Michel Pereira determined to 'finish and kill' vs. Marco Tulio at UFC Fight Night 257
Now a full-time resident in Nevada and training at Xtreme Couture, Pereira (30-13 MMA, 9-4 UFC) is pursuing growth in all areas of life as he prepares to step back in the octagon with Tulio (14-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) for a middleweight bout on the Aug. 23 card at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai (ESPN+).
"I'm very excited for this fight," Pereira told MMA Junkie Radio in English. "I train every day. I eat good. I'm very strong. My training is good and I'm very excited."
After going on an eight-fight winning streak under the UFC banner, Pereira has now lost consecutive fights against Anthony Hernandez and Abus Magomedov where his grappling defense was exposed.
He's worked diligently to shore up his holes, and as such made some shifts. Excitement is in his DNA, though, and Pereira said he's not going to show up fighting with a different identity.
"I think my plan is different than last fight," Pereira said. "I trained very good now. It's better I don't talk about this. My fans will like this plan. I have 43 fights, so for me it's my style. It's easy. I train every day and in the fight I'm the same. My style is the same. There's no pressure."
No matter what tactical changes are made, Pereira said his mission remains the same: Defeat Tulio in the most highlight-reel fashion possible.
"This fight, I can finish and kill," Pereira said. "Marco Tulio is a good strikes. He's my friend. He's a good guy, a Brazilian guy. But it's my work. Let's go with one big show and knock out Marco Tulio."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC Shanghai: Michel Pereira plots 'finish and kill' vs. Marco Tulio
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Forbes
5 minutes ago
- Forbes
ESPN Set To Grab MLB.TV, Some Local Games In Latest Big Streaming Deal
On the day ESPN is launching its much-awaited $30/month streaming app comes reports the Worldwide Leader is locking up digital rights to out-of-market games now carried on and local games for five franchises. ESPN would become baseball's primary digital distributor for out-of-market games for the next three years. Disney-owned ESPN had walked away from a $550-million-a-year deal with Major League Baseball earlier in the year that covered a national game of the week, despite years building up its Sunday-night cablecast into something of a TV sports institution. The current deal between the two sides include up to 12 first-round playoff games and the Home Run Derby that precedes the All-Star Game in July. This deal represents a very different sort of animal, with what's now carried on becoming part of the new ESPN subscription streaming app that launched today. Importantly, the deal also covers local rights for five smaller MLB franchises – Cleveland, San Diego, Minnesota, Arizona and Colorado – that have struggled to find adequate home-town video distribution since the collapse of most regional sports networks amid cable cord-cutting. Such RSN deals typically represented the second- or third-biggest check a smaller franchise might receive in a year, and the loss of RSN deals has punished the finances of numerous smaller franchises. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has been trying to shift the league's video rights to a more centralized approach, but has faced strong pushback from some of the most successful and prominent franchises in the game, including the New York Yankees and Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. The two sides have a 'framework agreement," according to New York Times-owned The Athletic, that also would include about 30 games a year on ESPN's cable home, though on a different night than Sunday, beginning next season after the current game-of-the-week deal between the two sides expires. The deal is not expected to be finalized until September. If approved as reported, it would all represent another seismic shift in the sports streaming business, especially for ESPN as it seeks to dominate the fractured environment for the most valuable content on live television. Disney and minority co-owner Hearst swapped a 10-percent ownership stake in ESPN in exchange for NFL Media assets such as the NFL Network, fan-beloved RedZone and its official fantasy sports operation. ESPN also got rights to three additional NFL games a year. And last year, ESPN and ABC were winning bidders on the biggest package of NBA TV rights for the contract that takes effect this fall. Amazon and Comcast-owned NBC and Peacock also grabbed shares of rights, beating out long-time partner Warner Bros. Discovery. Also launching today is Fox's sports-heavy streaming app Fox One, which for $19.99 a month provides access to programming from its broadcast operations, Fox Sports, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Channel. It is more of a general-interest app designed to appeal to Fox fans, but programming will include NFL, college Big 10 football and basketball, MLB, Nascar and more sports. ESPN has been heavily criticized this week in some quarters after it ended a deal with Oscar-winning writer/director Spike Lee to develop a multi-part documentary about Colin Kaepernick, the Black quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who became a civil rights symbol while earning the enmity of conservatives for kneeling during the National Anthem at the start of games. He later couldn't find a job in the league, and sued. Critics noted the decision to kill the doc came after the NFL gained a share of ownership in ESPN, which Disney executives have denied was cause for the deal's cancellation.


