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USA Today
4 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
PFL's unbeaten Alexei Pergande aims to shake prospect label, potentially enter tournament
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. – One of PFL's brightest prospects, Alexi Pergande, is eager to prove he's much more than that. The 24-year-old Pergande (6-0) is undefeated and quickly turning heads early in his career. All of his pro bouts have taken place within the PFL ecosystem, so he's been given a big platform to perform since the beginning. To some, that could be daunting, and Pergande admits he was no different. "The first few fights, I was definitely nervous to be on the bigger stage, but I feel like now I've crossed that border, that barrier, where now it's just excitement," Pergande told MMA Junkie at American Top Team. "Now, I just want to go in there. I want to do something flashy. As you can see, I always have those flying knees. I have elbows, I have back flips – everything I can to get the crowd excited, and to me, I'm a performer. I just love to do that." While Pergande embraces a flashy style to captivate the fans, his MMA idol, Georges St-Pierre, was a little more reserved in that aspect. He's picked up things from GSP that he implements in his game, that he hopes will help inspire future generations of martial artists. "Just because how humble he was and his skills in martial arts in general, he brought those two things really well together," Pergande said. "He wasn't quiet, but he was just very humble and just went out there and did his thing, and then moved on to the next thing – and that's kind of how I want to be. I love to inspire people and inspire the younger generation. I've been very active on TikTok and Whatnot and I've built a very big fanbase on there. I've inspired so many people that reached out to me and said, 'Hey, I started my martial arts career because of you.' To me, that's all I really need." In his second fight of the year, Pergande takes on Ethan Goss in a featherweight bout at 2025 PFL World Tournament 10: Finals on Aug. 21. It's his first main card placement of what he anticipates will be many. While Goss (12-7) doesn't bring a record that jumps off the page, Pergande expects he'll be mixing it up with the next level of competition next year, and is eyeing a potential entry into next year's PFL tournament. "One or two more fights, I'll be facing the guys that are in the tournament right now," Pergande said. "Possibly even, we'll see about next year if I'll be in there. We'll see. I'm not going to say anything yet, but that's on the horizon. I'm at the point in my career where I don't care who I fight anymore. Anyone PFL offers me, I say yes. It's up to them at this point. I'll say yes to anyone."
USA Today
4 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
PFL's Dalton Rosta aims to finish Fabian Edwards, then take out Costello Van Steenis
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. – Dalton Rosta is confident he will win the PFL middleweight tournament and then take the division's title from Costello Van Steenis. Rosta (11-1) has been on a roll in the new-look PFL tournament by submitting former champion Sadibou Sy and avenging the only loss of his career by winning a split decision over Aaron Jeffery. Those two victories have led him to the final, where he will meet former Bellator title challenger Fabian Edwards. "I'm gonna go in here and smash this dude," Rosta told MMA Junkie at American Top Team. "It's not even gonna be close." Although he can't pinpoint a reason why, Rosta says he just doesn't like Edwards (15-4). He aims to bring that energy into the cage with him when they battle at 2025 PFL World Tournament 10: Finals on Aug. 21 at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla. "At the end of the day, I hope this fight goes five rounds because he's talking a lot of sh*t about his cardio and he's gonna push me," Rosta said. "I can't wait to go out there, and after Round 3, if it makes it that far, he's gasping for air, he's looking for a way out, and I'm gonna take his heart from him. "... He's smug. At the end of the day, it ain't personal. I don't like the dude, but I'm going in there to take his head off because that's what I'm here to do. I'm the best in the world, and I'm gonna prove it on Aug. 21." Edwards reached the finals by stopping 2023 PFL light heavyweight season winner Impa Kasanganay and winning a unanimous decision over Josh Silveira. Rosta plans to halt Edwards' momentum and then take aim at Costello Van Steenis, who recently defeated Johny Eblen to win the PFL middleweight title. "This round, I get a super confident – I don't know why – but a super confident Fabian Edwards, and I'm going to put his lights out," Rosta said. "Then, everybody's gonna believe me (that I'm the best in the world). If they don't believe me then, at the end of the year, whenever I fight Costello Van Steenis, and then I beat him, they will." Despite Rosta and Eblen being teammates, the Pennsylvania native says it's not about getting one back for the team, but rather furthering his own career and proving himself as an elite fighter at middleweight. "(Winning the title) interests me for my own endeavors," Rosta said. "At the end of the day, I'm not here to avenge anybody's loss. He's his own man. He's my teammate, I support him. But, at the end of the day, we're in the same weight class. We're chasing the same belt, and that belt's mine."
