Midnight Mania: ‘No Love' Fight News, Moreno's New Ink, And The ‘Lil Heathen' Rap
Welcome to Midnight Mania!
Let's start the night off by taking a look back over the three biggest stories of Wednesday, May 7, 2025.
'Of course' Kayla Harrison was on steroids, says Julianna Pena, wants 'weight bully' to 'cycle off' for UFC 316: Women's Bantamweight champion Julianna Pena has been accusing her UFC 316 opponent of being on the juice for about a year now, and she did it again.
'Disheartened' Alex Pereira blindsides fans and threatens to quit UFC (he was hacked): So, this was very weird and random. Alex Pereira tweeted out that he was disheartened by a phone call from the UFC, and then two hours later claimed he was hacked.
UFC 315 ticket sales struggling just days before showtime—'About 50 percent sold' (Updated): This morning, it was reported that UFC 315 ticket sales weren't the best before it goes down on Saturday. However, UFC officials confirmed to MMAMania.com that UFC 315 is more than 92 percent sold.
Insomnia
Former Bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt has been booked against Raoni Barcelos for UFC Atlanta, which goes down on June 14, 2025.
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Garbrandt has been out of action since his second-round submission loss at UFC 300 last year, while Barcelos is coming off a huge upset win over much hyped prospect Payton Talbott.
Speaking about 'No Love,' he's had a couple of new hairstyles.
Cory Sandhagen and Petr Yan have been chirping at one another over a potential rematch and who deserves the title shot. I'd happily watch it again, but I think the Sandhagen title shot and Yan vs. Umar are the best bookings available if Merab Dvalishvili retains his crown.
While on the 'Sandman' topic, here's a breakdown of how Deiveson Figueiredo's knee was injured at UFC Des Moines.
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Jean Silva is treating the MMA podcast scene in the appropriate fashion.
Daniel Cormier has defended his 'daddest man on the planet' title no less than 300 times.
Brandon Moreno's new ink is very clean!
Jeremy Stephens may not have won his last fight, but this diss track of Joe Pyfer means he's a winner anyway.
I don't think Jiri Prochazka is going to keep his hands up ever (praise be).
Slips, rips, and KO clips
Fell forward while throwing the overhand and paid the price:
One of those fight results that makes for a great trivia question.
The popularity of MMA and UFC has surely improved the average quality of street fights around the globe.
Random Land
Is this an example of genius and madness coming together? I love it.
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Midnight Music: Soul, 1970
Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.
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Associated Press
15 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Mexico overcomes slow start to defeat Dominican Republic 3-2 in Gold Cup group stage
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Defending champion Mexico overcame a slow start to defeat the Dominican Republic 3-2 on Saturday night in a CONCACAF Gold Cup group stage match. West Ham midfielder Edson Álvarez opened the scoring in the 44th minute, Fulham striker Raúl Jiménez added a goal in the 47th and defender César Montes got another one in the 53rd. Jiménez now has 40 goals with the Mexican national team and is six away from Jared Borgetti, in second place on the career scoring list for El Tri. Javier Hernández is Mexico's to scorer with 52. Mexico leads Group A with three points while the Dominican Republic is at the bottom. Costa Rica and Suriname, the other countries in the group, will face off on Sunday in Snapdragon stadium in San Diego. Peter González in the 51st minute and Edison Ascona in the 67th scored for the Dominicans, who earned their first qualification as one of the four group winners in League B of the CONCACAF Nations League. The match was played at SoFi stadium before 54,309 fans, most of them rooting for Mexico. There was uncertainty on how many Mexican fans would attend the match. On Friday, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum urged U.S. officials not to target individuals attending the game. Dozens of workers have been detained by federal immigration authorities in a series of raids in LA's fashion district and at Home Depot parking lots in Southern California. More than 100 people have been detained. Mexico will try to qualify for the next round next Wednesday when they play Suriname while the Dominican Republic will play Costa Rica. Both matches will be played at the AT&T stadium in Arlington, Texas. ___ AP soccer:
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Messi shows glimpses of his genius on Fifa's stage of fakery in Club World Cup opener
Lionel Messi during Inter Miami's Club World Cup match against Al Ahly. 'Watching him you got that feeling of a truly great footballer who can still see it all, but just can't call the shapes into being.' Lionel Messi during Inter Miami's Club World Cup match against Al Ahly. 'Watching him you got that feeling of a truly great footballer who can still see it all, but just can't call the shapes into being.' Photograph: SportsWell, this was at least a first. Gianni was right on that front. On a clammy, boisterous, vaguely hallucinogenic night at the Hard Rock Stadium, the opening act of Fifa's billion dollar death star, the newly bulked and tanned Club World Cup, did produce something genuinely new. This was surely the first major sporting event where the opening ceremony was infinitely more entertaining, and indeed comprehensible as a basic human activity, than the sporting spectacle that followed. By the end the best team in Africa, Al Ahly, had drawn 0-0 with a largely incoherent Inter Miami, a team that looked in the first half like people who had a dim idea what this sport is meant to look like, but who were also struggling through a terrible wall-eyed hangover to remember which way is forward. Advertisement The second half was better, mainly because some element of the Lionel Messi identity began to assert itself, a muscle memory of genius, like watching the aged Frank Sinatra still tootling out That's Life on stage in Vegas, still drawing huge gales of applause for basically nodding a lot and pointing at the crowd. Related: Borrowed culture and a plasticine burger – welcome to the Club World Cup and almost-football | Barney