The good news is we have an interesting fight, and another fight where a highly-ranked fighter will probably crush an unknown nobody. The bad news is its a fightpass card, not on TV. The even worse news is that the fight card is on in the middle of the night in China, so maybe avoid spoilers until you watch the replay at your leisure on fightpass.

Saturday Morning

2:15 AM - (Fightpass) - UFC Fight Night, Blaydes vs. Ngannou 2

The main event is good and worth watching (probably about 7AM). The co-main should be an entertaining knockout by Overeem.

Everything else is a pile of hot garbage with Chinese prospects (lol) and very low-level fighters willing to go to China in order to hang on to their UFC contracts.

Sunday Morning

2AM - (Fightpass) - Pancrase 301

Its Pancrase. Pancrase is always very bad and in the middle of the night, and this card is no exception. Judging by tapology rankings, its very unlikely that any of these random guys will ever go anywhere.

Woke up early to watch Ngannou TKO Blaydes in just 25 seconds, lol

Old man fight time.

Tito crushed him.

Based on internet reactions, completely ignoring that sad disaster of a fight was probably the correct choice.

We inexplicably have a LOT of MMA this weekend. The UFC does this Friday/Saturday fight card thing about twice a year and for some reason this is one of those weekends. And for some weird reason Bellator decided to also have fights on both days.

Wednesday

11pm - (Fightpass) - AFC 143

Its been a while since we had a random Wednesday fight card from Alaska, so sure, why not. The quality of this card based on tapology rankings is probably worse than Pancrase, which is really, really bad. I guess thats why they do these on Wednesday nights where they have no competition.

Friday

8pm - (Paramount) - Bellator 210, Njokuani vs. Salter

This card is pretty bad for Bellator. It may end up being entertaining anyway, because it is filled with prospects trying to fight their way up, but there isn't really a "main event" fight here at all.

7pm TV - (5:30 pm Fightpass/7pm FS1) - The Ultimate Fighter 28 Finale

The TUF 28 Champions for Heavyweight and Women's Featherweight will be crowned, but more importantly we've got a pretty sweet fight between RDA and Kamaru Usman. Obviously the rest of the card isn't great on paper since this is a TUF Finale.

Saturday

3pm - (Paramount) - Bellator 211, Sakara vs. Kauppinen

Card in Italy, this is also pretty unremarkable. This or college football? Probably not a tough choice.

7pm TV - (6pm Fightpass/7pm FS1) - UFC Fight Night, Dos Santos vs. Tuivasa

This is an above-average free card. The prelims are decent, and the last 3 fights on the main card are all very good.

Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury on Saturday night as well.

Wow, I guess there's not much to do in Argentina. They have been partying and honoring Ponzinibbio for nearly two weeks now. He even met with the president of Argentina yesterday.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="es" dir="ltr">Hermoso homenaje! Gracias La Plata ❤️ gracias ARGENTINA ❤️ Les voy a traer el TÍTULO!! / Beautiful tribute! Thank you La Plata ❤️ thank you ARGENTINA ❤️ I&#39;m going to bring you the TITLE/ Belo tributo! Obrigado La Plata ❤️ obrigado ARGENTINA ❤️ vou trazer o Título <a href="https://t.co/byGI56mYGg">pic.twitter.com/byGI56mYGg</a></p>&mdash; Santiago Ponzinibbio (@SPonzinibbioMMA) <a href="https://twitter.com/SPonzinibbioMMA/status/1067558080802709504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
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lol......

Because Dana White and the UFC are both mentally ****ing reeruned, Greg Hardy's first UFC fight was scheduled for the same day as Rachael Ostovich's fight!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">There was really only one fight card that you absolutely, positively could not put Greg Hardy on without making the whole situation even worse. And the UFC put him on exactly that fight card. <a href="https://t.co/YsWHoL6I1K">https://t.co/YsWHoL6I1K</a></p>&mdash; Ben Fowlkes (@benfowlkesMMA) <a href="https://twitter.com/benfowlkesMMA/status/1070343540385824768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Dana White is such a POS....why am I not surprised though...

