Egg Shen

In light of the new UFC custom shorts...

Just seen Akebono has passed away. I know Akebono was as far as I can tell about as legit a Sumo Wrestler as you can get, but it's his foray into the MMA/K-1 game I know him from. Always have fond memories of watching the big man fight because he came in at the height of the Japanese freakshow/crossover scene and its something that always fascinated me. Mixed feelings though, there was element of sadness and exploitation to the whole thing with Akebono, he was clearly out of his depth and ending up fighting some of the best kickboxers in the fight. He ended up with a complete fight record of 1-14. Sure I remember scenes of his wife and kids being filmed front row whilst he was getting battered too. RIP Akebono, you had a go.

Decent opening week, not a great look for outsiders seeing that Blagoi Ivanov is having the fight of the night. There were a few standout performances though, Moldavsky looked great in the main event. Really think the PFL's Women's Flyweight Division may be their most interesting. Really wanna see Dakota Ditcheva in with Carmouche, Velasquez or Santos. Ditcheva is blasting through everyone but there's an element of set up to all of it, given the format she's gonna have to fight one of the top women soon, going to be a massive leap.

Theres some new glove announcement and custom shorts being busted out for it. All happening.

Announced about a week ago, but worth a mention. Handsome Luke has his next outing set:

Great work Wand. Actually really like this, different kind of feel and Pantoja/Erceg is the kind of wild card title fight we very rarely see these days, i'm in.

Pros and cons to it, by missing weight they make themselves ineligible for a bonus, and that's a fair chunk of money (usually considerably more than their purse). Continued weight misses probably lead to you getting cut too. I quite like the idea of them being docked a point before the fight starts as well as the loss of money.

outside a lack of very awkward opening exchange that actually looked a pretty legit grappling match, probably agreed to go at it but just throw punches, definitely risking injury with those slams though.

That Petroski cut in mental, it didn't look like much when it happened, the reaction to it was pretty scary though. I do like Jacob Malkoun though, having a weird run but I like the guy. Rhys McKee is the UK's version Jay Hieron. There's a throwback for you.

one little note for the old Pride-heads, tomorrow's main event is Team Fedor vs. Team Crocop. I'd imagine both men will be in the corners too.

The Apex ladies and gentlemen:

Yep, you dont put Nate the Train in the Apex. What a maniac, great win. Great win for Weidman too! I think if it was anyone else id be a bit more pissed off about the constant eye pokes, but Weidman needed this. He's gonna fight on and end up getting wrecked now though. The pokes were bad though, his fingers were extended the whole time.

Had the idea for this thread as not a week goes by where I don't see some incredibly weird shit happening across the combat sports world through social media, thought i'd set up a thread to report back my findings, expect lots of rubbish, lots of sad shit, and maybe the odd bit of positivity... first up: LET ME BANG BRO. Julian Lane has carved out a little niche career for himself through, TUF, bare knuckle boxing and becoming a guy clearly willing to fight anyone. Well he went over to Russia last night to fight a top Russian kickboxer and bare knuckle fighter called Vlad Tuinov, in a boxing match (Lane's debut). Well let's just say Lane was in over his head: What a left hook!

Thought it be a decent idea to start a thread for fight announcements. I see random stuff daily, so thought it'd be handy to post notable fights here that may get lost in the shuffle as everything is moving so fast. You know what you're getting when you see there's a new post too. Use it to cover all facets of combat sports, MMA, Boxing, Kickboxing, Slapfighting etc. Get em in here...

Right then, PFL Seaon 3 starts Friday. The schedule will come thick and fast so I thought id start a thread. The names added to this seasons roster are probably enough to warrant abit more interest than prior seasons. The inclusions of Anthony Pettis, Fabricio Werdum, Rory McDonald, Claressa Shields etc. is gonna do them no harm whatsoever. Chuck them in with the current PFL Champions and a few wildcard inclusions and the rosters look pretty solid. As for the UK viewing. Prior shows were just aired live on facebook for free, im not so sure whats happening this year. There's an MMA TV site promoting it'll be £9.99 per show through them but that looks ropey and unofficial. I'll try finding out. Anyway, the league table concept is different and kind of interesting, these graphics will explain things: The whole leads to a 6 World Title fight show on New Years Eve where each winner gets a Million bucks. First show is Friday, headlined by Anthony Pettis and Clay Collard which should be tidy as fuck!

