UFC Fight News: Including Conor McGregor, Amanda Nunes, Dana White
The UFC’s final event of 2020 went down this past weekend. Stephen Thompson finished a turbulent year for the UFC with a dominant victory over Geoff Neal in the UFC Vegas 17 main event. Now all attention turns to 2021, which begins with UFC Fight Island 7 on January 16th.
While some huge fights have already been booked for the first quarter of 2021, such as the Dustin Poirier vs Conor McGregor rematch in the UFC 257 main event, we can expect more big fights announced in the coming weeks. Including some of the title fights that were postponed in the last couple of months.
Amanda Nunes vs Megan Anderson
One of those title fights has been rebooked in the last few hours. Amanda Nunes was scheduled to defend her UFC featherweight title against Megan Anderson earlier this month at UFC 256, but had to withdraw due to personal reasons. It will now take place at UFC 259 on March 6th.
Nina Ansaroff vs Mackenzie Dern
Earlier this year, Nunes and her partner Nina Ansaroff had their first baby. Three months after giving birth to Raegan, ‘The Strina’ is booked to return to the Octagon in the new year. According to ESPN‘s Brett Okamoto, she is set to return against her fellow Brazilian Mackenzie Dern on April 10th, in an exciting top 15 strawweight clash.
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Santiago Ponzinibbio was scheduled to return to the Octagon against Muslim Salikhov at UFC Fight Island 7, but the Russian was forced to withdraw due to health issues related to having the coronavirus. According to MMA Fighting however, Li Jingliang is set to step in as a replacement on the January 16th card.
Ponzinibbio hasn’t fought in over two years. Despite being on a seven fight win streak, the 34 year old has had to deal with injuries and health concerns since knocking out Neil Magny at UFC Buenos Aires. ‘The Leech’ on the other hand, is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Magny at UFC 248.
Another exciting welterweight clash is set to go down on February 27th between Alex Oliveira and Randy Brown. Both men will be looking to get back to winning ways, after losing to Shavkat Rakhmonov, and Vicente Luque respectfully.
Drew Dober and Islam Makhachev are set to face off in a top 15 lightweight clash at UFC 259. MMA Junkie has reported that both men have signed the contract, although the promotion is yet to confirm the fight. They were originally scheduled to fight in April this year, but the Russian was pulled from the card after the weigh-ins, after he tested positive for meldonium. USADA however, lifted his suspension three months later.
2021 Pay-Per-Views
According to Okamoto’s colleague Ariel Helwani, the UFC is planing two pay-per-view events in March. One will see Stipe Miocic defend his heavyweight title against Francis Ngannou. And the second will see UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya move up to light heavyweight to challenge Jan Blachowicz for the title. Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the UFC only held eleven PPV events this year, one less than their standard twelve.
Conor McGregor
Speaking of pay-per-views in 2020, Conor McGregor kicked off the first PPV of the year, when he finished ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone in only 40 seconds in the UFC 246 main event. In the last couple of hours, the Irishman has taken to social media to announce that it was the highest selling PPV of the year, with over 1.3 million buys.
Dana White
Despite the turbulent year, Dana White has reported that the promotion broke every record they had in 2020, minus live gates obviously. The UFC president received lots of flack for his ‘never quit’ attitude in the face of the coronavirus.
After cancelling a handful of events, the UFC returned in full force in May, and held at least one event a week since July. Dana has since taken several shots at the MMA media for questioning him. And now with the promotion’s final event of the year in the bag, the UFC boss has once again hit out at the media.
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