Tag: Yoel Romero

Yoel Romero May Have Just Found His Next Opponent

It appears that UFC middleweight title contender Yoel Romero has found his next opponent. If you recall, earlier this week, Romero went on record by saying that he was looking to return to action in a bout against former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold. However, he’s not getting that fight because Rockhold beat David Branch […]

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It appears that UFC middleweight title contender Yoel Romero has found his next opponent.

If you recall, earlier this week, Romero went on record by saying that he was looking to return to action in a bout against former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.

However, he’s not getting that fight because Rockhold beat David Branch and is now taking on Whittaker for the middleweight title at UFC 221.

“I don’t understand why he said no. I don’t understand. Maybe he had a strategy in the mind. He say, ‘No I wont fight Yoel, I will fight somebody easy.’ Respect to David Branch, but that’s the way he thinks, you know? That’s Luke’s mentality, ‘I want a more easy fight, win and Yoel Romero lose his last fight.’” said the tank of a middleweight on a recent edition of The MMA Hour.

Branch is willing to fight Romero and even has a date and location set for the fight just as long as the UFC is up for making the fight official and Romero is willing to accept it.

That event is UFC on FOX 27, which is set to take place on February 24, 2018 at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida.The main card will air on FOX Sports 1 while the preliminary card will be split broadcasted on FOX Sports 1 and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.

“People have reason to be feared by you my friend,” middleweight David Branch wrote on Twitter. “I want to fight the most dangerous people in the world and you’re one of them. February 24 at UFC on FOX in Orlando, I would like to do battle with you.”

Romero responded by writing the following on his official Twitter account:

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David Branch Challenges Yoel Romero, Gets Response

David Branch wants a bout with Yoel Romero, and his request may be granted. Branch was last seen in action against Luke Rockhold back in September. He ended up losing the bout via second-round submission. It was his first loss since May 2012. Branch is…

David Branch wants a bout with Yoel Romero, and his request may be granted. Branch was last seen in action against Luke Rockhold back in September. He ended up losing the bout via second-round submission. It was his first loss since May 2012. Branch is eyeing a huge turnaround against former interim title challenger Romero. […]

Yoel Romero Rips Luke Rockhold For Accepting ‘Easier Fight’

Former UFC middleweight title contender Yoel Romero has a big problem on his hands, and that is trying to find someone to fight him in the Octagon. He is coming off a loss to Robert Whittaker at UFC 213 in an interim Middleweight title fight, and now he’s ready to compete once again. He was […]

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Former UFC middleweight title contender Yoel Romero has a big problem on his hands, and that is trying to find someone to fight him in the Octagon.

He is coming off a loss to Robert Whittaker at UFC 213 in an interim Middleweight title fight, and now he’s ready to compete once again. He was looking to return to action in a bout against former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.

However, he’s not getting that fight because of two reasons. One, Rockhold wasn’t into the idea of accepting that fight. The other reason is that he beat David Branch and is now taking on Whittaker for the middleweight title at UFC 221.

Romero is claiming that the former Strikeforce and UFC middleweight champion was simply looking for the easiest fight available.

“I don’t understand why he said no. I don’t understand. Maybe he had a strategy in the mind. He say, ‘No I wont fight Yoel, I will fight somebody easy.’ Respect to David Branch, but that’s the way he thinks, you know? That’s Luke’s mentality, ‘I want a more easy fight, win and Yoel Romero lose his last fight.’” said the tank of a middleweight on a recent edition of The MMA Hour.

According to Romero, Rockhold needed to face him first with the winner getting dibs on the next title shot.

“For my opinion, he needed a fight with me and the winner fight with Robert. The problem is UFC has a show in Australia and this guy is the champion right now in my division. So he needed somebody and UFC gave it to Luke Rockhold because he win his last fight,” added Romero, who says he is now waiting for someone to just agree to step into the cage with him.

“I am waiting for UFC for a fight. I want to main event Feb. 24 in Orlando. I am waiting for the fight for Luke Rockhold, but I know now he has a fight with Robert. Now I am waiting for somebody. But nobody say ‘Yes, I want to fight Yoel.’ So give me somebody, maybe Michael Bisping,” he said with a laugh, while confirming Kelvin Gastelum also turned down a fight against him.

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Luke Rockhold Promises To Slap ‘Midget’ Kelvin Gastelum

Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold will get another crack at the title when he squares off with newly minted undisputed champion Robert Whittaker in the main event of February 10’s UFC 221 from Perth, Australia. But it’s been a long road back for the onetime heir apparent to Anderson Silva as the 185-pound greatest […]

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Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold will get another crack at the title when he squares off with newly minted undisputed champion Robert Whittaker in the main event of February 10’s UFC 221 from Perth, Australia.

But it’s been a long road back for the onetime heir apparent to Anderson Silva as the 185-pound greatest of all-time (even though ‘The Spider’s legacy has, unfortunately, come into question as of late). Cocksure of a long reign, Rockhold infamously lost his title to Michael Bisping at 2016’s UFC 199, sparking a year-and-a-half of outright chaos when ‘The Count’ refused to fight any top contender and lost the belt to returning welterweight king Georges St-Pierre last month.