We have a crapton of combat sports this weekend and a really good UFC PPV.

Friday

5pm - (Fightpass) - TKO 45

This is the top Canadian B-level promotion, and this card on tapology looks about average by local promotion standards.

Saturday

11am - (Fightpass) - Glory 62

Kickboxing

3pm - (Fightpass) - Cage Warriors 100

Top B-level promotion in Europe, and since this is the 100th numbered card for the promotion, they seem to have tried to put together an event featuring the best fighters on their roster. This card is well above average for a local promotion.

7pm TV - (5pm Fightpass/7pm FS1/9pm PPV) - UFC 231, Holloway vs. Ortega

This is a very good card with 2 interesting title fights, two other fights on the PPV that should also be fun to watch, and some really good prelims. Every once in a while the UFC gets lucky, no one gets hurt, and a card they planned on paper ends up not falling apart for a change. There are a whopping 9 fights on this card that I am very interested in seeing.

12:30 am Sunday - (Fightpass) - Pancrase 302

Its Pancrase. Pancrase is usually terrible garbage. This card is a little better than normal for them based on tapology rankings, but it is still bad.

Sunday

1pm - (Fightpass) - Polaris 8

Yeah right, there's a Chiefs game on, so we're not watching this. Polaris is BJJ submission-only grappling.

7pm - (Fightpass) - EBI 18, the Female Strawweights

Yes, there is yet another event Sunday night, but its a pretty cool one. The Eddie Bravo Invitational is a submission-only tournament.

Cannot wait for Ortega/Holloway

For the casual MMA fans out there who might be idly reading this, although McGregor, Jon Jones, and to a lesser extent Cormier might be hogging all the press and attention right now, THIS fight is the fight that has been generally identified by pure hardcore MMA fans as potentially the best title fight of the whole damn year. I'm not really even sure who should be favored between Holloway and T-City, but I am fairly confident that its going to be a good one.

It's GOTTA be Blessed, right?

I am a huge fan of both Max and Brian, but I am pulling for Ortega in this fight.

Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk

Gunnar with the submission by hypovolemic shock.

That elbow was nasty

lol, I was reviewing fight stats and can you imagine being Ortega right now? Dude is very, very good, was undefeated, clear #1 contender in his division....

.... and then the champion punches him almost 300 times in 20 minutes.

This weekend is the final UFC on FOX before the new ESPN deal kicks in.

Friday

8pm - (Fightpass) - Cage Fury 71

This is a very solid local card, so its unfortunate that they are going up against Bellator tonight.

9pm - (Paramount) - Bellator 212, Primus vs. Chandler 2

Live from Hawaii, this Bellator card is pretty good, capped off with their Lightweight championship fight. Frank Mir in the co-main, and some random Gracie lower on the card too.

9:30pm - (Fightpass) - Friday Night Fights

This is something else you won't watch tonight because of Bellator. I'm not even sure if its MMA.

Saturday

4pm TV - (2:30pm Fightpass/4pm FS1/7pm FOX) - UFC on FOX, Lee vs. Iaquinta 2

We're not exactly going out on a bang because the UFC is saving better fighters for their first ESPN card, but they still gave FOX a better card than I expected before going out. 3 out of the 4 fights on the main card are solid, but the prelims are awful.

9pm - (Fightpass) - Invicta FC 33, Frey vs. Grusander 2

Scheduled to start in Kansas City right after the UFC is done, you can keep watching MMA until midnight. It is invicta though, with their Atomweight championship to end the night.

There is something called "Island Fights" on Fight Pass right now, but nothing else. There is no meaningful MMA this weekend.

LOL, our dumb sport has delivered another moment of hilarity.