CNBC
5 minutes ago
- CNBC
We're sticking with an old-school rubric to grade the success of Disney's new ESPN service
ESPN entered into a new era on Thursday with the iconic sports channel finally becoming available as a standalone streaming service. For investors, the thing that matters most is the same as it ever was: Good old-fashioned revenues and profits. In an interview Thursday on CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company is not planning to break out subscriber numbers for the new ESPN offering — perhaps against the wishes of some investors who wanted to see those figures. The streaming service, which provides access to all of ESPN's channels along with some additional personalization features, costs $29.99 a month, or $299.99 a year. An ad-supported bundle with Disney+ and Hulu is $35.99 a month, or $44.99 without ads. The ESPN+ service that Disney had been offering for years didn't have everything available on the cable channels. Iger argued the subscribers numbers for the direct-to-consumer ESPN service are "irrelevant," and instead said Disney is taking more of an "agnostic" approach. "We don't feel like the way to measure this is immediate, nor do we feel like the way to measure this is in just subscribers," Iger told CNBC's David Faber. There's no question that some people look at subscriber numbers as a key metric to evaluate the success of streaming platforms, but we don't think keeping it in house is a bad decision. It's not without precedent. Streaming pioneer Netflix stopped providing their subscriber totals this year. Go back further, and in November 2018, Apple stopped reporting how many iPhones, iPads and Mac computers it was selling — looking instead to focus investor attention on what should actually matter: revenue, earnings and cash flows. Subscriber numbers are double-edged sword. Investors love a stock when the numbers are increasing and hate it when they aren't. Providing those numbers initially only to take them away later is almost always viewed as a negative — in reality, that holds true no matter the metric. Investors value transparency, and there's a general belief that if a company is no longer reporting something, it's because management doesn't want investors to see a slowdown or, even worse, a decline. After all, why hide a metric if it's only improving? While we understand some will take issue with Disney's decision on ESPN subscribers, viewing it as a defensive move, we think it is the smarter long-term play. As we saw with both Netflix and Apple, when investors don't get the subscriber figures or unit sales, they tend to throw a fit, claim management is hiding something, and sell the stock. But eventually, they get over it and refocus on what actually matters: the money. Forgoing subscriber numbers from the start avoids this headache down the line and from Day One keeps investors focused on the overall financial success of ESPN. The same is true for management. It needs to be focused on growing ESPN overall, especially its bottom line. Of course, the company can update investors when certain subscriber milestones are reached. But there's a risk in chasing subscriber growth at the expense of profits — something we saw during the pandemic-era streaming wars. Wall Street was obsessed with subscriber growth during Covid, and companies with new streaming platforms — Disney among them — priced the services low enough to attract tons of sign-ups, while losing piles of money in the process. The whole paradigm changed in 2022 around the time the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates. The market woke up to the idea that having a path to profitability was important and the right way to view these businesses. Yes, subscriber numbers are important but these numbers can be greased via promotional activity or, as mentioned, just generally underpricing the service. The last thing we want is for management to focus on subscribers just to please Wall Street, rather than doing whatever is in the best interest of generating the largest profits possible over the long term. It should also be noted that cable subscribers will be granted access to the app. Even if these people don't count as paying subscribers to the streaming service specifically, giving them access makes it easier for Disney to monetize the app — whether that's through advertisements or features such as sports betting, the more eyeballs the better. The distinction between digital subscriber or cable subscriber doesn't matter in that regard. "We think this will contribute nicely to ESPN's bottom line over time as engagement grows," Iger told CNBC on Thursday. Additionally, with Disney now saying it's agnostic whether people are watching ESPN through their cable bundle or directly on the app, it makes perfect sense to manage the