MMA Junkie Radio #3574: UFC on ESPN 69 and PFL 5 previews, Joshua Van interview, and more
MMA Junkie Radio #3574: UFC on ESPN 69 and PFL 5 previews, Joshua Van interview, and more
Thursday's episode of MMA Junkie Radio with "Gorgeous" George and "Goze" is here.
On Episode 3,574, the fellas looked ahead to UFC on ESPN 69, as well as the PFL World Tournament 5 event featuring featherweight and welterweight semifinal fights. They also welcomed Joshua Van, Mario Bautista and Jeremy Luchau to the program. Tune in!
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USA Today
14 minutes ago
- USA Today
Max Holloway plans to 'spoil' Dustin Poirier's retirement, fight Topuria-Oliveira winner
Max Holloway plans to 'spoil' Dustin Poirier's retirement, fight Topuria-Oliveira winner Show Caption Hide Caption Dustin Poirier discusses UFC 318 retirement fight vs. Max Holloway Dustin Poirier talks to MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn about his retirement fight against Max Holloway at UFC 318 on July 19, retiring with the BMF title. Max Holloway won't have mercy on anyone as he enters the next chapter of his career with a clear mindset: "Taking it serious, coming back and looking to make a statement." Holloway hasn't seen action since October, when he suffered the first knockout loss of his career against Ilia Topuria at UFC 308. The defeat in the featherweight title bout prompted the former titleholder to finally make a full-time move up to lightweight, where he will look for a fresh start against a familiar foe. The UFC 318 main event on July 19 at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) will see Holloway enter enemy territory to take on Louisiana's own Dustin Poirier in what will conclude the longest-spanning trilogy in UFC history and also a retirement fight for "The Diamond." Holloway (26-8 MMA, 22-8 UFC) has lost both of his previous meetings with Poirier (30-9 MMA, 22-8 UFC). The first was in his octagon debut at UFC 143 in February 2012 when he was just 19 years old, and "Blessed" suffered a first-round submission defeat. The rematch happened in April 2019 at UFC 236, where Poirier earned a unanimous decision win in a Fight of the Year contender for the interim lightweight belt. Poirier told MMA Junkie in April that he was honored to have Holloway be his final dance partner, and there is a strong element of mutual respect. However, Holloway needs his get-back and said he's not letting Poirier walk away from the sport with a 3-0 series sweep. "I respect Dustin," Holloway said in a new UFC 318 training camp video on his YouTube channel. "He's fought a who's who, and he did everything you could ask for someone to do in this sport. But at the end of the day, it's not even about fighting. It's about respecting Dustin as a man. He's a great guy. He's a good guy. I've got nothing but respect for him, and I can't wait to share the octagon yet again with him. "I know this is Dustin's retirement fight, and he's trying to ride into the sunset, but he can go and do that, and it might be a little bit sad, because I'm going to go out there and get my hand raised. ... Hell of guy, great guy, awesome that it's his retirement fight, but I'm here to spoil his plans and get my hand raised because I'm still going to be here when he's riding off in the sunset. I'm still going to be here. I want to still go get an undisputed title, so I've got to go out and make a statement." Although the UFC 318 headliner will be contested for Holloway's BMF title, the Hawaiian made it clear this is not a belt he's content with. Holloway has the desire to add the 155-pound title to his mantel alongside the 145-pound and BMF belts, and to get there he must win this fight. With Islam Makhachev vacating for welterweight, Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) and Charles Oliveira (35-10 MMA, 23-10 UFC) will fight for vacant gold on June 28 in the UFC 317 main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Holloway has the recent loss to Topuria and a past win over Oliveira on his resume, and he said he will be chasing whomever comes out of that fight as the new champ. "The only message that I'm trying to send is I'm still here," Holloway said. "I know this is Dustin's retirement fight, but his last fight was for a title. I still have title contentions in my mind. Couple weeks before us, there's a title fight at 155 and I've got history with both men. At the end of the day, I go out there and do my thing, I make a statement, I get a statement win, who's to say your boy not fighting for the 155 undisputed title at the end of the year? First things first is Dustin Poirier. I'm not overlooking him. This is his retirement fight. He is taking it serious. Everybody keeps reminding me that he's 2-0. The internet and everywhere all around is saying, 'Why?' I'm going to show you why. I'm going to show you why I got this fight, and I'm going to show the fans why you want to see this fight."