Jon Jones had what USADA announced was "an atypical test result", but they did not consider it a positive test because the amount of the banned substance was so tiny (a few picograms) that it could have been trace amounts from last year.

Nevada went "wait, what?" and basically said that maybe USADA is right, but they need to have a hearing and call in doctors and experts to tell them if it should be a positive result or not, so they were not willing to license him for next weekend.

So, next weekend's title fight falls out, right? NOPE! The UFC went to California and asked "so, what do you guys think?" and the CSAC said they fully agreed with USADA, their doctors agreed that the amount detected is so tiny that they would not consider it a positive test either.

So the UFC, with SIX DAYS notice, is MOVING THE ENTIRE CARD from Las Vegas, to Los Angeles. lol. I'm sure ticketmaster and the Vegas hotels are going to be thrilled about that.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">UFC has had some wacky turn of events in the Zuffa era but relocation of an entire card on six days notice to a different city/state takes the cake. The ripple effect with regards to tickets, fans, fighters, flights, accommodations etc is absolutely gigantic.</p>&mdash; Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) <a href="https://twitter.com/arielhelwani/status/1076988502657679360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">CSAC head Andy Foster tells me he was informed by the UFC of their desire to move the card Friday night. Once that happened, he collected all the data and ordered a surprise urine test for Jon Jones. He told me Jones passed that test. Jones is already licensed in California.</p>&mdash; Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) <a href="https://twitter.com/arielhelwani/status/1076996002010353670?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 24, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The UFC is asking fighters and their corners to still go to Vegas, and then they will load them up on charter planes and fly them to LA.

This sounds like a WWE storyline. UFC is a joke.

USADA wants us to believe that Jon Jones is the unluckiest fighter in the history of the UFC's drug testing program.

Damn, a tiny bit of this metabolite gets absorbed in his fat, lies dormant for a year, and is released right when they test him. That is some shit luck, right there.

lol, Gustafsson still doesn't know. He went on a 4-hour helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon right as news was breaking.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The people I’ve talked to close to Gustafsson believe he doesn’t know the location has changed yet (and more importantly why) because he’s still on the helicopter ride.</p>&mdash; Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) <a href="https://twitter.com/arielhelwani/status/1076991796671143936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 24, 2018</a></blockquote>
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That's ****ing bullshit

**** the UFC, USADA, and CSAC....

This is a joke. They're trying to say the shit in Jones' system is residual from when he tested positive....huh lol?? Come on. It's the same substance, at roughly the same time (for cutting weight), and right around the same trace amount as last time.

This guy is a habitual offender and they're moving a card for him...Tom Lawlor got suspended for 17 picograms (which is less than the rumored amount Jones got caught on) for TWO YEARS as a first time offender.

I really hope Gus kicks this guy's head into the 20th row...

Quick Question :

is the MMA scene as rigged as the NFL seems to be?

Asking for SAUTO.

It's worse.

It wasn't actually the banned substance that he popped for or still had in his system. It is a metabolite which is left over after the substance is out of your system. The metabolite supposedly does nothing for you, its only evidence you took the steroid sometime in the past.

Looking at this in the most charitable light for USADA possible (which is questionable), in 2017 he was popped because the metabolite shouldn't have been there at all. In 2018, they are choosing to believe that the metabolite is old, but they have no proof of that.

It is more likely that it was from a steroid ingestion in 2018.

woops, with the distraction of the Holidays I forgot the schedule. Luckily, there's only a couple events going on.

UFC 232 prelims have just started on FS1, and the PPV is 9pm. This PPV is obviously very good.

The tournament finals for the PFL is on New Year's Eve on NBCSN (6pm-10pm CT), 8 fights in 8 different divisions, the winners of each fight will win $1 Million. So, its probably worth watching just for the drama.

Who's got a link tho

Anybody know of a good live stream? The Redditt streams don't seem to last on these big pay per views

Sent you a PM.

Hook me up man !

It's the first stream you'd find on reddit. Not sure why it's goving you issues.

