Tag: UFC 182

Volkan Oezdemir Makes Bold Prediction For Daniel Cormier Title Bout

Streaking UFC light heavyweight Volkan Oezdemir recently won the sweepstakes for the next title shot at reinstated champion Daniel Cormier’s belt, and when he gets it, he’s predicting a quick and brutal finish. The Swiss knockout artist, who has risen from relatively unknown status to that of a top-ranked UFC title contender in a mere […]

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Streaking UFC light heavyweight Volkan Oezdemir recently won the sweepstakes for the next title shot at reinstated champion Daniel Cormier’s belt, and when he gets it, he’s predicting a quick and brutal finish.

The Swiss knockout artist, who has risen from relatively unknown status to that of a top-ranked UFC title contender in a mere eight months, recently appeared on “The MMA Hour” with Ariel Helwani to discuss his perceived upcoming title shot, which he got when Cormier took a poll online.

“No Time” expressed his gratitude towards the fans who voted him in before noting that while 2017 had obviously been a great year, 2018 was going to be even better:

“Of course I was looking at it really closely. That was something huge. I’m really humbled. Cormier is somebody I respect a lot. The fact that he called me out, made a poll and his fans wanted me – that’s something that means even more to me.

“If the fans choose me, it means a lot to me. I’m really happy with everything that’s happening right now. The year 2017 is a great year for me and 2018 is going to be even better for sure.”

Photo: Gary A. Vasquez for USA TODAY Sports

While Oezdemir appears to have the title shot locked down based on what Cormier has told him, he acknowledged that the UFC had not yet booked the fight so he was now focused on promoting it:

“Yeah, we’re going to talk soon, but right now we are trying to promote the fight more. That fight is definitely going to happen. I want it for sure and I understand Cormier wants it also.”

Finally, Oezdemir gave his prediction for the high-profile bout, and it was not surprisingly one which ends in a knockout loss for Cormier, who most recently lost the belt to Jon Jones via third-round head kick knockout at UFC 214 before having it returned when Jones tested positive for anabolic steroid:

“It’s not going to be the best situation for him because I’ve got knockout power, that’s for sure. I hope his brain recovered well. I’m going to bring the heat.

“I think in the first two minutes, that’s my goal anyway. I’m going to make all of my training so I will be able to knock him out. I have no time for this. I don’t want to get injured, I’m just going to knock him out really fast.”

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Daniel Cormier Reveals Next Title Contender At 205 Pounds

With the dust just beginning to settle from Jon Jones second failed PED test and subsequent loss of the light heavyweight title, newly re-crowned champ Daniel Cormier has heeded the fans call for a fight with surging Volkan Oezdemir. Oezdemir has blasted his way through the top ten light heavyweights, taking a decision win over […]

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With the dust just beginning to settle from Jon Jones second failed PED test and subsequent loss of the light heavyweight title, newly re-crowned champ Daniel Cormier has heeded the fans call for a fight with surging Volkan Oezdemir.

Oezdemir has blasted his way through the top ten light heavyweights, taking a decision win over Ovince Saint Preux in his UFC debut before quickly and brutally knocking out Misha Circunov and Jimi Manuwa.

With top contender Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson retired from the sport and out of the picture, Cormier took to Twitter to offer Oezdemir a shot at the light heavyweight strap.

Cormier is once again champion, despite losing the belt by third round knockout to Jon Jones at UFC 214 in July. That loss was overturned to a no contest following Jones’ positive test for Turinabol, an anabolic steroid.

Cormier’s next title fight ultimately came down to either Alexander Gustafsson or Oezdemir, and DC seemingly listened to the fans in offering the shot to Volkan.

No date or location has been announced as of yet.

How does a Cormier vs Oezdemir title fight sound to you? Has Volkan earned his shot just three fights into his UFC tenure?

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Jon Jones Swears He Would ‘Never Do Steroids’

This week has already witnessed a veritable windfall of news surrounding Jon Jones’ drug test failure for anabolic steroid turinabol and the subsequent fallout. It all began when Jones’ B-sample from the event came back positive for the same substance on Tuesday, inciting a wildfire that lead to Jones’ third-round TKO win over Daniel Cormier at […]

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This week has already witnessed a veritable windfall of news surrounding Jon Jones’ drug test failure for anabolic steroid turinabol and the subsequent fallout.

It all began when Jones’ B-sample from the event came back positive for the same substance on Tuesday, inciting a wildfire that lead to Jones’ third-round TKO win over Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 to be changed to a no-contest and ending with Cormier being reinstated as the UFC light heavyweight champion as ‘Boes’ was removed from the official rankings.