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
OKTAGON confident in passing PFL as No. 2 MMA promotion – if it hasn't already
OKTAGON confident in passing PFL as No. 2 MMA promotion – if it hasn't already As MMA fans plead for PFL to find stability and assert itself as a viable alternative to the UFC, another budding promotion is making its own play for the No. 2 spot. After hosting its first event in December 2016, OKTAGON MMA has slowly but surely built momentum and a reputation in the industry. It has put on 86 events, with overwhelming majority happening in Czech Republic or Slovakia, with visits to Germany and England sprinkled in, as well. OKTAGON set an attendance record in October with more than 59,000 fans in Frankfurt, and that type of crowd didn't show up for no reason. The live event is not only a spectacle with shades of PRIDE and KSW mixed in, but the fights are often loaded with violence. "We really love our job, we love to sell out arenas and attract fans," OKTAGON co-promoter Pavol Neruda told MMA Junkie. "We have great TV deals around Europe, around the world actually. We're still trying to make it better. FightMatrix just said we are officially the third best promotion in the world after UFC and PFL. It's also very nice to hear that our effort is bringing it forward. We're always trying to deliver the most entertaining show for fans. This is the results. We are very, very happy with these events." Although the attendance numbers and interest in OKTAGON shows strong in Europe, Neruda, who is co-promoter along with his partner, Ondrej Novotny, admits there is still work to be done globally, and especially North America. That is still an untapped market for viewership, and he is confident it's there to be taken advantage of. Neruda said his company got a taste of what that audience can be during a streaming partnership with DAZN, but ultimately he said it wasn't as rewarding as desired, but there's confidence the next deal will have that upside. "Definitely we see North America as one of our most important markets," Neruda said. "We know that we have a great show. It's six hours of fun. It's good timing because it starts at noon and you can drink in the afternoon on Saturday with your friends and have a barbecue and watch fights. You don't have to wake up at 4 a.m. like we do to watch UFC here in Europe. It's in English, and it's a lot of entertainment. We know it has big potential. "We know the numbers when we used to be on DAZN. They were quite good, but we were not happy with the collaboration that much, so right now we are searching for a good partner, talking to different platforms in North America and we want to make a proper deal to make sure it will be super easy to access in North America for fans to watch, because we know it has great potential." As OKTAGON continues to build and hosts another event Saturday with OKTAGON 72 at Fortuna Arena in Prague (online pay-per-view), Neruda agrees there's a realistic path to taking the No. 2 position in the sport that PFL arguably holds purely by default. He said there is already data that shows the race is much closer than the casual fan might believe, and now it's Neruda's job to make sure that opportunity to grasped. "Many people say, 'But guys, you are already No. 2.' If you look at the metrics of how many people are going to our tournaments. PFL has a problem to sell small arenas for 20 pounds in the UK, for example, and we are selling every arena in Germany, Czechoslovakia at about 10,000," Neruda said. "Also the viewership, we know the numbers from DAZN, and they told us pretty fast, 'OK guys, you have better numbers than PFL and we don't even promote you that much because PFL is our product.' Depends how you look at it. I think the No. 2, if we are not there, we will be there very soon, and it's an amazing feeling. "I totally respect the UFC. That's the Olympics of our sport. I love them, and I love to watch it. It's too far. From the second place to first it's a pretty long way way. We would be very, very happy to be the No. 2 and the No. 1 in Europe for fans. Maybe for many people to be the most entertaining show in the world. In this category maybe we will be No. 1 from the perspective of some fans. That is our goal."
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ice Wars' mission statement is simple — let's take the hockey out of fighting
MT. PLEASANT, Mich. — For years there's been an outcry among hockey purists who've seen just about enough of the goonery that had come to mark the game — get the fighting out of hockey. If you're one of those, you might want to cover your children's eyes. Because as we reach the quarter mark of the 21st century, there's a group of organizers who are taking things a step further. They are attempting to take the hockey out of fighting. Advertisement On Saturday night, the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) will pull up its jersey sleeve to reveal an icy arm to go along with the naked knuckles. They call it Ice Wars. It's essentially sanctioned hockey fights, which aren't as spontaneous as the ones you see in a professional hockey game, but entirely premeditated and twice as vicious. The slogan they are using for the inaugural event, which takes place this Saturday in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, is as if lifted straight from the label on the Jolt cola can. 'The most exciting part of hockey, without all the hockey. No sticks. No pucks. No goals. Just the fights.' Take a bath, Connor McDavid. Get screwed Nathan McKinnon. To hell with you, Cale Makar. These gloves aren't going to drop themselves! Advertisement 'I always thought the fights were the coolest part about hockey,' Ian Heinisch says. Heinisch, a former UFC fighter, has been named the first president of Ice Wars, and — not surprisingly — he never appreciated those times when he'd find himself watching fights only to see a hockey game break out. 