The first one I click on takes me to ufcstreamtv. Which you have to pay for

Oh. Give me a sec.

Cool, UFC will be in Wichita on March 9th

That was a pretty nifty Kimura.

GODDAMN.....

Welp. I'd like to see those two go 5 rounds.

Amanda Nunes :eek::eek::eek:

My god Nunes is amazing

Chin out

THE CHEATER IS HERE

That always seems to happen in MMA. Right about when you start to think someone probably won't lose anytime soon, thats when they get taken out.

Jones looked absolutely dominant. Let's hope he can stay clean for a few years.

After Nunes shit all over Cyborg and Jon Anik said that Cyborg probably deserves an immediate rematch I was hoping Shevchenko, who I believe beat Nunes, would have come out of the crowd and punched him in the face.

People may not like Jones but he dominated that fight. His distance management is as good as it gets.

Controversy or not the guy is the best I've ever seen.

lol

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ho-Lee CHIT!! I told you guys she hits hard <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GOAT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GOAT</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Amanda_Leoa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Amanda_Leoa</a></p>&mdash; Miesha Tate (@MieshaTate) <a href="https://twitter.com/MieshaTate/status/1079240521426427906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2018</a></blockquote>
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During the post-fight press conference, someone asked Dana what he would do if Jon Jones failed his in-competition drug test.

Dana: "If that happens, I'm gonna kill myself."

Short enough to make a yt clip

<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe src="https://streamable.com/s/thlrp/bgbiae" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="100%" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;"></iframe></div>

PFL Finals start on NBCSN at 6pm, the winner of each bout gets $1 million

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Joe Rogan is me during that Cyborg vs Nunes fight <a href="https://t.co/pe7Gyty7Bd">pic.twitter.com/pe7Gyty7Bd</a></p>&mdash; Topanga Hass (@topanga414) <a href="https://twitter.com/topanga414/status/1079241621886111746?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Schedule this weekend: Nothing whatsoever.

There is nothing on Fightpass, nothing on ESPN+, no UFC, no Bellator, no PFL, and no ONE FC. Which is fine, because you should probably be watching NFL playoff games this weekend.

The UFC is taking a long break with one random card in a couple weeks, but after football season is about over, beginning February 2nd the UFC is going to be beating us over the head with events, with fight cards scheduled for AT LEAST NINE weekends in a row. (Maybe more, we don't know yet because the current schedule stops at March 31st)

Jon Jones will fight Anthony Smith at UFC 235 in March...... if the NSAC gives him a license.

Woodley has agreed to been forced to fight Kamaru Usman on that card as well.

Odd. You'd figure they'd just throw Cormier and Jones together 1 last time before Cormier heads to the WWE.

The headliner in Wichita on March 9th will be JDS vs. the Black Beast

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Confirmed Junior dos Santos vs. Derrick Lewis will headline UFC Fight Night on March 9 in Wichita, Kansas. First reported by <a href="https://twitter.com/MMAjunkie?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MMAjunkie</a>. <a href="https://t.co/LoGZoRwlR4">pic.twitter.com/LoGZoRwlR4</a></p>&mdash; Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/bokamotoESPN/status/1082388498630365184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Hah....that post fight in-ring interview Lewis had w/ Rogan had me rollin'.

If this was at Sprint Center, I'd probably go to it.

"Mah bawlz was hot" ROFL

Lol wont they just move the fight if they dont give him a license?

Israel Adesanya is a huge anime nerd with anime-related tattoos. Apparently during his intro he did this dragon summoning ritual from Naruto, so someone took that video and created this.

Rose Namajunas is going to defend her belt in enemy territory at Brazil. She'll fight Andrade in UFC 237.

Cormier is basically refusing to fight him.

I also think Jones wants it at 205, and Cormier wants it at HW.