Again, given the discont9inuation of the megathread and with boxing's move into the MMA section, thought it would be handy to have a boxing fight discussion thread to sit alongside the general news thread. This can be the place to post about the weekends upcoming fights (this will usually be me) and discuss the outcomes after they happen. It also keeps immediate spoilers out of the general news thread too which is nice if you fall a few days behind. Granted when the big fight nights and PPV's come up, shows can get their own thread but this should be good for the smaller weekly fight nights. and considering domestic boxing returns this Friday, no better time to start!... This Friday, Live on BT Sports 1: Two solid, competitive fights on top makes a nice change from some of the mis-matched shows Top Rank has fed everyone this summer. little preview here: https://www.frankwarren.com/ready-for-our-big-return Speaking of Top Rank, this is tomorrow (only available in the UK through Fite i believe): Carlos Takam steps in to replace Jarrell Miller. Given how good the UFC shows have been during all this ive not really felt the need to watch the Top Rank shows. Like i said, they've been heavily panned due to the poor matchmaking but i likes me some Carlos Takam so im breaking my Top Rank duck with this one. so yeah, live boxing 🤗

Moving the boxing into this section of the forum then. The old thread in the off topic forum is closed to keep all boxing news and general discussion to this thread and feel free to start new threads for upcoming fights you feel are worthy of their own topic/thread 👍🏻

I've touched on Bare Knuckle Boxing abit on here previously. I thought i'd give it it's own thread though. The sport is starting to pick up popularity, and is getting some traction over in America now as well, there's enough of an MMA connection to warrant paying attention too. The Bareknuckle Fighting Championships holds it's second event in the States tonight. I'd planned to watch the initial show in June but didn't get around to it, but was real surprised to see how impressive the production of the show was once i saw some highlights. If you've ever seen a UK BKB show it's very dark and cheap looking, it comes off every bit an underground fight league, the Bareknuckle Fighting Champioships came out with a good level of production in a proper arena, a professional announce team (including Sean Wheelock, formely of Bellator) and the show far exceeding anyones expectations in terms of quality of fights. It also did 125,000 buys on PPV in the States which is pretty solid and way above what anyone expected from what i can gather. Enough so that tonight's show is being covered by MMA Fighting who have a team on site to do their usual pre/post fight stuff that they usually only give to the UFC and sometimes Bellator. Pretty cool to see a real decent buzz being generated. The show is on Fite PPV over here for £38.99. There's no way im paying that to see the show, but if, like last time, the show goes up in the usual places im definitely going to watch it, Here's how the card lines up...full of UFC and Bellator veterans. The card is on the poster, Chris fucking Lytle returning! he seems to be taking it seriously too from the pre-fight stuff i saw. Given the success of the first show and depending on how this one pans out im expecting more recognisable names to move over to this. They plan on running 8 shows a year. Fingers crossed i get to see it. I'll keep the thread going as i see shit over time, Bare Knuckle seems to be on the rise. A second American promotion is debuting later in the year that has a Phil Baroni/Chris Leben fight headlining. All the stuff i saw prior to BKFC 2 say that this gives people the same feeling they had when the UFC first aired and im digging that.

Got the idea to this after visiting the Sherdog boards the other day. I know the Sherdog boards are a breeding ground for cretins but it is a place where you find out loads of little tidbits of news that usually bypasses the standard MMA news sites or if it's posted passes with little fan-fair. I didn't wanna clog up the news thread with stuff so i thought i'd create a different thread to post minor news/fight announcements that i come across that some of you may find interesting, im a sucker for useless infomation so this kind of stuff interests me, so here we go...

similiar to the youtube thread, thought this deserved it's own topic here. Consistently one of the better threads on the main forum, i feel MMA deserves it's version too

been looking for the old documentary thread but i can't find it so i thought i'd fire up a new one. I'm constantly trying to get hold of new ones so get your recommendations in... today i saw the documentary that's featured in The Fighter, it's called High on Crack Street, it's a HBO doc. that followed around 3 people in Lowell, all crack addicts (one being Dickie Eklund who Christian Bale played in the movie). It's pretty short but it's one of the most personal docs. ive seen about serious drug addicts, horrible to watch, these peope are deep shit and it's just a constant downward spiral. Eye opening stuff.

Bellator's 2nd and 3rd seasons kick off on April 8th. For those that don't know, Season 1 took place over a few months and consisted of a weekly fight show, with a tournament format which finally crowned the promotions first champions. The season was a huge success, the only problem was, it wasn't shown on US TV, it only aired live in Spanish. This time it's on Fox in America (not in the UK, but it should be easily available if you know what i mean), and i can't fucking wait for it to start. The promotion heavily features up and coming fighters, some of the hottest prospects in MMA will be on these shows, it's gonna be awesome and it's weekly!! Fighters: Middleweight (185lb) Bryan "The Beast" Baker (14-1) Eric Schambari (14-1) Matt Major Sean Loeffler Jared Hess Fighters: Lightweight (155lb) Chad Hinton Toby Imada Mike Ricci Ferrid Khedder Carey Vanier Janne Tulirinta Fighters: Welterweight (170lb) Ben Askren Steve Carl Brett Cooper Sean Pierson Dan Hornbuckle Jacob McClintock Ryan Thomas Jim Wallhead Fighters: Featherweight (145lb) Georgi Karakhanyan Shad Lierley Eric Marriott Patrcio Pitbull Wilson Reis Bao Quach Joe Warren William Romero