MMA

6:39 PM ET UFC middleweight Marvin Vettori was as dominant as ever with a unanimous decision victory over Kevin Holland in Saturday’s Fight Night main event in Las Vegas. The Italian middleweight had no problem taking Holland to the ground and maintaining control throughout the fight. Mackenzie Dern also had a standout performance on Saturday,

6:25 PM ET Fans tuning in Saturday to ABC were not watching a UFC replay, though they might as well have been. Kevin Holland fought for the second time in the last three weeks — and the result was almost exactly the same. Marvin Vettori took Holland down over and over en route to a

10:17 PM ET UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling will undergo neck surgery on Thursday in Los Angeles to address a medical issue he has dealt with for nearly 10 years. Sterling (20-3) won the UFC’s 135-pound bantamweight championship on March 6, when former champion Petr Yan was disqualified in the fourth round of their title

2:29 PM ET Rory MacDonald had to wait a full year to make his PFL debut — and now he will do so against a late-notice opponent. MacDonald (21-6-1), who signed with PFL in late 2019 but didn’t compete in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, will face Curtis Millender (18-6) at PFL’s regular-season event

2:39 PM ET In a brief interview this week, former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones expressed optimism he will challenge Francis Ngannou for the UFC’s heavyweight title at some point, although he doesn’t know exactly when. Jones (26-1), who is the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter on the planet according to ESPN, vacated his 205-pound

10:16 AM ET Brett Okamoto Close ESPN Staff Writer MMA columnist for ESPN.com Analyst for “MMA Live” Covered MMA for Las Vegas Sun Marc Raimondi UFC middleweight Kevin Holland agrees — he blew it three weeks ago in Las Vegas. It was his first appearance in a UFC main event, and he lost nearly every

12:42 AM ET Jeff Wagenheim It took Ryan Bader nearly a decade to get payback, but when it finally came on Friday night, it came in a big, brutal way. Bader, the reigning Bellator heavyweight champion and former light heavyweight champ, put a ferocious beating on former UFC light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida on his

7:54 AM ET LAS VEGAS — Travis Lutter used to hate it when UFC middleweight Kevin Holland talked during competition. Lutter, who’s based in Fort Worth, Texas, and has been Holland’s head MMA coach for more than a decade, never had a problem with anything Holland said specifically — he just doesn’t believe an athlete

8:30 AM ET For UFC middleweight Marvin Vettori, the past year has been equal parts rewarding and frustrating. Vettori (16-3-1) will face Kevin Holland (21-6) in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday afternoon — just the second UFC event to air on ABC (3 p.m. ET, prelims at noon on ESPN, early

4:08 PM ET Jeff Wagenheim PFL welterweight David Michaud, a finalist in the 2019 season who was scheduled for the main event of the promotion’s season-opening event on April 23, announced his retirement from fighting in a social media post on Thursday, citing a heart condition. “So this is gonna be a tough post,” Michaud,

1:41 PM ET The UFC is finalizing a welterweight matchup between Neil Magny and Geoff Neal for a UFC Fight Night in May, multiple sources told ESPN. The 170-pound bout will take place May 8 on a card headlined by bantamweights TJ Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen. The UFC has not officially announced a venue for

11:24 PM ET Demetrious Johnson, one of the most dominant champions in mixed martial arts history, suffered a crushing defeat to Adriano Moraes on Wednesday during a landmark night for Asian-based promotion One Championship. The One Championship event took place in Singapore and was aired live in the U.S. on TNT, marking the company’s first

6:18 PM ET UFC middleweight Darren Till laid into Marvin Vettori in a social media post Wednesday, shortly after Vettori publicly questioned the validity of an injury Till disclosed last week. Till (18-3-1) was scheduled to face Vettori (16-3-1) in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday in Las Vegas, but he withdrew

5:00 PM ET UFC 261 is just over two weeks away, yet the fact Jorge Masvidal knows he’ll be in the main event on April 24 against welterweight champ Kamaru Usman puts Masvidal in a better place than he was the last time they fought. Masvidal was a late replacement to challenge Usman at UFC

7:47 AM ET Jeff Wagenheim When Ryan Bader lost his Bellator MMA light heavyweight championship to Vadim Nemkov last August, he felt sorrow and deep disappointment. The first emotion comes with the territory of losing your place at the top of the mountain. The second emotion was self-directed letdown. On his way to a second-round

10:49 PM ET Two of the UFC’s top female flyweight prospects, Maycee Barber and Miranda Maverick, have agreed to square off July 24, UFC president Dana White told ESPN. The 125-pound fight will consist of three rounds and take place on UFC Fight Night at a location to be announced. 1 Related Barber (8-2) is

4:28 PM ET UFC bantamweight Aspen Ladd will return to competition against Macy Chiasson on July 24, multiple sources told ESPN. Ladd (9-1) has not fought since she defeated Yana Kunitskaya in December 2019, due to a torn ACL last June. The 26-year-old has long been considered one of the best prospects in female mixed

8:18 AM ET Roman ModrowskiESPN.com Editor’s note: This was originally published on April 6, 2020. The Ericsson Globe arena in Stockholm was empty, save for a few fighters shadow boxing and getting a feel for the Octagon in the middle of the floor. Suddenly, one of the fighters scaled a side of the cage and