MMA news updates

Instead of spamming the boards everytime I see some cool news, I’ll post it here. I’ll also keep track of prospects I like, new signings to ufc/dwcs/Bellator/etc.

* Edited at 05.02.2022, 4:44 PM ET *

Gaethje vs Dustin 2 is in the works for august 27 🔥 

LFA 134 happens this Friday, and oh man, is it a stacked card. Much like last week, the talent at this show is abundant, and I see lots of potential ufc guys fighting on this card. 

the first fight I have my eye on is Alden coria vs Joseph Camacho. Coria is a solid prospect in my eyes; until his last fight, he carried a 10 fight unbeaten streak, going 5-0 as a pro and 5-0 as an amateur. He can do a little bit of everything and is very young at only 24. His natural weight class is 135 but he fights at 125 because, as he put it in an interview "once his metabolism slows down and he starts to gain more weight" he will go up to 135 and fight there. His most recent fight was at 135 and he fought a pretty solid prospect and was winning the fight until getting caught up in this absurd grappling sequence where he got tapped out in the third round. Coria trains at a solid team in 4oz fight club and is a bjj black belt with some dangerous finishes. he can scrap on the feet too and im a fan of his striking. He throws lots of kicks to the legs and body and has very good technique on the feet. being a 135er fighting at 125, he carries a massive size advantage being 5'8 (although the 67 inches of reach isn't that great). His opponent is the younger brother of ufc fighter frank camacho, Joseph. Unfortunately, I cant find any tape on Joseph but he carries an undefeated record of 3-0 with 2ko and 1 sub. when I was looking him up, I found a page on his gym where it says hes 6-0 and a purple belt in bjj. Im going to assume those extra three fights were some suspect fights in Guam that didnt get reported but yeah. I have this weird theory that is somewhat proven where one brother is always better than the other so maybe we see a new camacho to look out for. I dont know his age either but he hasn't fought since 2020 so he has likely been working on himself during these 2 years off. 

The next fight I have my eye on is jakori savage vs Taylor escamila. this fight is gonna be awesome; two former collegiate atheltes fighting one another. This is especially interesting because, with the lack of HWs in the ufc, we could see the winner make it to the big leagues before long. Escamilia is 1-0 with 1 ko and a 2-0 ammy career. Most of the information on his wrestling career is hidden by paywalls (**** you Fremont tribune!) but he was a wrestler for university of Nebraska-Omaha (a D2 school) and won three straight titles with them. He was also an all American there in 2011. However, he has been inconsistent throughout his mma career, fighting twice as an ammy through 2012-13 and his only pro fight was in 2019 in one Alaska FC 🤢. He could be good tho but yknow, Alaska fc lol. His opponent, Jakori Savage is someone I think has potential, but is very very green. However, the talent is definitely there, just needs experience and refining. Jakori is an incredible athlete as he was an OL for LSU (for my non-american friends, LSU is in the top 3 best American football colleges in the country) so he was very good at his sport and very athletic. Hes also gigantic, standing at 6"6 with an 86 inch reach! I mean that build alone is just insane. He lost his amateur debut and then rattled off 4 straight wins as an amateur and 1 as a pro, winning all by ko. Hes got power and loves to throw elbows and knees in the clinch. His gas tank doesn't look great but he does have 2nd and 3rd round ko wins as an ammy (yes, ik the rounds are different but still, thats longer than 5 minutes) his tdd is also interesting to me. He got taken down a few times in his lfa debut, but he was able to reverse position (likely because of his pure strength, size, and athleticism) and even managed to reverse his opponent while he was fully mounted on jakori, so that is definitely impressive. It will be interesting to see how he does with the takedowns from a collegiate wrestler but I think he will win the fight. Very intriguing fighter imo, and I hope he has success so we see him in the ufc one day. 

The next fight im looking at is the co main event, between Milko Tucto and dwcs alum, Olivier Murad. Murad is a pretty solid prospect but he does need some work on his overall game. He carries a 13 fight winsrtreak overall, going 7-0 as an amateur (picking up some titles along the way) and 6-0 as a pro. He has won multiple regional titles, including the titan fc 145 championship where he upset the very solid Muhammadjon naimov in a 5 round battle. He came on dwcs and really didnt impress me all that much ( I actually thought he lost), maybe it was nerves, maybe his opponent was just better than him, or maybe hes just actually not that good (assuming one of the former two). He looked hesitant and even when he got a knockdown, he didnt really capitalize and also got outwrestled for a lot of the fight. He can do a little bit of everything but where he excels the most is in the striking. Hes kind of low volume but hes got good power and throws a lot of unorthodox stuff like combos with different types of elbows. His opponent is Milko Tucto, someone I haven't really heard of but will provide a solid test for Olivier. He may have an ugly 5-3 record, but he went 8-1 as an amateur (only loss by split decision) and his three losses as a pro have came to Ivanovich chalo (idk who this is but hes got an okay record), Erick Gonzalez (horrible loss but for this level of competition, not bad), and William Starks (another loss that has aged very poorly, but, despite Starks very poor performance, I still think hes a great prospect). I expect murad to win this pretty easily, but, tucto may give him a tougher fight than it looks on paper. Depending on how easy he makes it look, id say we see murad get another dwcs opportunity within a year, just needs 1-3 wins, depending on how he looks. 

