwards def. Pawel Pawlak via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Steven Ray def. Leonardo Mafra via TKO (punches) at 2:30 of round 1

Undercard (FOX Sports 1 at 11 a.m. ET)
Patrick Holohan def. Vaughan Lee via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Ilir Latifi def. Hans Stringer via KO (punch) at :56 of round 1
Mickael Lebout def. Teemu Packalen via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Robert Whiteford def. Paul Redmond via TKO (punches) at 3:04 of round 1

Undercard (UFC Fight Pass at 10 a.m. ET)

Jimmie Rivera def. Marcus Brimage via TKO (punches) at 1:29 of round 1
Daniel Omielanczuk def. Chris De La Rocha via TKO (punches) at :48 of round 1

The post Fight Night 72 Results: Bisping Outpoints Leites, Dunham Tops Pearson, Duffy Continues to Wow + More appeared first on Cagepotato.

Watch Carla Esparza Choke Out Rose Namajunas (Legit, Legal Video)

The UFC crowned its first women’s strawweight champion last night. Carla Esparza and Rose Namajunas tore through the cast of The Ultimate Fighter season 20 and met one another in the finals.

Namajunas had a great showing in the first round, but in the second and third, Esparza’s wrestling and power became too much for Namajunas to handle. She took Namajunas down at will and controlled her easily, eventually taking her back in the third round and securing a rear naked choke.

Get the fight card’s complete results — including KJ Noons vs. Daron Cruickshank and Charles Oliveira vs. Jeremy Stephens — after the jump.

The UFC crowned its first women’s strawweight champion last night. Carla Esparza and Rose Namajunas tore through the cast of The Ultimate Fighter season 20 and met one another in the finals.

Namajunas had a great showing in the first round, but in the second and third, Esparza’s wrestling and power became too much for Namajunas to handle. She took Namajunas down at will and controlled her easily, eventually taking her back in the third round and securing a rear naked choke.

The card’s co-main event featured Jeremy Stephens and Charles Oliveira. The contest was one-sided, with Oliveira taking Stephens down repeatedly and nearly locking in arm-bar after arm-bar. To Stephens’ credit, he managed to escape every one — even the harrowing arm-bar attempts where his arm was completely extended. However, he barely landed any significant offense throughout the fight. Oliveira just smothered him too much with constant pressure in the wrestling department as well as unending submission attempts. The judges awarded Oliveira with a unanimous decision win.

Here are the complete results from the TUF 20 Finale:

Main Card

Carla Esparza def. Rose Namajunas via submission (rear naked choke) 1:26 of round 3
Charles Oliveira def. Jeremy Stephens via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28).
KJ Noons and Darron Cruickshank ends in a no contest via accidental eye poke, 0:25 of round 2.
Yancy Medeiros def. Joe Proctor via submission (guillotine), 4:37 of round 1.
Jessica Penne def. Randa Markos via split decision (28-29, 30-27, 29-28)

Preliminary Card

Felice Herrig def. Lisa Ellis via submission (arm-bar), 1:53 of round 2.
Heather Jo Clark def. Bec Rawlings via split decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).
Joanne Calderwood def. Seo Hee Ham via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26).
Tecia Torres def. Angela Magana via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26)
Aisling Daly def. Alex Chambers via submission (arm bar), 4:53 of round 1.
Angela Hill def. Emily Kagan via unanimous decisio (30-27, 30-26, 30-27)

TUF 20 Fight Highlights: Carla Esparza vs. Tecia Torres + Six TUF 20 Finale Fights Announced

This isn’t news to you because those knuckleheads at DirecTV already spoiled it, but yeah, here are some video highlights from last night’s episode of TUF 20, in which Carla Esparza won a two-round majority decision against Tecia Torres. Rose Namajunas also submitted Joanne Calderwood with a kimura on the episode, but those double-knuckleheads at the Ultimate Fighter YouTube channel haven’t uploaded the video yet; we’ll update this post when it pops up. With all the quarterfinal matchups now in the books, next week’s semifinal bouts will be…

Carla Esparza (#1) vs. Jessica Penne (#4)
Rose Namajunas (#7) vs. Randa Markos (#14)

Following the episode, six undercard bouts for the TUF 20 Finale (December 12th, Las Vegas) were announced on FOX Sports Live. They are…

This isn’t news to you because those knuckleheads at DirecTV already spoiled it, but yeah, here are some video highlights from last night’s episode of TUF 20, in which Carla Esparza won a two-round majority decision against Tecia Torres. Rose Namajunas also submitted Joanne Calderwood with a kimura on the episode, but those double-knuckleheads at the Ultimate Fighter YouTube channel haven’t uploaded the video yet; we’ll update this post when it pops up. With all the quarterfinal matchups now in the books, next week’s semifinal bouts will be…

Carla Esparza (#1) vs. Jessica Penne (#4)
Rose Namajunas (#7) vs. Randa Markos (#14)

Following the episode, six undercard bouts for the TUF 20 Finale (December 12th, Las Vegas) were announced on FOX Sports Live. They are…

Tecia Torres vs. Angela Magana
Joanne Calderwood vs. Seo Hee Ham*, aka “Hamderlei Silva
Felice Herrig vs. Lisa Ellis
Angela Hill vs. Emily Kagan
Aisling Daly vs. Alex Chambers
Bec Rawlings vs. Heather Jo Clark

* TUF 20 castmember Justin Kish is still recovering from a knee injury and has decided not to attend the Finale card.

