TUF is cooked, Tom Aspinall trolls Jon Jones, troubling BJ Penn news, more May 30, 2025
Petesy Carroll is joined by Uncrowned's Ben Fowlkes and Drake Riggs to discuss the return of the Ultimate Fighter and whether the series is past its expiration date.
Plus, conversations about the continuing Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall saga, troubling news about BJ Penn, and more.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tom Aspinall on title defense pressure at UFC 321: 'That's when I've had my most devastating performances'
At UFC 321 on Oct. 25, the heavyweight division will start the Tom Aspinall era properly. Aspinall's historically long reign as a UFC interim champion came to an end in June, thanks to the retirement of the now-former heavyweight champion, Jon Jones. Therefore, Aspinall was promoted to undisputed status, which allows him to return to action after the saga stalled his career for the past 13 months. Despite Jones' departure from MMA, it wasn't long before the all-time great was enticed by the new prospect of potentially competing at next year's proposed UFC event at the White House in Washington, D.C. Jones appeared publicly at the ESPYs weeks after his announcement to share that he would be interested in fighting again, with the hope of doing so in the nation's capital. UFC CEO Dana White, however, wasn't too keen on the idea, shutting it down because of his former champion's lack of reliability. As the man tied to Jones since he claimed the interim strap in late 2023, Aspinall is done entertaining the thought of the once highly anticipated matchup. Instead, all his focus is on his next challenger, Ciryl Gane. "Oh mate, it's just boring. It's just so boring. I don't even have a comment on it," Aspinall said of Jones' recent comments during his appearance on Monday's edition of "The Ariel Helwani Show." "It's boring as hell. Don't want to talk about it. I've already got a fight, so I'm focusing on that. That's the way I micromanage things so well mentally. "For the next 10 weeks of my life, all I'm thinking about is Ciryl Gane and how to beat him. Even with his coach, what he said, I said, or didn't say, it doesn't matter. Because I'm fighting Ciryl and that's all that matters, really. No matter what anybody's said or done in the past is pretty irrelevant at this point, because we're going to fight each other, and that's all that really matters." Theoretically, a Jones return would (and arguably should) re-open the door to the Aspinall fight, assuming he remains champion by that targeted July 2026 date. The thought of the matchup aside, the current heavyweight champion — a proud Englishman — isn't even concerned about the fantasy event on White House grounds. "It has spent zero seconds in my mind. I'm not interested, mate. Not interested. The world shouldn't be interested either, because what's the point? That's false hope," Aspinall said of a Jones fight. "[The White House] doesn't not interest me, but it doesn't really interest me, to be honest. I'll fight anywhere, it doesn't really bother me. It'd be a cool experience, but I feel like the Americans should get the shot at the White House. I'm not American. [President Donald] Trump and the political stance in America doesn't really bother me at all, to be honest. So yeah, I'm not really a big Trump supporter, or I'm not against him. I don't know anything about American politics. I'm not American. I don't live there. I don't do anything apart from pay taxes and fight there. Really, all that stuff is irrelevant to me." Aspinall, 32, started to lose faith in a fight against Jones coming together before the latter officially called it a career. From there, it was onto what, or who, was next. In this case, that was a big question that was ultimately answered in the form of an old pseudo-rival in Gane. The pair had been aligned to collide in recent years, and while it never came to fruition, Aspinall remained interested in how the fight would go. At this juncture, Aspinall said, he was open to all comers once his latest negotiations unfolded. "I said, 'Who do you want me to fight?' They said Ciryl Gane, and I said, 'Sweet. I'm in,'" Aspinall said. "I'm ready to fight absolutely anybody. We asked about, basically, a few options, really. At the moment, there's Gane, [Alexander] Volkov, or [Jailton] Almeida, really. That's who was available at the time that the match was made. So I said I'll fight any one of them. "I'm not in the realm of dodging fights at all. I'm here to fight everybody and anybody, and trying my best. That's it. To do work, fight people, while I'm involved in the sport. That's what I want to do. I want to fight everybody and anybody that I possibly can." Two weeks ago, Gane's longtime coach Fernand Lopez spoke on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show," expressing his displeasure with Aspinall's handling of the Jones saga. The coach said he believes that, given how everything has resolved and the hype surrounding Aspinall, there's now more pressure than ever on him to deliver against Gane. Aspinall doesn't necessarily agree or disagree with the notion. But one thing the champion knows for a certainty is that he thrives under said circumstances. "That's great because I fight really, really, really well under pressure," Aspinall said. "I've been around martial arts nearly my whole life at this point. There's the guys who I've trained with from my experience, who in the gym, are absolute killers, absolute world-beaters, and they'll get in a fight and they'll just freeze up and it doesn't work like it does in the gym. There's other guys, like myself, who are not that good in the gym, but get under the lights, get under the pressure, with all the chips on the table, and they get in there and do things that they would never be able to do in the gym. That is exactly what I do, and I feel like that's one of my biggest strengths. "Any time there's pressure on me, that's when I've done my most devastating performances. And if he believes that, that's a fantastic thing for me."
