MMA

8:10 AM ET STOCKTON, Calif. — GILBERT MELENDEZ, NATE Diaz‘s longtime teammate, was in Stockton with some of his students from El Niño Training Center in South San Francisco for a night training session at Nick Diaz Academy on Aug. 24. Melendez and crew arrived first at the “Trap House” — the name given by

8:40 PM ET LAS VEGAS — The UFC 279 news conference was canceled Thursday at MGM Grand Garden Arena after several altercations broke out backstage among fighters on the card and their teams. UFC president Dana White attempted to keep the news conference going by bringing up the six fighters separately in twos, per fight.

2:46 PM ET Former UFC title challenger Thiago Santos has signed an exclusive deal with the PFL, promotion president Ray Sefo told ESPN on Thursday. Santos, 38, will make his PFL debut in 2023 when he competes in the promotion’s season format with a tournament championship purse of $1 million. Santos will fight in the

2:38 PM ET The UFC is finalizing a massive lightweight matchup between Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler for UFC 281 on November 12. Contracts have not been signed but will be issued to all parties on Tuesday, UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell told ESPN. The 155-pound bout will take place on the pay-per-view card

4:12 PM ET A women’s flyweight bout between Alexa Grasso and Viviane Araujo will be the new headliner for a UFC Fight Night event on Oct. 15 in Las Vegas after a middleweight matchup between Jared Cannonier and Sean Strickland fell through because of injury, the promotion announced Wednesday. Nate Diaz returns to take on

8:31 PM ET The UFC is finalizing a middleweight contest between Darren Till and Dricus Du Plessis in December, multiple sources told ESPN. Contracts have not been signed, but both sides have agreed to a date and opponent. The 185-pound contest will take place at UFC 282 on Dec. 10 at T-Mobile Arena in Las

12:27 PM ET Jake Paul has found his next opponent — and he’s a combat sports luminary. The YouTuber-turned-prizefighter will meet former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva in a boxing match Oct. 29 in Phoenix, Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions announced Tuesday. The bout will be contested at 187 pounds over eight three-minute rounds. Silva, 47,

9:02 AM ET Jeff WagenheimESPN Five of the last six UFC pay-per-view fight cards have been headlined by not just one championship bout but a pair of them. That’s a lot of gold and glory on the line. By contrast, UFC 279 will have not even a single title contest. What Saturday’s event in Las

7:09 PM ET What were the biggest moments at UFC Paris? Jeff Wagenheim, Brett Okamoto and Marc Raimondi offer up their takeaways from a highlight-packed event in France. For the first eight minutes of Saturday’s UFC main event in Paris, you could have fit the Arc de Triomphe in the space between Ciryl Gane and

1:52 PM ET PARIS — UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou told ESPN on Friday that the most realistic timetable for his return to competition is early 2023. Some reports had surfaced that the UFC was hoping that Ngannou, who had knee surgery to repair his right ACL and MCL in March, would be back by

Tai Tuivasa and coach Shaun Sullivan go back a long way. Growing up playing rugby league in western Sydney — Sullivan played with one of Tuivasa’s older brothers — their sporting endeavors have long been intertwined. Now, more than a decade on from when a 15-year-old Tuivasa was the second heaviest player at Penrith Panthers

Aug 22, 2022 The UFC will pack a big punch for its Paris debut when top-10 heavyweight strikers Ciryl Gane and Tai Tuivasa headline Fight Night on Saturday. The fights at Accor Arena are on ESPN+, with the 3 p.m. ET main card preceded by prelims at noon. Gane (10-1) will be trying to bounce

8:00 AM ET The 2022 PFL finals are set for Nov. 25 at a location still to be announced. The finalists in six weight classes include several familiar faces, as well as some new ones. It has been an interesting season, with plenty of upsets befalling some of the promotion’s biggest homegrown names and free

11:24 PM ET UFC middleweight Sean Strickland has been forced out of a scheduled bout against Jared Cannonier in October due to a finger injury. Strickland (25-4) revealed the injury on his social media on Tuesday. The Las Vegas-based middleweight said he was about to undergo a “minor” procedure on his finger that he said

5:56 PM ET Former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker insists the best fights of his career are ahead of him, saying he’s hungrier than ever as he prepares to face Marvin Vettori in Paris this weekend. It has been nearly seven months since Whittaker lost to fierce rival Israel Adesanya for a second time, albeit

4:44 PM ET Bellator will get a resolution to its light heavyweight title picture before the end of the year. Vadim Nemkov will defend his light heavyweight belt against Corey Anderson in the main event of Bellator 288 on Nov. 18 in Chicago, the promotion announced Monday. The two men met for the title and

1:18 AM ET Throughout his storied martial arts career, Demetrious Johnson has never suffered back-to-back defeats, nor has he ever lost to the same opponent twice. That is still the case following a rematch against Adriano Moraes on Friday. Johnson (24-4-1) delivered arguably one of the best performances of his career Friday, as he knocked

8:08 AM ET The sport of mixed martial arts loves itself a good set of rankings and awards, doesn’t it? Every year, we debate topics such as best fighter, best submission and best knockout. Heck, nearly every week, the UFC awards for performances of the night and fight of the night. We rank athletes within