But Jones and his team are ready to fight this thing to the dire end, something they did with mild success when Jones tested positive for clomiphene and letrozol before his scheduled UFC 200 rematch with Cormier last July. That’s going to be much tougher to pull off considering the lengthy timeline of drug-related issues Jones has become involved with, however, the embattled MMA legend isn’t moving an inch.

Never was that more apparent than it was today (Thurs., September 14, 2017) when Jones replied to a fan who insisted he would be met with much better reception if he just admitted he had messed up. Jones would do no such thing, swearing on some incredibly important aspects of his life that he would ‘never do steroids’:

The post is a flashback to Jones’ earlier days as a God-fearing, positive affirmation-quoting golden boy during his UFC rise, a view that has shrunken considerably based on his seemingly unstoppable problems with recreational and performance-enhancing drugs.

Perhaps his words would have been believable had he not let his fans and the sport down on so many repeated occasions, but at the current time, it’s tough to trust Jones on any serious matter when he refuses to take any amount of responsibility.

There will always be the “Bones” apologists who think he was dealt an unfair shake, and there’s a chance, albeit minute, that he is exonerated from his latest screw-up. Yet with drug scandals mounting, that’s growing more and more unlikely by the day.

Are you buying “Bones’” latest deflection?

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UFC Rankings Update: Jon Jones Gets Removed – Again

Although last weekend’s (Sat., September 9, 2017) UFC 215 from Rogers Place in Edmonton provided a decent rankings shake-up for the UFC in its own right, the biggest MMA news of the week has obviously been fixated on the disappointing saga of former UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones and his UFC 214 drug test failure. […]

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Although last weekend’s (Sat., September 9, 2017) UFC 215 from Rogers Place in Edmonton provided a decent rankings shake-up for the UFC in its own right, the biggest MMA news of the week has obviously been fixated on the disappointing saga of former UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones and his UFC 214 drug test failure.

News first arrived that Jones’ third-round knockout win over Cormier at UFC 214 had been overturned to a no-contest, which lead to Jones being stripped of the title while Cormier was reinstated. So as expected, Jones has now been removed from the official UFC rankings, where he was previously dropped below Demetrious Johnson and Conor McGregor on the pound-for-pound list while the results of his B-sample were awaited.

He failed for anabolic steroid turinabol in the second test, too, and has now been removed from the pound-and-for-pound and light heavyweight ranks.

In terms of actual fighting, Rafael dos Anjos rose an amazing five spots at welterweight for his dominant submission over Neil Magny at UFC 215, while Ketlen Vieira almost duplicated that, moving up four spots to No. 9 for her submission win over the formerly surging veteran Sara McMann. Robbie Lawler also moved into a tie with Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson at welterweights top spot.

Here are the full updated rankings courtesy of UFC.com:

POUND-FOR-POUND
1 Demetrious Johnson
2 Conor McGregor
3 Stipe Miocic +1
4 Max Holloway +1
5 Cody Garbrandt +1
6 Daniel Cormier +1
7 Joanna Jedrzejczyk +1
8 Tyron Woodley +1
9 Dominick Cruz +1
10 Jose Aldo +2
11 Michael Bisping
12 Cris Cyborg +1
13 Robert Whittaker +1
14 Amanda Nunes +1
15 TJ Dillashaw *NR

FLYWEIGHT
Champion : Demetrious Johnson
1 Joseph Benavidez
2 Henry Cejudo
3 Ray Borg
4 Sergio Pettis
5 Jussier Formiga +1
6 Wilson Reis -1
7 Brandon Moreno
8 Ben Nguyen
9 Tim Elliott
10 John Moraga
11 Dustin Ortiz
12 Ian McCall
13 Alexandre Pantoja
14 Louis Smolka
15 Magomed Bibulatov

BANTAMWEIGHT
Champion : Cody Garbrandt
1 Dominick Cruz
2 TJ Dillashaw
3 Jimmie Rivera
4 Raphael Assuncao
5 John Lineker
6 Bryan Caraway
7 Aljamain Sterling
8 John Dodson
9 Thomas Almeida
10 Marlon Moraes
11 Eddie Wineland
12 Pedro Munhoz
13 Rob Font
14 Matthew Lopez
15 Johnny Eduardo