RNZ News
6 days ago
- Sport
- RNZ News
Michelle Montague becomes first New Zealand woman to sign with UFC
Michelle Montague celebrates after defeating Abigail Montes during PFL 2023 week 9 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on August 23, 2023 in New York City. Photo:Michelle 'Wild One' Montague has made the history books, becoming the first New Zealand woman to sign with UFC. The 31 year old joins the world's top martial arts fighters who have signed under the promotion, her management agency announced . Matamata's montague is no stranger to physical contact or competition . Not only has she competed alongside Olympic BMX rider Sarah Walker in the Oceania continental championship, she was a forward for the Waikato women's rugby team and went to the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and 2022 for wrestling. Back in 2018 she told RNZ her long term goal was to become New Zealand's first female to enter the UFC - she has done just that. In 2018 Michelle Montague told RNZ her goal was to become New Zealand's first female to enter the UFC. Photo: United World Wrestling Now training at mixed martial arts gym American Top Team in Florida, Montague looks to drop a division to bantamweight, after fighting most recently at featherweight. Coached by Carlo Meister, she is currently 13th best female featherweight in MMA's world-wide ranking. She signs with the promotion with a 6-0 professional MMA record, fighting at lightweight and featherweight. Her next upcoming bout is reportedly against Brazil's Luana Carolina at bantamweight in Perth on 27 September, however the fight is yet to be confirmed by the promotion. Kiwi fighter Navajo Stirling is also reportedly fighting against Brazil's Rodolfo Bellato on the same UFC card. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
That time UFC 318 headliner Dustin Poirier taught me something about life that still helps me today
One of the things about interviewing lots of fighters is that you hear a lot of the same things over and over. Best training camp of my life. Iron sharpens iron. My opponent has never fought anyone like me before. You know how it goes. That makes it feel extra strange when one of them — in this case, Dustin Poirier, who winds down his career at UFC 318 in New Orleans on Saturday — tells you something unexpectedly wise or insightful or even oddly poetic. You see, back in 2014, I spent about a week at the American Top Team gym in Coconut Creek, Florida. The place was a true shark tank of elite fighters. You'd walk in and see Robbie Lawler, who'd just won the UFC welterweight title, strapping on the gloves for a mitt session. Thiago Alves and Hector Lombard might be sparring in the cage. Over against the wall, former Strikeforce champ 'King' Mo Lawal would be shooting takedowns on a rotating cast of ranked light heavyweights. Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal were two of the lesser-known names on the gym's roster — and they were basically best friends. That's what a different time it was. This is where I found Poirier training for his first fight with Conor McGregor. The McGregor of 2014 was not yet a full-fledged superstar, but you could sense he was on his way. Poirier had won three straight and was thinking that if he could beat McGregor he might steal some of the Irishman's stardust and maybe even find himself in a title fight soon. This accounted for the work I saw from him in the gym that week, which can only be described as fanatical. At the end of one particularly long and brutal sparring session — all of it against teammates well out of his weight class — I made an attempt to ask Poirier what was going on in his mind through all this. Here he was, a 25-year-old man who'd left the only home he'd ever known, in Lafayette, Louisiana, to come to South Florida. He didn't know anybody there. His family was hundreds of miles away. And here he was, fighting monsters every day and hoping it would pay off in the end. He'd been in training camp for two solid months by the time I spoke to him, and he still had a couple more weeks to go. The bruises on his face barely had time to heal before he added more. There was something going on somewhere in his ribs that he wasn't thrilled about but had to try to work around. He was exhausted and literally hungry much of the time, owing to his pre-weight cut diet. It all sounded fairly miserable, to be honest. So how did he get through it? His answer was simple but direct. Training camp always seems impossible, he said, 'if you try to live all the days at once.' If you think about the enormity of the task and the sacrifice, let yourself dwell on how long and punishing it is, then sure, it'll feel unbearable. But you don't actually have to live all the days all at once. The only day you have to live is today. Put it another way, the only day you get to live is today. 