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 *

Wilson reis vs Ricky camp in CW for their first event of the year. I like Ricky and facing a former ufc title challenger is a big step up. He could get on dwcs with a win

* Edited at 01.23.2023, 12:28 PM ET *

More prospects I've forgotten:

Cezary Oleksiejczuk WW (FEN, better than brother Michał )
Losene Keita LW (Oktagon)

Anyone looking for prospects should go check out the thread for the prospect GP, those teams
cover most of the guys with the best chances of getting DWCS/UFC call-ups this year

Camp is kinda getting too old to still be a prospect.

Yeah but he’s fun 

Jiri said he plans to be back in July/August. Thank god his injury isn’t as bad as Dana hyped it up to be. We may finally get jiri vs hill after all 🙏 

Jiri vs Hill would be amazing, it's the fight I want to happen the most atm

Same I’ve been wanting that fight forever. Two of my top 5 favorite fighters. 

Luke rockhold said on mma hour he’s a free agent and is looking at PFL, ONE, Bellator, and boxing. I hope he doesn’t do boxing but him in the other three would be cool. He showed he’s still got skills in the costa fight. Assuming it was just the altitude and his cardio is still how it was then he could still beat a lot of guys

PFL seems like the best choice, he's going to make an easy millie at 205 and PFL as an organization will probably maximize his exposure the most

Bellator IMO would be a pretty bad choice, at 185 it's probably his hardest route to becoming champ + he'd be hindering Dalton Rosta's comeup at the same time which is like one of the very few legit prospects Bellator has and at Bellator's 205 there's not that many intriguing matchups, just Nemkov and Romero and at the same time he'd also hinder Sullivan Cauley's comeup which is like a semi-decent prospect

I dont really know much about ONE but at 205 Malykhin would bulldoze him into oblivion so at first glance it's not a good choice

Boxing no comment, his hands are literally the worst part about his game. it would genuinely be sad seeing someone as talented as rockhold get fed to bums like KSI and Jake Paul

You think Dalton Rosta is one of the few "legit" prospects in Bellator? Really?

Yeah I would most wanna see him in pfl. ONE would just be hilarious because he could roid as much as he wants and live out his career fighting cans. Well actually he could fight soldic (I think? I forget how their classes work) which would likely end badly but be a good test for him

who else is as legit as Dalton Rosta? 

at this point I'd put people like Usman, McKee, Pico, Mix, Khizriev, Eblen, Amosov, Tokov, Shabliy etc past the stage of being actual prospects since they're now well established in the space of MMA

off the top of my head that leaves us with Archie Colgan, Aliev, Laird Anderson, Lucas Brennan, Dalton Rosta, Sullivan Cauley, Akhmed Magomedov as really promising prospects and not bellator hypejobs, that I can think of at least

* Edited at 01.23.2023, 5:05 PM ET *

Mowry’s next fight should detirmine if he’s a total bust or not. I think he counts as a prospect

* Edited at 01.23.2023, 4:39 PM ET *

Sarvadzhon Khamidov is one of the top Bantamweight prospects in the sport, he tried to sign with the UFC but they offered him a contenders series fight for 8k so he took the Bellator offer instead. Not uncommon for One, Bellator, PFL to outbid the UFC on top young talent they just can't keep up with the frequency of their signings. 

Timur Khizriev is the truth, I'll put money down on him if and win he fights Patricio, he gassed a bit vs Weichel but looked amazing up until then. His win over Bibert in ACA is a huge feather in his cap. 

Joey Davis at WW and Jordan Newman at MW, I was told Davis would fight this year so he's a guy to look out for and Newman was a good collegiate wrestler who's been training out of Rufusport I believe, being built up the right way at the right age. 

Khasan Magomedsharipov is one if the best 145lb prospects, Zabits brother, trains with the Mark Henry Dagestani crew, very good. 

There's others for sure but I don't keep up with Bellator enough at the moment so these are some of the names besides some already mentioned I'll give a gold stamp of approval on. 

I agree Khizriev is as legit as it gets, I just had him more as a contender instead of a prospect in my mind especially after beating an experienced guy like Weichel the way he did

I also did watch Khamidov's bellator debut live but I didn't really register him as a bellator prospect when writing my post above since he's only fought once in the promotion so far, he for sure makes the prospect list though

will be checking out joey davis and khasan a bit more, didn't really have them in my radar since they haven't been super active lately

* Edited at 01.23.2023, 4:52 PM ET *

I really like Joey Davis. Happy he’s coming back. Sucks the ufc let Sarvad walk, he would’ve been a beast in the ufc 

* Edited at 01.23.2023, 4:53 PM ET *

I still think Pico is a prospect, God damn it. He's so young and athletically gifted with fantastic skills but the ****** is kept together with bubblegum and popsicle sticks. I'm super high on Rosta too but there's some killers in the Bellator MW division so he's going to sink or swim very soon, not much in-between ground.

* Edited at 01.23.2023, 4:59 PM ET *

aaron pico is in a weird spot because the amount of fight time he's accumulated against really good opponents in bellator basically has bumped him up from prospect to actual well established mma talent but at the same time his lack of achievements so far, relative to the expectations there were of him, makes people classify him as a prospect still

I think the closest thing to pico we're going to see in MMA is clayton carpenter, same age, both child prodigies in several arts, strong background in both striking and grappling, pankration experience, extensive amateur experience and both have questionable striking defense and fight iq

the more I think about it, it's like clayton carpenter and aaron pico are clones of each other, the only tiny differences being aaron pico is more into wrestling/boxing and clayton is more into bjj/muay thai

* Edited at 01.23.2023, 5:36 PM ET *