FEATHERWEIGHT
Champion : Max Holloway
1 Jose Aldo
2 Frankie Edgar
3 Ricardo Lamas
4 Cub Swanson
5 Chan Sung Jung
6 Brian Ortega
7 Yair Rodriguez
8 Jeremy Stephens
9 Darren Elkins
10 Renato Moicano
11 Dennis Bermudez
12 Dooho Choi
13 Mirsad Bektic
14 Myles Jury
15 Jason Knight

LIGHTWEIGHT
Champion : Conor McGregor
1 Khabib Nurmagomedov
2 Tony Ferguson
3 Eddie Alvarez
4 Edson Barboza
5 Justin Gaethje
6 Nate Diaz
7 Kevin Lee
8 Dustin Poirier
9 Michael Johnson
10 Michael Chiesa
11 Al Iaquinta
12 Beneil Dariush
13 Anthony Pettis
14 Evan Dunham +1
15 Mairbek Taisumov *NR

WELTERWEIGHT
Champion : Tyron Woodley
1 Robbie Lawler +1
1 Stephen Thompson
3 Demian Maia
4 Jorge Masvidal
5 Rafael Dos Anjos +5
6 Donald Cerrone
7 Carlos Condit -2
8 Colby Covington
9 Santiago Ponzinibbio
9 Neil Magny -3
11 Gunnar Nelson
12 Dong Hyun Kim
13 Kamaru Usman
14 Alex Oliveira
15 Tarec Saffiedine

MIDDLEWEIGHT
Champion : Michael Bisping
1 Robert Whittaker (Interim Champion)
2 Yoel Romero
3 Luke Rockhold
4 Jacare Souza
5 Chris Weidman
6 Anderson Silva
7 Derek Brunson
8 Kelvin Gastelum
9 David Branch
10 Krzysztof Jotko
11 Vitor Belfort
12 Thales Leites
13 Tim Boetsch
14 Uriah Hall
15 Thiago Santos

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
0 Daniel Cormier +1
1 Alexander Gustafsson +1
2 Volkan Oezdemir +1
3 Glover Teixeira +1
4 Jimi Manuwa +1
5 Mauricio Rua +1
6 Ovince Saint Preux +1
7 Corey Anderson +1
8 Misha Cirkunov +1
9 Ilir Latifi +1
10 Rogerio Nogueira +1
11 Patrick Cummins +1
12 Gadzhimurad Antigulov +3
13 Gian Villante +1
14 Tyson Pedro -1

HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion : Stipe Miocic
1 Alistair Overeem
2 Fabricio Werdum
3 Cain Velasquez
4 Francis Ngannou
5 Mark Hunt
6 Derrick Lewis
7 Alexander Volkov
8 Marcin Tybura
9 Aleksei Oleinik
10 Stefan Struve
11 Andrei Arlovski
12 Junior Albini
13 Curtis Blaydes
14 Travis Browne
15 Tim Johnson

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT
Champion : Joanna Jedrzejczyk
1 Claudia Gadelha
2 Karolina Kowalkiewicz
3 Rose Namajunas
4 Jessica Andrade
5 Tecia Torres
6 Michelle Waterson
7 Cynthia Calvillo +1
8 Carla Esparza -1
9 Felice Herrig
10 Paige VanZant
11 Cortney Casey +1
11 Alexa Grasso +2
13 Joanne Calderwood -2
14 Randa Markos
15 Maryna Moroz

WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT
Champion : Amanda Nunes
1 Valentina Shevchenko
2 Holly Holm
3 Julianna Pena
4 Raquel Pennington +1
5 Ronda Rousey -1
6 Cat Zingano +1
7 Sara McMann -1
8 Germaine de Randamie
9 Ketlen Vieira +4
10 Liz Carmouche -1
10 Alexis Davis
12 Marion Reneau -1
13 Katlyn Chookagian -1
14 Bethe Correia
15 Leslie Smith *NR

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UFC Reinstates Daniel Cormier As Light Heavyweight Champ

Well, that didn’t take long. Hours after Jon Jones’ third-round knockout win over Daniel Cormier in the main event of July 29’s UFC 214 was changed to a no-contest due to Jones failing a drug test for turinabol, the UFC has officially reinstated “DC” as the official champion. Cormier revealed that he had spoken with UFC […]

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Well, that didn’t take long.

Hours after Jon Jones’ third-round knockout win over Daniel Cormier in the main event of July 29’s UFC 214 was changed to a no-contest due to Jones failing a drug test for turinabol, the UFC has officially reinstated “DC” as the official champion.