Now that St-Pierre has left 185 and vacated his title, the deeply packed division has some semblance of order restored, yet during the chaos, a new star emerged in Kelvin Gastelum, who knocked out Bisping at UFC Shanghai on November 25. He also thinks himself a more rightful contender to the middleweight throne than Rockhold despite a recent loss to former champ Chris Weidman in July, whom Rockhold demolished to win the belt initially at UFC 194.

Speaking up on his sudden rival to Submission Radio (quotes via MMA Fighting), Rockhold affirmed his view that he was the more deserving fighter. With that said, he viewed it as humorous Gastelum to run his mouth and suggest otherwise:

“I know I’ve proven myself,” Rockhold said. “I’ve accomplished things in this sport, whereas little m**gets like Kelvin Gastelum haven’t. I’ve destroyed Chris Weidman, which he got destroyed by Weidman, so it’s like ehh [shrugs].

“This kid hasn’t beaten really anybody and done anything in this sport, and for him to run his mouth, it’s pretty funny. It’s laughable. He’ll find out real if he continues his efforts at 185. I’d slap that kid down real quick. Real quick.”

It seems Gastelum is not on Rockhold’s radar despite some truly excellent knockouts in the class. He’s more focused on surging champion Whittaker, who has fought and defeated the absolute cream of the crop – something he wants to do himself:

“Whittaker’s been the champ for a long time, so he’s the goal, of course. The best is always the goal, being on top is the goal and Whittaker’s proved himself for a long time now. He’s been on top, he’s beaten all the top guys, he’s the man. . .

“I wanna fight Whittaker, I want to fight the best. It would’ve been – I’m a realist, and I know that neither [Georges St-Pierre nor Michael Bisping], win or lose, would fight any of us. They’re both gonna try and run off, ride off into the sunset and not fight the fight. I respect Whittaker for stepping up and fighting me. I know he had options to take a lesser opponent, the fans wanted this and this is what it is. He’s a true champion, he’s gonna fight the No. 1 contenders.”

Credit goes to ‘The Reaper’ for getting middleweight moving once again, and there’s little doubt that the fight will be a true match of two of the top competitors in the historical division, which can’t be said of the Bisping-St-Pierre period.

The winner will be middleweight one and only true king, and in today’s unpredictable fighting climate, that’s certainly a sight for sore eyes for fans.

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Top UFC Lightweight Thinks It’s Time To Strip Conor McGregor’s Belt

As the UFC heads into 2018 following a questionable 2017 where their biggest star Conor McGregor didn’t fight in MMA once, their biggest question remains when – and if – ‘The Notorious’ will finally defend his title belt. Long regarded as possibly the most talented division in the UFC, the 155-pound fray has grown increasingly […]

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As the UFC heads into 2018 following a questionable 2017 where their biggest star Conor McGregor didn’t fight in MMA once, their biggest question remains when – and if – ‘The Notorious’ will finally defend his title belt.

Long regarded as possibly the most talented division in the UFC, the 155-pound fray has grown increasingly packed with disgruntled contenders who want the weight class to finally move on. There’s no end to the current rut, however, as interim champion Tony Ferguson recently had surgery and is understandably waiting for his massive payday unification bout with McGregor.

That has the division on edge, and the growing sentiment amongst them is that McGregor should be stripped of his title if he’s unwilling to defend it soon like he said he would. One of those competitors is No. 7-ranked Dustin Poirier, once a foe of McGregor’s who was knocked out at 2014’s UFC 178. But “The Diamond” has been on a bit of a tear in 2017 after his last loss to Michael Johnson in September 2016, building a two-fight win streak that would be three if his controversial UFC 211 bout vs. Eddie Alvarez hadn’t been ruled a no contest by Herb Dean.

Poirier recently told MMA Weekly’s Damon Martin that the time was here for the UFC to strip McGregor:

“The thing is, the UFC’s pretending with Conor, but you have a list of top 10 fighters who aren’t pretending or messing around. This is their lives and their goals and their family’s future, a lot of stuff on the line here.

“So no pretending — let’s strip the belt from the guy or make him fight.”

Poirier undoubtedly raises a valid point by suggesting McGregor needs to defend the belt because the rest of the class is trying to further their careers, yet it could be highly unlikely due to the fact that the promotion’s far and away best shot at a monstrous pay-per-view (PPV) haul in 2018 rests on McGregor’s potential return.

Regardless, Poirier said the division needs to move on and the only to attain that necessary goal is to get McGregor out of the picture if he doesn’t want to compete:

“We have to [strip him] and then other fights make sense. Tony [Ferguson] gets the belt, his belt becomes the real belt and then he fights the winner out of these next few fights we have coming at the beginning of the year. We’ve got to clear it up.”