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
UFC heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall, Anthony Hernandez, Salt Papi, Elijah Smith and more
Ariel Helwani is BACK ... IN ... YOUR ... LIFE! Join "The Ariel Helwani Show" live on Uncrowned and YouTube at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT/6 p.m. UK time as Ariel and the Boys In The Back react to the weekend in combat sports. Monday's lineup can be seen below. 1 p.m. ET: Ariel and the gang kick off the week by reacting to Anthony Hernandez's big UFC win over Roman Dolidze, and more. 1:45 p.m. ET: Elijah Smith joins the show to discuss his slam KO at Saturday's UFC Fight Night. 2:10 p.m. ET: Anthony Hernandez breaks down his victory in the main event. 2:35 p.m. ET: Salt Papi checks in for a conversation about his upcoming Misfits Boxing match against Tony Ferguson. 3:15 p.m. ET: UFC heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall joins to discuss his upcoming title defense against Cyril Gane at UFC 321. 3:45 p.m. ET: Catch all new episodes of "The Ariel Helwani Show" live every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET on Uncrowned and The Ariel Helwani Show's YouTube page. To listen to every episode, subscribe on Spotify or iTunes.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Keyshawn Davis stepping away from boxing for a year to 'get myself together' after controversies
Keyshawn Davis was supposed to make the first defense of his WBO lightweight title against Edwin De Los Santos on June 7 in Norfolk, Virginia, but then Davis missed weight by an astonishing 4.3 pounds at the official weigh-in and was thus stripped of his belt. It was a nightmare scenario for "The Businessman," a rising star in American boxing who had sold 9,000 tickets for his hometown headliner. "[I was] undisciplined for sure. Not being true to myself as well," Davis told Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show" on Wednesday in his first public interview since that disastrous week. "[I knew it was] probably time to move up [in weight] and [knew] how my body [felt]. [I was] just trying to sacrifice because I had another homecoming fight and I wanted to defend my title in my hometown. I just took a sacrifice to try to make the weight again, and it just didn't turn out that way." "During the [Denys] Berinchyk fight [in February], I told my team, 'This is my last time doing this.' But after you win, [you're] a world champ now, so there's a lot of opportunities and all that stuff. They're like, 'Just defend it one time, you're going back home.' They [made] it sound real good, so I'm like, 'OK, I'll do it. I'm staying active, I don't shoot up in weight, so I should be [good].' I guess that was the wrong call." "During fight week, I'm like, 'Damn, this weight is not coming off like it usually does,'" he added. "The day of the weigh-in, I'm trying to sit in the bath and all that stuff — the weight literally just was not coming out. I'm skinny as hell, dehydrated and stuff. So I'm just like, 'Man, it is what it is. [I] just can't get it off.'" Despite Davis missing weight and being stripped of his belt, negotiations ensued between Davis and De Los Santos' camps to reach a deal to allow their headlining bout to continue under a new agreement. It's common for main-event fights in boxing to still proceed forward after one fighter misses weight because tickets have already been sold, a promoter has an obligation to deliver for their network, and — most importantly — fighters generally don't get paid their full purse unless they fight. De Los Santos wanted to proceed with the fight, however his promoter, Sampson Lewkowicz, ultimately canceled the bout. Lewkowicz, who has been a promoter for three decades, said that from observing Davis dancing before he stepped on the scales, he realized that the now-former champion had never intended to compete at the lightweight limit from the beginning. Lewkowicz, therefore, chose not to let De Los Santos fight Davis, as he believed it would be too unsafe for De Los Santos to do so under a massive size disadvantage. Lewkowicz also drew comparisons to the Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney situation of 2024, where Garcia seemingly chugged a beer bottle after missing weight by a huge margin. Haney went through with the fight and took severe punishment on the night, after which Garcia tested positive for a banned substance and was suspended. "I fought myself for it," Davis said. "But I was super cocky, arrogant, thinking that he's just going to take the fight anyway because I [boxed someone that significantly missed weight at] one point in time with the [Gustavo] Lemos fight, and then just thinking that it's a big event, there's no way that he cannot fight. He's a fighter. All that's going through my head during