DirecTV Just Spoiled the Sh*t Out of the Remaining TUF 20 Quarterfinals


(“Don’t just DirecTV, PredicTV”)

It’s been an entertaining, if fairly routine season of The Ultimate Fighter thus far, despite all the hubbub about “a champion being crowned” and a new division and all that. The fights have been thoroughly enjoyable across the board, the in-house drama kept to a near minimum, and Anthony Pettis is seemingly doing the best he can to remind us why we should care that he’s the lightweight champion. Another season, another dollar, yadda yadda, yadda yadda…

Last week, #4 ranked Jessica Penne (who has been my dark horse pick to win the season since the cast was announced) defeated #5 Aisling Daly via unanimous decision to advance to the semifinals alongside #12 Randa Markos. Next week’s episode features a pair of pivotal quarterfinal matchups in #7 Rose Namajunas (THUG ROSE!) vs. #2 Joanne Calderwood and #1 Carla Esparza vs. #3 Tecia Torres, and the only way you’ll ever find out who wins will be to tune in!!

Unless you happen to have DirecTV, that is, in which case you could just scroll ahead to the summary for episode 12 and read it for yourself. Someone dun screwed up alright, and thanks to r/MMA user 3JSand (and our goddamned curiosity), we now know exactly how the semifinals will look.

Join us after the jump for some major spoilers.


(“Don’t just DirecTV, PredicTV”)

It’s been an entertaining, if fairly routine season of The Ultimate Fighter thus far, despite all the hubbub about “a champion being crowned” and a new division and all that. The fights have been thoroughly enjoyable across the board, the in-house drama kept to a near minimum, and Anthony Pettis is seemingly doing the best he can to remind us why we should care that he’s the lightweight champion. Another season, another dollar, yadda yadda, yadda yadda…

Last week, #4 ranked Jessica Penne (who has been my dark horse pick to win the season since the cast was announced) defeated #5 Aisling Daly via unanimous decision to advance to the semifinals alongside #12 Randa Markos. Next week’s episode features a pair of pivotal quarterfinal matchups in #7 Rose Namajunas (THUG ROSE!) vs. #2 Joanne Calderwood and #1 Carla Esparza vs. #3 Tecia Torres, and the only way you’ll ever find out who wins will be to tune in!!

Unless you happen to have DirecTV, that is, in which case you could just scroll ahead to the summary for episode 12 and read it for yourself. Someone dun screwed up alright, and thanks to r/MMA user 3JSand (and our goddamned curiosity), we now know exactly how the semifinals will look.

Major spoilers below. Proceed at your own risk.

If you recall, this isn’t the first time that we’ve had a TUF episode spoiled due to a slip-up on the broadcasting end. Just last year, a TUF 18 promo unintentionally gave away the winner of Raquel Pennington vs. Jessica Rakoczy thanks to some poor editing (and a little sleuth work on our part). But there you have it: Esparza defeats Torres, and Thug Rose bests JoJo.

Come at us, Dana.

Related: The highlights from last week’s quarterfinal battle between Jessica Penne and Aisling Daly.

J. Jones

TUF 20 Episode 2 Video Highlights: Calderwood vs. Kagan, Felice Herrig’s Blurred-Out Crotch + More

I decided not to do a “TUF Checklist” post for TUF 20 episode 2, because there were no absurd Dana White exaggerations, none of the women said “I’m not here to make friends” or made any scary proclamations, there were no misleading teases for future episodes, and honestly, the ladies didn’t really “bring it” during the fight. (#2-ranked Joanne Calderwood looked hesitant and flat in the first round, and still managed to beat #15-seed Emily Kagan in a two-round majority decision.) The updated TUF 20 bracket is here, if you’re interested.

Luckily, the Ultimate Fighter YouTube channel has posted clips of the relevant moments from last night’s episode, as well as some unaired footage. Notably absent: The scene where some of the Team Pettis fighters tell their coaches that they’re not happy with the stop-and-go vibe of the training. According to Randa Markos, that confrontation may have compelled Duke Roufus to leave the show.

The clips continue after the jump. If you have any thoughts on the episode — other than the obvious — please share ’em.

I decided not to do a “TUF Checklist” post for TUF 20 episode 2, because there were no absurd Dana White exaggerations, none of the women said “I’m not here to make friends” or made any scary proclamations, there were no misleading teases for future episodes, and honestly, the ladies didn’t really “bring it” during the fight. (#2-ranked Joanne Calderwood looked hesitant and flat in the first round, and still managed to beat #15-seed Emily Kagan in a two-round majority decision.) The updated TUF 20 bracket is here, if you’re interested.

Luckily, the Ultimate Fighter YouTube channel has posted clips of the relevant moments from last night’s episode, as well as some unaired footage. Notably absent: The scene where some of the Team Pettis fighters tell their coaches that they’re not happy with the stop-and-go vibe of the training. According to Randa Markos, that confrontation may have compelled Duke Roufus to leave the show.

The clips continue after the jump. If you have any thoughts on the episode — other than the obvious — please share ‘em.