‘The Diamond’ is hardly the first fighter – or even lightweight, for that matter – to call out the UFC to take the brash Irishman’s gold, and those cries are only growing louder by the day.

As we’ve seen with the recent (and curious) case of returning former champion Georges St-Pierre, titles don’t mean anything close to what they once did in the UFC, as they’re really only an award placed on a match-up to make it seem as big as possible in today’s “money fight” era.

McGregor only wants compete in just those, and the Top 10 of the lightweight division aren’t really going to be his radar unfortunately, because they would provide fans with some entertaining action. After you fight Floyd Mayweather, most bouts don’t seem to get the juices flowing quite as much as they once did.

For the lightweight division’s sake, the fight game will have to hope the UFC finally lends some clarification to this growing cesspool sometime very soon.

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UFC Rankings Update: GSP Plummets After Vacating Title

UFC great Georges St-Pierre created one of MMA’s legitimate feel-good moments when he returned from nearly four years off to defeat former middleweight champion Michael Bisping in the main event of November 4’s UFC 217 from New York, becoming only the fourth UFC multi-division champ in the process. His future in the sport became incredibly […]

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UFC great Georges St-Pierre created one of MMA’s legitimate feel-good moments when he returned from nearly four years off to defeat former middleweight champion Michael Bisping in the main event of November 4’s UFC 217 from New York, becoming only the fourth UFC multi-division champ in the process.

His future in the sport became incredibly unclear shortly after his historic win, however, as St-Pierre revealed that he would be out for an indefinite period of time while recovering from colitis due to the increased mass required to move up to 185 pounds. ‘GSP’ revealed shortly thereafter that he was most likely done at 185, and that became all but a sure thing when he vacated the belt in the days that followed.

This week, the official UFC rankings have reflected that, as St-Pierre fell an alarming three spots to No. 3 at 185 pounds, dropping below Luke Rockhold and Yoel Romero while there was a strong case to be made he shouldn’t even be ranked there any longer because he doesn’t intend to fight there again.

Considering the actual fight action last week, featherweight Brian Ortega rose two spots to No. 4 after submitting veteran Cub Swanson in the UFC Fresno main event. Swanson fell one spot to No. 5.

Check out the fully updated rankings on the UFC’s official website here:

POUND-FOR-POUND
1 Demetrious Johnson
2 Georges St-Pierre
3 Conor McGregor
4 Max Holloway
5 Daniel Cormier
6 TJ Dillashaw
7 Stipe Miocic
8 Tyron Woodley
9 Tony Ferguson
10 Cris Cyborg
11 Cody Garbrandt
12 Robert Whittaker
13 Amanda Nunes -1
14 Joanna Jedrzejczyk
15 Dominick Cruz

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

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

FEATHERWEIGHT
Champion: Max Holloway
1 Jose Aldo
2 Frankie Edgar
3 Ricardo Lamas
4 Brian Ortega +2
5 Cub Swanson -1
6 Chan Sung Jung -1
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 Calvin Kattar *NR

LIGHTWEIGHT
Champion: Conor McGregor
1 Tony Ferguson (Interim Champion)
2 Khabib Nurmagomedov
3 Eddie Alvarez
4 Edson Barboza
5 Justin Gaethje
6 Nate Diaz
7 Dustin Poirier
8 Kevin Lee
9 Michael Chiesa
10 Michael Johnson
11 Al Iaquinta
12 Beneil Dariush
13 Anthony Pettis
14 Francisco Trinaldo
15 James Vick

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

MIDDLEWEIGHT
Champion: Robert Whittaker
1 Yoel Romero +1
2 Luke Rockhold +1
3 Georges St-Pierre -3
4 Jacare Souza
5 Chris Weidman
6 Kelvin Gastelum
7 Michael Bisping
8 Derek Brunson
9 Anderson Silva
10 David Branch
11 Uriah Hall
12 Vitor Belfort
13 Krzysztof Jotko
14 Lyoto Machida
15 Paulo Costa

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion: Daniel Cormier
1 Alexander Gustafsson
2 Volkan Oezdemir
3 Glover Teixeira
4 Jimi Manuwa
5 Ovince Saint Preux
6 Mauricio Rua
7 Misha Cirkunov
8 Corey Anderson
9 Ilir Latifi
10 Patrick Cummins
11 Rogerio Nogueira
12 Gadzhimurad Antigulov
13 Tyson Pedro
14 Jared Cannonier
15 Jan Blachowicz

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

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

WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT
Champion: Nicco Montano
1 Sijara Eubanks
2 Lauren Murphy
3 Alexis Davis *NR
4 Roxanne Modafferi -1
5 Barb Honchak -1
6 Montana De La Rosa -1
7 Rachael Ostovich
8 Mara Romero Borella +1
9 Liz Carmouche *NR
10 Jessica Rose Clark -2
11 Shana Dobson -1
12 Gillian Robertson -1
13 Kalindra Faria -1
14 Melinda Fabian -1
15 Bec Rawlings -1

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

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