UFC – Ultimate Fighting Championship: UFC Fight Night 185 in the coming night live on DAZN – Diego Sanchez meets Donald Cerrone in his last fight – Cub Swanson vs. Gavin Tucker scheduled – Top talents Arnold Allen and Sodiq Yusuff meet – Dominick Reyes vs. Jiri Prochazka scheduled again – Johnny Walker vs. Jimmy Crute canceled + replacement opponent found – Askar Askar sacked
Others): PFL announces field of participants in light heavyweight and welterweight! – ONE Championship with $ 100 million in annual losses! – Sacked UFC fighter wants to see RIZIN – Paddy Pimblett returns
Sources: Sherdog.com, MMAJunkie.com, MMAFighting.com, BloodyElbow.com, PFLMMA.com
– Already after his last fight, Diego Sanchez (30-13) announced that he would only play one fight and then end his career. For his last fight he wanted an MMA legend and the UFC has now granted him that wish. Diego Sanchez will meet Donald Cerrone (36-15) at the UFC Fight Night on May 8, 2021. Sanchez has been active in the UFC since 2005, when he won the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. This means that one of the currently longest serving fighters is going into retirement. Sanchez achieved poor results recently, between defeats against Michael Chiesa and Jake Matthews he was able to defeat Michel Pereira via DQ, but was clearly inferior in this fight. His opponent Donald Cerrone is also a UFC veteran and former title contender, who recently suffered more and more defeats.
– The UFC has scheduled an exciting featherweight fight for May 1st, 2021. Long-time veteran Cub Swanson (27-11) will meet young, aspiring Canadian star Gavin Tucker (13-1). Gavin Tucker is 4-1 in the UFC and has won his last three fights. Cub Swanson currently has a winning streak of two, defeating Kron Gracie and Daniel Pineda.
– A fight between the two featherweight talents Arnold Allen (16-1) and Sodiq Yusuff (11-1) has been announced for April 10, 2021. The Englishman Arnold Allen started his UFC career perfectly with 7-0 and was able to defeat well-known opponents with Gilbert Melendez, Nik Lentz and Makwan Amirkhani. His opponent from Nigeria is also still unbeaten in the UFC. Sodiq Yusuff won all four fighters and was able to defeat Andre Fili and Gabriel Benitez. A top 10 place in featherweight beckons to the winner of this fight.
– The last match between Dominick Reyes (12-2) and Jiri Prochazka was rescheduled. The important fight in the light heavyweight class is now to take place on May 1st, 2021 at a UFC Fight Night. The venue is not yet known. Dominick Reyes lost in two title fights against Jon Jones and Jan Blachowicz. Former RIZIN FF light heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka defeated Volkan Oezdemir on his UFC debut.
– Another light heavyweight match, Johnny Walker (18-5) vs. Jimmy Crute (12-1), had to be canceled. The fight should take place at UFC 260 in a month. The reason for the cancellation is a muscle tear that Johnny Walker suffered during training. A substitute opponent has already been found for Jimmy Crute. he will face Anthony Smith (34-16) at UFC 261.
– The UFC has sacked Askar Askar (11-1) after failing the medical test before his planned fight against Cody Stamann.
– The upcoming night is the UFC Fight Night 185 with the main event Curtis Blaydes vs. Derrick Lewis on the program. The show’s main card will be live on Sunday morning from 2 a.m. German time DAZN broadcast. A subscription to the DAZN streaming service costs € 11.99 per month and can be canceled on a monthly basis. If you don’t already have one DAZN Account, you can also test the service for free in the first month after registration. Besides the UFC has DAZN numerous other sports and leagues in the program, including “WWE Monday Night RAW”, “WWE Friday Night Smackdown”, Bellator MMA, Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, LaLiga, NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.