Ronay This was the only significant emotion here: a deep sadness at seeing this spectacle play out, the post Messi-Messi, wheeled on to this stage of fakery, an instrument of sporting beauty weaponised in his dotage to promote a power grab. And watching this you really got the scale of Fifa's act of deception, its betrayal of sport, the cynicism of its methods. Because everybody loves Messi, because there is a hard-wired emotional response, because you basically cannot resist. We will bolt the aged Messi to the front of our project, will play with your feelings, will in effect produce a kind of targeted sporting crystal meth. Advertisement Actually that sounds a bit too exciting. The football here was largely abysmal. Does this matter? This thing isn't really built to be a robust sporting entity. It is simply product, an attempt to capture a global market. This is Fifa enabling the foreign policy aims of Saudi Arabia, sticking a flag in the middle of the world's greatest popular culture megaphone. It's the projection of a single essentially random Swiss administrator. Although, to be fair, lots of things that were supposed to be bad were actually fine here. The talk of half-empty stadiums always seemed a bit over the top. The Fifa marketing machine is a juggernaut. Americans are good at turning up to stuff. And mainly it was never going to be empty because Messi was here, Miami loves Messi, and America loves stars. The Hard Rock is a castle-on-the-hill kind of structure, with its crisp white flying roof, dumped down in a vast expanse of shimmering tarmac. By the time the opening ceremonials came around the stands were pretty much full. The great Sir David appeared, looking graver now, hands folded like the fourth earl of Sandwich, producing one of those expensive-looking regal waves, not really a wave at all, just a power-flex. A DJ played club tunes, which was fun and infectious and gleefully received, not because of Fifa or football but because this is Miami and something about the air, the heat, the light just makes this a place of fun and pleasure and show, and because Miami is basically full of beautiful glowing people who look like they're probably eternal. Advertisement The ceremony was genuinely good, not the stiff, mannered stuff these affairs often dish up, but loads of people dancing and playing horns and looking like they actually enjoy doing this. A terrifying horror movie-style voice shouted 'take it to the worrrlllldd', in a manner that suggested its owner was in the process of being expertly throttled. Messi was last out on to the pitch. Everyone went predictably nuts, a shared static field of excitement, event glamour, the sense of being present at some kind of celebrity miracle. He started in a non-position, just walking about vaguely, like a man having a stroll while listening to a podcast. Messi does, though, still have the shuffle the little switch, the groove, the music in his head. Watching him you got that feeling of a truly great footballer who can still see it all, but just can't call the shapes into being, Mozart with tinnitus, Hemingway staggering about the Florida Keys in his soggy late days, still feeling his own greatness, still the matador, even while he's sinking pisco sours in a crab shack There was something frustrating, and even slightly offensive about seeing Messi like this. It expresses perfectly the deeply manipulative nature of this event, of owners and political interests who will take that thing you love and use it to move the world around, who know you simply cannot resist. That thing that gives you pleasure and feels like freedom and joy? We will inject it into your eyes like a forced stimulant, a kind of footballing pornography. Advertisement Al Ahly should have scored at least twice in the opening 20 minutes. They missed a penalty. The YouTube overlord IShowSpeed appeared in the half-time break and prodded a ball toward the goal a few times trailed by a man with a camera coiled into a furious crouch, as though preserving the last recorded sighting of the snow leopard. Related: Raids and fear cast a large shadow over Club World Cup's big launch Messi woke up in the second half. Miami were better. They might have won, or at least scored. But a goalless draw felt right. The people in the stadium were the only winners here, in a city that just loves its nights. Otherwise Saturday in America was a day for a divisive, autocratic president to stage his own hugely overblown and narcissistic Grand Parade. It was in the end a pathetic spectacle, and in every sense of the word, the ghost of something great and pure and much-loved, out there being sold back to you like an empty replica shirt.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
NWSL's Angel City wears T-shirts reading `Immigrant City Football Club'
Angel City, the National Women's Soccer League team based in Los Angeles, distributed T-shirts to fans on Saturday that proclaimed 'Immigrant City Football Club.' Members of the team and the coaching staff also wore the shirts before their game Saturday night against the North Carolina Courage in solidarity with immigrants in the city who have been targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The back of the shirts said 'Los Angeles is for Everyone' in English and Spanish. The team said some 10,000 shirts were distributed. Protests over President Donald Trump's immigration policies broke out in Los Angeles a week ago. National Guard members and Marine troops have been sent into the city and dozens of similar protests have broken out nationwide. Last week Angel City issued a statement on social media addressing the protests. "We are heartbroken by the fear and uncertainty many in our Los Angeles community are feeling right now,' it said. "At Angel City, we believe in the power of belonging. We know that our city is stronger because of it's diversity and the people and families who shape it, love it and call it home." The players' unions for the NWSL and the WNBA also expressed solidarity with families 'facing fear, hardship, and uncertainty tied to immigration.' "We stand with all people seeking safety, dignity, and opportunity, no matter where they come from or where they hope to go,' the NWSLPA and WNBPA posted jointly. 'Every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. We know not every situation is simple. But offering compassion should never be up for debate.' ___ AP soccer: Anne M. Peterson, The Associated Press