Cormier revealed that he had spoken with UFC president Dana White and he informed he had been reinstated as the champ during tonight’s episode of UFC Tonight, which he co-hosts:

“If it’s a no contest, then the fight didn’t happen,” Cormier said. “[White] said, ‘If one of you guys would have missed weight, he would have won the fight, but you still would have kept the belt. Because of that, the championship is getting returned to you.’ The fight is a no contest. If he cheated, he could not have fought and cheated and still won the fight.

“Once again, I’m the UFC champion.”

The UFC also confirmed that news on their official website, releasing an official statement on the division:

“UFC was informed Wednesday that the result of the UFC 214 bout between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier on July 29 was overturned by the California State Athletic Commission. The ruling changes the Jones ‘win’ to a ‘no contest’ following a potential Anti-Doping Policy violation stemming from an in-competition sample collected after Jones’ weigh-in on July 28, 2017.

As this was a title bout, Cormier will be reinstated as UFC light heavyweight champion.”

Cormier first won the title when Jones was pulled from his scheduled bout with Anthony Johnson at 2015’s UFC 187 months after Jones had beaten Cormier by decision at UFC 182 that January. The trouble-making UFC great was arrested for hitting a 25-year-old pregnant woman, putting him on the sidelines until he returned in a lackluster victory over Ovince Saint Preux at UFC 197.

He was then set to take on Cormier at UFC 200 in July 2016, but a failed USADA drug test for banned substances clomiphene and letrozole for which he was suspended for a year and only returned from to defeat Cormier at UFC 214.

The once and now-current champ Cormier knows he’s going to be called a “paper champ” just as he was during his entire reign, and he never beat Jones. But he’s ready for it, and he stated he’d be foolish to turn down the championship payday if he would be fighting for the championship anyway.

In his eyes, it’s Jones who cheated the fans, so giving him the championship back is the only right thing to do:

“People will say stuff like, well you got handed the belt,” Cormier said. “He cheated and the reality is for me to say, ‘I don’t want this title,’ when I was gonna be in a championship fight anyway, financially it’s just a big difference if I don’t fight as the champion as opposed to fighting for the title.

“He disqualified himself for taking a steroid before the fight, so it didn’t happen,” Cormier said. “So now I get the belt back, which is the right thing to do. And I’m not only saying that because it’s me. It’s the right thing to do. You don’t cheat the sport, you don’t cheat the fans, you don’t cheat me. You have all the physical advantages, sir. You’re 30 years old, you’re 6-4, you’ve got an 85-inch reach. I’m 38 years old. I would love to take stuff and not have to wake up every morning and walk down my stairs sideways.”

Finally, Cormier put it in concise terms, noting that he and Jones had one of the biggest bouts of 2017, but Jones had messed it up again:

“We had one of the biggest fights of the year,” Cormier said. “Once again, this guy has made a mockery of the sport.”

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Twitter Reacts To Jon Jones’ Failed B-Sample

Last night (Tues., September 12, 2017) news arrived that UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones’ B-sample of his failed UFC 214 drug test for Turinabol had also come back positive for the same banned substance, seriously putting the supremely talented but oft-troubled MMA legend’s career in doubt. The confirmation of the failed test coupled with […]

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Last night (Tues., September 12, 2017) news arrived that UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones’ B-sample of his failed UFC 214 drug test for Turinabol had also come back positive for the same banned substance, seriously putting the supremely talented but oft-troubled MMA legend’s career in doubt.

The confirmation of the failed test coupled with the original news and his previous issues with both performance-enhancing substances and drugs of abuse has understandably lead to a sizable backlash against “Bones,” whom many feel cheated the system as he threw his entire legacy into question.

Jones is, of course, owed the full due process, and his team is not surprisingly claiming it was another tainted supplement that was the culprit. While that seems to be unlikely given his sordid history of drug issues, the legal system must be given its chance to play out fairly. But that doesn’t mean that several of Jones peers aren’t going to blast him on social media, and many fighters hopped online to express their disappointment at a man who not even two months ago was being heralded as the greatest of all time.

Check out what the MMA world had to say about Jones’ confirmed B-sample right via MMA Junkie here:

Game. Set. Match. ???? via @mmaworld Jon Jones ‘B’ sample comes back positive for steroid. #mma #ufc

A post shared by Brendan Schaub (@brendanschaub) on

Well #damn The #verdict is in. #UFC #MMA #Fight #Fighter #Fighting

A post shared by Ben Saunders (@bensaundersmma) on

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