UFC Fight Night 185: Blaydes vs. Lewis
Date: February 20, 2021
Venue: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Halle: UFC APEX
Main Card (DAZN)
Heavyweight bout
Curtis Blaydes vs. Derrick Lewis
Women’s Catchweight (138 lbs.) bout
Ketlen Vieira vs. Yana Kunitskaya
Featherweight bout
Charles Rosa vs. Darrick Minner
Heavyweight bout
Aleksei Oleinik vs. Chris Daukaus
Middleweight bout
Phil Hawes vs. Nassourdine Imavov
Heavyweight bout
Andrei Arlovski vs. Tom Aspinall
Preliminary Card (ESPN+)
Catchweight (150 lbs.) bout
Jared Gordon vs. Danny Chavez
Lightweight bout
Drakkar Klose vs. Luis Pena
Bantamweight bout
Eddie Wineland vs. John Castañeda
Featherweight bout
Nate Landwehr vs. Julian Erosa
Women’s Flyweight bout
Shana Dobson vs. Casey O’Neill
Featherweight bout
Chas Skelly vs. Jamall Emmers
Catchweight (141 lbs.) bout
Aiemann Zahabi vs. Drako Rodriguez
Heavyweight bout
Sergey Spivak vs. Jared Vanderaa
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– The Professional Fighters League has now also confirmed the light heavyweight and welterweight fields. Below is an overview:
Field of light heavyweight participants:
* Cezar Ferreira (13-8)(Brasilien): UFC-Veteran
* Chris Camozzi (25-14)(USA): UFC-Veteran
* Dan Spohn (18-7)(USA): Bellator-Veteran
* Emiliano Sordi (22-8) (Argentina): Winner of the 2019 season
* Jordan Johnson (12-2-1) (USA): UFC veteran, last season entrant
* Jordan Young (11-1)(USA): Bellator-Veteran
* Marthin Hamlet (6-1) (Norway): Formerly with Cage Warriors and Superior Challenge
* Smealinho Rama (11-5-1) (Canada): longtime WSOF veteran
* Tom Lawlor (10-7, 1 NC)(USA): UFC-Veteran
Participant field welterweight:
* David Michaud (18-6) (USA): Finalist last season, UFC veteran
* Joao Zeferino (24-9) (Brazil): Long-time PFL and WSOF veteran
* Magomed Magomedkerimov (27-5) (Russia): Winner of the 2018 season
* Nikolay Aleksakhin (26-5) (Russia): Veteran of the Russian scene and formerly at ONE Championship
* Ray Cooper III (21-7-1) (USA): Winner of the 2019 season
* Rory MacDonald (21-6-1)(Kanada): Ehemaliger Bellator WW-Champion, UFC-Veteran
* Sadibou Sy (8-5-2) (Sweden): Last season participant, very entertaining
– A few days ago, Spike Carlyle (9-3) was fired from UFC. With the market leader he had achieved a 1-2 record. After his release, he thanked the UFC for the chance and told fans that his real target has always been Japan. The currently largest league in Japan is RIZIN FF.
– English fan favorite Paddy Pimblett (15-3) returns and will meet Davide Martinez (8-2) on March 20, 2021 at Cage Warriors 122 in London, England. Cage Warriors can be seen on the UFC Fight Pass as usual.
– Asia’s top league ONE Championship stands for a mixture of different martial arts, entertaining events and constant growth. However, financially things are not going well for the Singapore league. The losses increase annually and now reached a new high in the 2019 financial year. The company lost nearly $ 100 million in one year. Although the income could be almost doubled from $ 28 million to $ 47 million, but the expenditure rose even more sharply. The costs for the fighters’ salaries, production costs and hall rent alone are as high as the total income. Add to that $ 46 million in administration and other costs (collective items) and $ 54 million in marketing.
On the revenue side, ticket revenues more than doubled, but with $ 1.7 million ONE earned with tickets just as much as the UFC with an average event. Sponsorship income has fallen slightly to $ 10.5 million. The income for the TV rights could be more than doubled and is now at 33 million dollars. The merchandise revenues are under half a million dollars.
Since ONE Championship is financed by a large number of Asian investors, these losses only reduce equity. If the trend continues in the next few years, however, then new investments or the taking out of large debt capital will soon be necessary, since the equity could soon be used up. For the 2020 financial year, however, the forecasts are unlikely to get better, as the coronavirus crisis is of course likely to have reduced some of the revenue items.
ONE Championship has lost over $ 300 million in losses since its inception. This is just a brief summary. A full account of MMA financial expert John S. Nash can be found at BloodyElbow.com (all tables there are in Singapore dollars): https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2021/2/…29-million-99-million -one-year-alone-mma-news
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