'I wasn't a huge fan of hockey, but I would watch it if it was on," he says. "It's a good sport, the agility, but the fights were fun. They don't really fight as much in hockey anymore. And I was always a fan of that aspect, a fan of fighting on the ice.' The first event goes down at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, on a fight-tailored sheet of ice. There are 10 scheduled fights that will take place on the ring-sized rink, spread across four weight classes — super heavyweight (more than 250 pounds), heavyweight (more than 200), cruiserweight (175-200), middleweight (150-175), and lightweight (under 150). What, you didn't think there'd be weight classes? Advertisement Who do you think is running this show, barbarians? 'It is going to look like a boxing ring a little bit bigger, but it's going to have walls — wood walls, not rope,' Heinisch says, indicating the boards. 'And as of now we're going to have synthetic ice, but we're looking at some arenas down the line that we're going to have real ice.' There will be two referees to stand idly to the side as the fight takes place. From the rules that the BKFC sent out, there will be at least three 90-second rounds for each scrap, with a maximum of five rounds, with a one-minute respite to set the jersey to rights. You get the sense that some of this stuff is malleable, as they figure it all out. And, oh yes, the fighters — comprised of former MMA fighters, boxers, and pro hockey players — will be wearing hockey jerseys, which are a key component to a hockey fight. The old Winnipeg gi is central to leveraging. The fistful of jersey, the twisting and contorting of the body, the pulling of the jersey over the head in a tangle of defending and swinging limbs. 'I mean it's like a boxing fight, right?' Heinisch says. 'You knock 'em down, it's a count. I think they're tweaking some of the round stuff. It's a short fight, pure action, smashing each other in the middle of the rink, and then if it's a tie in the one-on-one round, they go into an icebreaker round.' Advertisement Technically nobody is really dropping their gloves either, as each combatant will be wearing four-ounce MMA gloves. This is meant to protect the knuckles more than the skulls being targeted. As far as I know, fighters won't be permitted to take off skates to turn them into weapons. And as for hockey sticks — well, none of these people will be needing them. Toe-drags are things of beauty in a parallel world, but not for the Ice Wars aesthetic. Saturday night's first show is being called 'Battle of the Border,' as it pits Canadians versus Americans. A cold war of sorts, but only because of the northerly geography (the second event will take place River Cree Casino in Alberta two weeks later). 'We have pro hockey players, boxers,' Heinisch says, just as a collector might point out some of the lovely antiquities on his shelf. 'We have bare-knuckle guys, two UFC vets that we signed.' Those UFC fighters are Brian Kelleher and Charles Rosa, each who played hockey growing up, each who played punch-face for a living. Advertisement 'This is like the old-school days of UFC, where you had a jiu-jitsu guy against a wrestler against a boxer, except who you're seeing who's the baddest man on the ice," Heinisch says. "And the Canadians have a huge advantage. They grew up on skates. They have that balance. But you also have the American side of it, which is mainly better fighters, quicker hands, better boxing. So, people like Rosa or Kelleher.' If this all sounds like we've died and gone to goon heaven, it's because Heinisch — along with BKFC head David Feldman and Ice Wars founder Charlie Nama, who is as Canadian as they come — have made it that way. The rink is topsy-turvy. Enforcers are in. Skilled players are out. 'These guys, the fighters, their first love was hockey fighting, so it was a perfect fit for them,' Heinisch says. 'They saw it, they were in love with it. They jumped on board. They called me and we got 'em signed. So we've stacked the card, we're signing people long-term. We plan on doing around six fights this year and then we're looking at doing around 20 to 24 fights next year.' Advertisement Not that the supervisors of Ice Wars hope to need them, but there will be three judges for each fight, as well. The criteria for scoring will be based on effective striking, effective aggressiveness, and control of the fighting area. Damage is a key factor. Control, too. The idea, just like in MMA, is to keep the judges strictly ornamental. The idea is for knockdowns, knockouts, and dudes scrambling on all fours for their teeth. 'We're going to have blood on ice dropping,' Heinisch says. 'Imagine getting knocked out cold on the ice. I mean, you're going to see some crazy stuff just like at bare-knuckle. It's going to be action packed. 'And I think the gambling is going to be insane. We're making sure there aren't any draws, never want the fight to go to a draw. So it's going to be very appealing for people like gambling sites and stuff like that. It's going to be exciting.' Heinisch has seen some stuff in his day. He's seen the inside of the Canary Islands' prison and the colorless bricks of Riker's Island, from back when he was a drug mule. He has seen incoming fists from UFC middleweight contenders, such as Nassourdine Imavov, Derek Brunson and Kelvin Gastelum. He walked away from active fighting when the concussions took their toll, but he says he is healthy and enjoying life at 36. Advertisement Now he's overseeing a new game in town, a fights-on-ice league that does away with nuisance of actual hockey. Can it work? We're about to find out.