division as a unified entity, with the focus being on financial success rather than some metric not found on the income or cash-flow statement. Rather than shift the focus from linear offerings to digital ones, just run the whole company well. Importantly, this isn't a change in the reporting structure. In Disney's quarterly results, it will still report its "Sports" division as usual — recall, we've never gotten ESPN channel viewership in those reports. Sure, Nielsen tracks viewership and we hear how many people tuned into major sporting events. But it's not part of every earnings release. To be sure, Disney has continued to provide subscriber numbers for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ and we do value getting those insights – so long as there's no signs that management is prioritizing subscriber growth over profitability. All their recent actions on this front, including last year's round of price hikes, signal profits are the north star. The bottom line is that we take no issue with Disney withholding subscriber numbers for the new ESPN streaming platform. It keeps the focus on the profits and allows Disney to manage the ESPN division as a whole. We think the increased personalization and interactivity offered on the app will increase engagement with the ESPN brand and in turn boost ESPN's bottom line. In the end, that's what will determine where the stock goes from here — not the disclosure of how many people have signed up for the long-awaited service. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long DIS. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
MLB, ESPN reportedly reach agreement for network to obtain rights to sell out-of-market games, ability to offer MLB.TV
ESPN and MLB are reportedly close to an agreement that would allow the network to carry and the rights to all out-of-market baseball games — and select in-market baseball games — according to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. The reported deal, which has not been signed yet, would give ESPN the ability to offer to fans as part of the network's newly-launched direct-to-consumer streaming service. ESPN officially announced that service Thursday. It's unclear exactly if — or how — the agreement will change how fans currently access per Marchand. But the network could require fans to have an ESPN direct-to-consumer subscription to get access to From The Athletic: It is not fully clear yet if out-of-market subscribers who pay for the package through cable or other linear subscription would still be able to receive that way. For digital consumers, fans are likely to need an ESPN direct-to-consumer subscription to go along with The overall new pricing for is not yet decided. In addition to that, ESPN would also obtain the rights to every out-of-network MLB game. That's essentially what already provides to customers, as the service offers out-of-network games to fans. But it would also presumably allow ESPN to sell rights for certain out-of-network games to other networks or subscription services. Events such as the Home Run Derby or "Sunday Night Baseball" could be sold to other networks by ESPN, which has previously held broadcast rights for those events. The network could also presumably sell any random out-of-market game to, as an example, Apple TV+. It's unclear if that's what the network has in mind if the deal goes through. ESPN is still expected to broadcast roughly 30 regular-season games per year, according to Marchand. Those games would presumably be available on the network, and not exclusive to its direct-to-consumer offering. As part of the deal, ESPN will also control in-network games for five MLB teams: the Cleveland Guardians, San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins, Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. Local fans who want to watch those teams would likely have to go through ESPN's direct-to-consumer service. In addition to owning a subscription to that service — which costs $29.99 per month — the network could charge in-network consumers an additional fee to watch their favorite team's games. The reported agreement comes after a months-long feud between MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and ESPN. In February, ESPN decided to opt out of its partnership with the league following the 2025 MLB season. Manfred ripped the network a month later, saying he felt the league was "being treated disrespectfully" by ESPN. It appears those issues are now water under the bridge if Thursday's reported agreement comes to pass. Should the agreement go through, it would reportedly last for three years, per Marchand. MLB reportedly wants all of its broadcast rights to expire in 2029, allowing it to make a massive payday by auctioning off those rights to the highest bidder or bidders.