This probably fills out most of the main card in Wichita. It'll be fun to watch Boetsch and Rothwell.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Also, coming to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UFCWichita?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UFCWichita</a>!<br><br>➡️ <a href="https://twitter.com/TimBoetsch?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TimBoetsch</a> vs <a href="https://twitter.com/Omari_Akhmedov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Omari_Akhmedov</a><br>➡️ Ivanov vs <a href="https://twitter.com/RothwellFighter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RothwellFighter</a><br>➡️ <a href="https://twitter.com/BelizeanBruiser?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BelizeanBruiser</a> vs <a href="https://twitter.com/YanaKunitskaya1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YanaKunitskaya1</a> <a href="https://t.co/7tePwg773A">pic.twitter.com/7tePwg773A</a></p>&mdash; UFC (@ufc) <a href="https://twitter.com/ufc/status/1082744559451271168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The in-competition drug test for Jon Jones came back negative

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Breaking: Jon Jones was drug tested by USADA and the California State Athletic Commission on the night of UFC 232 on Dec. 29 and all tests have come back clean. No picograms of the M3 metabolite, which was the source of all the controversy and drama last month, were found.</p>&mdash; Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/bokamotoESPN/status/1083415013920890880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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For the second weekend in a row, there will be no MMA. Nothing on Fightpass, and nothing from any of the major and B-level promotions.

So it was there from a year ago but disappeared now?

The theory if you want to believe it (instead of the more likely explanation that he was microdosing), is that a small amount of the old metabolites were stored in his fat cells and they were released while he was burning fat working out hard for his fight at UFC 232. Scientists have basically shrugged and said "eh, thats plausible I suppose", but there's not a lot of scientific research into that sort of thing.

If you buy that explanation though, then he should be clean going forward, because you'd think after UFC 232 any year old fat is gone and replaced by now.

The UFC's only fight card in January is this weekend as the ESPN deal begins.

Wednesday

11pm - (Fightpass) - AFC 144

Those wacky Alaskans are at it again with a mid-week fight card. As usual, the quality of the card is very bad, but they have no competition.

Saturday

2pm - (Fightpass) - CES 54

Based on tapology rankings, this is a pretty good card by local promotion standards.

5pm - (5pm ESPN+/7pm ESPN/9pm ESPN+) - UFC Fight Night, Cejudo vs. Dillashaw

The title fight in the main event probably makes this card above average, with Donald Cerrone in the prelims.

How much does the ESPN+ mess cost? I already own Fight Pass? So I need another subscription? This is getting out of hand.

$5/month, and they are lowering the cost of fightpass to $5/month in 2019 so that the cost doesn't change for current subscribers.

No UFC this weekend, but starting next weekend we are going to be inundated with a shitton of UFC cards as they have lined up cards in at least 9 consecutive weekends. There's also a ONE FC event not listed below, but its Friday morning, PPV, and doesn't look that great so.... hard pass.

Thursday

8:30pm - (Fightpass) - Karate Combat

This thing called Karate Combat is very similar to MMA except there is very little grappling. Basically if you don't have a submission right away then they stand you back up.

Friday

6pm - (Fightpass) - Titan FC 52

Probably the best local promotion in the US where the UFC gets a lot of their young fighters but this card.... not so much. Looks bad by tapology rankings.

Saturday

8pm TV - (6pm Online/8pm Paramount or DAZN) - Bellator 214, Bader vs. Fedor

OK, enough of that nonsense this is what's really going on this weekend. The main event is the championship of Bellator's heavyweight Grand Prix, and this time they aren't trying to make us buy DAZN (but you can watch it there if you don't have Paramount on cable). The card is very top-heavy on paper. There's not much in the prelims but the final two fights should be good.

Bader vs Fedor is going to be a BANGER!! Also, for those like me, FIGHT COMPANION!!

How's the MMA on ESPN +?

I'm pretty excited about Cain Velasquez coming back.I hope he can string some fights together before he gets hurt again.

It was a good card and the picture was fantastic. Better than DAZN was for the Canelo fight.