that moment, so I'm just thinking that he'll take it. I didn't come overweight on purpose, that's not what champions do. That's not what I do. "[So] when I got that call [telling me the fight was off], I talked to them, of course, and then I hung up — and you can just feel my energy switch. [My family] are all looking at me [and] I'm like, 'Yeah, it ain't going to happen.' They [were] just like, 'F***.'" "After I got that phone call that he wasn't going to take the fight, something in me was just like, 'Keyshawn, you've got to f***ing change, bro. You've got to do better, you've got to be better.' Something in me was just like — boom, everything hit me. All my wrongs [and] everything that I thought that was right, that I could've [done] better." While the moment should've led to reflection and a changed attitude for Davis, unfortunately for him, there was yet more negativity left to come out of what had fast become a horror week. The 2020 U.S. Olympic silver medalist attended the reshuffled June 7 event as a spectator instead to support his two brothers, Kelvin and Keon Davis, who competed on the undercard. The night didn't get off to a positive start for him, as ESPN cameras zoomed in on Davis' arrival, recording his nonchalant attitude as he devoured popcorn. Davis received significant criticism that night for what was portrayed as a carefree attitude on the ESPN broadcast for the fight. He had missed weight, lost his world title, let down his home fans, and apparently didn't seem bothered — or so the narrative was made out. "Coming from where I come from, I learned to build a barrier where I'd never let [anything affect me]," Davis said. "After the Olympics, when I lost [for the gold medal], I learned how to put up a barrier where people can never see me hurt, where people can never see me down. After I lost in the Olympics, that was the most hurt I ever was in the public eye, and I didn't even show it. You ain't seen not one nothing. So I learned how to build that s*** up — and it backfired on me. When I was hearing people say, 'He doesn't really care.' I'm like, 'Damn, why [are] people saying that?' Because before I came to the scale, people [didn't] know what I was doing [was crying]. People don't know how I was really feeling inside." Davis watched later in the night as his former opponent, Nahir Albright, upset his brother, Kelvin, in the chief support bout. Davis then decided to visit Albright's locker room alongside his other brother, Keon. When ESPN cameras went to Albright's locker room, Albright told them that he was "jumped" and "head-butted" by the Davis brothers, and showed the cameras a significant lump on his forehead, which was not visible immediately after his fight. "Everything that he's talking about that happened in the locker room is not true," Davis insisted. "He took that moment [of me being in his locker room] and ran with it and used that s*** for what he used it for. Everything just got blown out of proportion. "I walked in there, just not trying to fight this dude. I'm not trying to start no altercation. First of all, his locker room was right next to ours. It wasn't like I had to skip across town to find him. He was right there. I was going to say a few words. It wasn't going to be [anything] crazy because the fight is over with. For him to say that I put my hands on him, and me and my brother [head-butted] him and all that s*** — I was like, 'What?' I was shocked for real. At the end of the day, I shouldn't have walked in his locker room anyway, so he just [took] that s*** and [ran] with it." Following the incident in De Los Santos' changing room, Davis was involved in yet another altercation, as a brawl unfolded backstage while the main event was unfolding. ESPN cameras showed Davis and his infant son in the midst of the chaos as punches and objects were seen being thrown in the footage. Davis was escorted out of the Scope Arena by police following the second incident of the night. "The Businessman" confirmed to Uncrowned that he is currently under investigation by the state of Virginia for both altercations. Davis, who has struggled with mental health in the past, said he isn't in a rush to return to the ring and is hoping to "get myself together" before focusing on boxing again. The 26-year-old described how he needs a break from boxing as he has been focusing on the sport "nonstop" since the Olympics in 2021. Davis hasn't done any boxing training in two months and isn't expecting to fight again for another year. "I could've [said], 'I'm going through stuff and that's why I did [it].' Nah, I don't even want it to come off that way," Davis said. "I was wrong. I'm grown enough to know that I need to be better for my son, for myself, and for God. "When I get back to boxing, just know that I am going to be a better Keyshawn."