Now, the main event. Man this is gonna be such a great fight between two solid prospects. Like murad, I was quite unimpressed with gaufarov, but, hes still a solid fighter, just not so sure hes gonna be making it to the ufc anytime soon. hes 17-4 with 15 finishes (8 ko 7 sub) and has a myriad of experience fighting in ONE, ACA, and UAE warriors. Hes fought (and beaten) a very high level of competition and pairs this with being a two time world samba champion. He has a very well rounded skillset; on the feet he carries good power and loves to throw spinning kicks, and in the grappling hes got good sambo, good reversals, and a sneaky submission game. However, he came to dwcs and defied all expectations; I mean I guess anheliger isn't THAT bad but hes not great and ruin really **** the bed against him. I dont understand if he just folded because he wasn't on the sauce (even though he tested positive after the fight lol) or if he too choked under the spotlight. He could come into this fight an look great, as dwcs alum have a knack for impressing me (see Maria silva or Justin burnlinson) but idk. My one biggest qualm with him is his tdd. For someone with an impressive samb0 background, he gets taken down and controlled a LOT. Like a lot. IN most of his one fights, his opponents get him down with ease and he can get back up, but will sometimes just stay on his back. Thats why I think this is the perfect matchup for Sousa. Sousa is 15-1 with 12 finishes (2 ko 10 sub) and man is this guy impressive. On the feet, he doesn't have much to offer, as hes low volume and likes to calculate his shots, but where he excels is on the ground. Hes got dominant top control and very good wrestling and bjj. I think we will see some great scrambles from these two. Sousa has been on a long layoff, but is inly 28 so im assuming hes developed some good skills since then. He too has a myriad of experience although gaufarov has fought better competition. Sousa was the Future FC 135 champ and would have been the cffc 135 champ (beating a very solid fighter in Alexander keshtov) but he did miss weight. Overall, I think Sousa will win this fight because he has the better takedowns and top control and the better gas tank. Should be an insane fight and id bet the winner goes to the ufc (not so sure in gaufarovs case but I feel Sousa will pretty much be a shoe in with a win here)

also, I will have to write a piece on it when the time comes but you guys HAVE to check out ares fc 7's lineup. Just a ridiculous showcase of Europes best prospects and I guarantee at least 6 people fighting on that card will be in the ufc one day. There are just so many elite prospects fighting on that day its actually mind boggling. fedofanova, ayoub, salamov, and Wozniak are all great prospects and then you have three of the best prospects in the world fighting in krill kornilov (this guy is a top 3 unsigned HW imo, not many 265ers like him), gomis (one of the best prospects nobody knows about) and then lazy king who could easily debut in the top 15 of the ww division and have success

* Edited at 06.07.2022, 12:45 PM ET *

half of those guys are getting signed to UFC Paris

Ya I don’t see them not getting signed to the ufc. Gomis and lazy king are elite in my eyes and kornilov has been one of the best Russian HWs there is. Salamov really impressed me in his last fight as well

The last two years I liked Gaethje's chances against Dustin but as of recent Gaethje's chin has been pretty sus. He'd definitely still be coming into the rematch a smarter fighter than he was before. Anyways that's a make or break fight for both guys. 

Will Currie will face Naglis Kanisauskas at Cage Warriors 141

Damnnnn, that’s a great fight

CW 141 is gonna be stacked as ****

Not mma related but this was too shocking I couldn’t not share it. So, many of you may have heard about the incident in South Africa the other day where there was a boxing match and one fighter fell through the ring, got back up, and started shadow boxing an imaginary opponent. Well, he has unfortunately passed away from a brain bleed :( crazy stuff 


https://twitter.com/mmajunkie/status/1534520814544031745?s=21&t=vRWHq2ZQIU-Ha5zDsZfgVw

I watched it, thats sad. But I would like to point out that it was the guy that scored the knockdown the one who suffered it, not the one tha fell. So the whole situation is a bit weirder.

Oh damn I didn’t even know that. What a wild situation 

Pretty sure he just graduated some form of higher education a week or 2 ago as well. Med school or some **** like that. 

@CangrejoRuiz from what I've heard there was a head clash leading up to the knockdown, which might explain the injury. RIP

On a totally unrelated note, I've officially moved to MyMMANews and will continue my columns based on my prospect rankings there. Here's where all the rankings articles will go: https://mymmanews.com/category/rankings/prospect-rankings/

And here's a link to an introductory article I did for new readers or anyone who needs a refresher: https://mymmanews.com/introduction-to-the-top-prospect-rankings/

Great to hear! Imma bookmark that asap.

* Edited at 06.09.2022, 1:15 AM ET *

James, you've got me all confused.  How can Alex Emelianenko be on your prospects list with your given criteria?

And where's my guy Oleg Popov?  :)
Ya, he's got more than 10 fights, but so do many of the HWs on your prospects list.


All good, buddy.  Just asking.

@MMARanks What list are you looking at? The first link in the intro article goes here, where Alex Emelianenko is definitely not ranked and Popov is the #3 prospect behind Isaev and Kornillov, since as you said he's still eligible because he's under 30.

The second link is just my tapology rankings page which is for people who want to go deeper into my lists than those top 15 since I have hundreds of prospects ranked at each weight class.

Thanks for the feedback though, its very helpful to know that it's confusing so I can rewrite to make it clearer