'I remind myself not to take that for granted,' he said. 'I don't have to do any of this. This is a gift, man.' Something about the way he said this, I noticed that it even made him look different. He was standing there covered in sweat, blood drying inside his nose, his chest still heaving with big, tired breaths. A moment before that had all made him seem like a man who was suffering and sacrificing in hope of some future reward. But the way he talked about it, now it just made him look very alive. He was intensely engaged in work he found meaningful, and there was a satisfaction in that. I ended up thinking about this a lot at various points thereafter. Years later I even put it in a poem (originally published here, but this is the free version if you're curious) that was part of a series on fight sports. It stuck with me because I felt like something I in particular needed to hear. For those of us who might be naturally inclined toward pessimism, there's a real value in being reminded that your life is not something to be merely endured or trudged through. It is not something you have to do. It is something you get to do — and not even for all that long. It also struck me later that this was the kind of mid-training camp insight I'd probably only get from someone like Poirier, who had to work harder and suffer more just to give himself a good chance in this sport. He was never one of those guys who just showed up on TV one day with obvious and extraordinary gifts. He was a high school drop-out from the poor side of Lafayette who willed himself into becoming a professional athlete through sheer desire and toil and pure old stubbornness. This, as much as anything, explains his enduring popularity as he comes now to the end of his fighting career. Poirier never became the world's best lightweight. That first fight against McGregor, which he hoped might propel him toward a featherweight title shot? Even after all that blood and sacrifice, he got knocked out in the first round. But the fact that he kept going, kept improving, kept finding ways to claw his way back to relevance and respect, it spoke to people. It also helped that he seemed like a genuinely good dude who, even back before he had much of a platform in the UFC, was auctioning off his own gear after fights to support his local food bank. Poirier has always been one of those fighters who reminds us that people don't just watch this sport for knockouts and triumphs — they watch for the human drama and the inspiration. People watched him rise and fall and rise up again, and it meant something to them. If anything, it meant more because of how hard he had to work for it all. He wasn't born to athletic success. He had to find a way to create it for himself. I think that's part of what gave him such a valuable sense of perspective. It was there when he was 25 and on the way up, but also now that he's 36 and ready to call it a career after Saturday's fight with Max Holloway. Fans feel connected and invested not because he's the best, but because he meant something to them as both a person and a fighter. Poirier earned every bit of the respect he'll carry in and out of the cage on Saturday. And that, too, he never took for granted.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
‘Money' Challenges Chandler To A Loser-Retires Fight
Photo byfor Fanatics Just over a week has passed since former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweight title challenger Renato Moicano suffered a unanimous decision loss to Beneil Dariush at UFC 317, but he's already targeting his next opponent: fellow 155-pound title challenger Michael Chandler. Advertisement 'Man, I'll be completely honest with you, the oldest guy in the division, brother. 'Michael Chandler,' Moicano said when asked who he wants to fight next. 'I think that fight makes a lot of sense, and there isn't a better time. I've been talking shit for about Michael Chander for so long and if I lose to him, I'll have to kill myself.' Suicide is clearly an extreme statement, so Moicano's co-host proposed an alternative: a loser-retires fight (sound familiar?). 'Money' loved the idea. '100%,' Moicano said. 'Sign the contract.' From a rankings perspective, a Moicano-Chandler bout aligns well, with Moicano at No. 12 and Chandler at No. 13, despite some fighters calling for Chandler's removal from the rankings. The matchup also carries extra intrigue, as the two train at rival Florida gyms: American Top Team and Kill Cliff FC. Advertisement Moicano (20-7-1) is now on his first two-fight losing streak since transitioning to Lightweight. His previous bout saw him face Islam Makhachev on just one day's notice, resulting in a first round submission loss (watch highlights). Chandler (23-10) is on a three-fight losing skid, most recently getting stopped in the third by Paddy Pimblett via TKO (watch highlights). More from
