Demetrious Johnson showed there are levels to the fight game to a couple of Streetbeefs fighters.
The longtime former UFC flyweight champion filmed a video for his YouTube channel where he trained and mentored Streetbeefs competitors Death Sentence and Winged C. During a sparring session with Winged C, Johnson began to lose his temper, feeling he was being disrespected.
That led to Johnson dropping him with a head kick.
“He kept saying good boy,” Johnson said. “Does he realize I’m f*cking 38 years old and have done this for 20 f*cking years?
“I was about to go to a little f*cking dark place. ... They’re always clip farming. It just f*cking pissed me off.”
Watch a clip of the exchange — both verbal and physical — below.
In their actual fights, Winged C earned a TKO win, while Death Sentence was shockingly knocked out by his much smaller opponent after gassing out early in the bout
Johnson transitioned to a successful content creator after announcing his retirement from MMA while holding championship gold for ONE Championship. As UFC flyweight champ, Johnson defended the belt an incredible 11 times before losing it to Henry Cejudo in a controversial split decision at UFC 227 in August 2018. “Mighty” was then traded in a talent exchange to ONE by the UFC for Ben Askren.
Being such a veteran of the game, Johnson hopes that he was able to teach Winged C and Death Sentence a lesson in that moment that they’ll remember as their fighting careers go on.
“This isn’t a proud moment that I’m proud of,” Johnson said. “I get nothing out of [it]. He was asking for it and he was pushing me to that limit, and I don’t usually get to that limit, especially in a very, very long time.
“But I felt it was necessary to do that. And, yeah, hopefully they f*cking learned from that.”
After getting dominated and finished by UFC bantamweight champ Merab Dvalishvili in their rematch at UFC 316, Sean O’Malley volunteered his services for a super short turnaround.
O’Malley has lost back-to-back fights to Dvalishvili, but recently said in an interview that after he was told a slated co-main event for UFC 318 fell off, he wanted to face another top-ranked 135-pounder on the July pay-per-view card.
“I was actually trying to fight Cory [Sandhagen] when the co-main event fell out for that Max and Dustin fight [card],” O’Malley said on the Overdogs Podcast. “I threw my name out to the UFC. Three weeks, me vs. Cory would be sweet.”
UFC 318 served as the retirement sendoff for Dustin Poirier as he faced Max Holloway in his final bout, losing a decision. While the card could certainly have used a boost in terms of star power, the event was primarily about Poirier and his career.
On top of that, Sandhagen is now set to challenge Dvalishvili for the title in October at UFC 320.
“It didn’t make sense for the UFC,” O’Malley said. “Cory vs. Merab is the fight was the next fight to make.
“But, yeah. Me vs. Cory is a very interesting fight. That’s one that’s bound to happen sooner than later.”
O’Malley has spent nearly 40 minutes in the octagon with Dvalishvili and knows what “The Machine” brings to the table. Being a student of the game, he understands how good Sandhagen is across the board.
When asked how he sees the title fight going, “Sugar” gave his take.
“Me and Cory have very similar styles,” O’Malley said. “Cory did do a good job against Umar creating scrambles, keeping his hips high when Umar tried to get to his back. Umar and Merab have different grappling strengths and techniques.
“But, man, I think if Merab can get a hold of Cory, I just don’t see... Merab felt just so strong, and just really strong in certain positions. His gas tank is ridiculous. I don’t know. If I had to guess, Merab [wins], but it’s hard for me to count Cory out because I do think Cory, skill for skill, is one of the best guys in the UFC.”
A trial date has finally been set for Ibraheem Yazeed — the man charged with the kidnapping and murder of 19-year-old Aniah Blanchard, who is the stepdaughter of ex-UFC heavyweight fighter Walt Harris.
Yazeed was arrested and charged with the crime all the way back in 2019 but delays and continuances have consistently pushed back the trial date. Now a judge has set a trial date for March 2, 2026 with jury selection beginning on the case unfolding in a Tuskeegee, Ala. courtroom.
Yazeed faces three counts of capital murder, and he faces the death penalty if found guilty. News of the trial date was first reported by WVTM 13.
He is charged with Blanchard’s disappearance and murder in 2019 after her body was found weeks after she first went missing.
Blanchard’s body was recovered by authorities in a wooded area in Macon County, Ala., with the remains later identified as the missing Southern Union Community College student. She first went missing in October 2019.
An autopsy was performed with authorities confirming Blanchard was killed by a gunshot wound and Yazeed is only person being charged with her murder after he initially faced first-degree kidnapping charges.
Blanchard was reported missing on Oct. 24, 2019 and she was later spotted on surveillance footage at a local convenience store in Auburn, Ala. Yazeed was seen on the same surveillance footage in the store at the same time as Blanchard and an eyewitness later identified him as the man he saw force Blanchard into her car against her will.
Blanchard’s 2017 Honda CR-V was recovered two days later with a “life-threatening” amount of blood discovered inside. Police then announced that they believed she was the victim of foul play.
Yazeed’s arrest soon followed but Blanchard’s body wasn’t recovered until November where she was declared dead and the kidnapping case then turned into a homicide investigation.
Harris and his wife were obviously devastated by the loss of their daughter, but he eventually returned to his fighting career competing three more times for the UFC before receiving his release.
At the time of his arrest, Yazeed was out on bond on charges of kidnapping, attempted murder and robbery in an unrelated case. Blanchard’s murder led to Alabama adopting “Aniah’s Law,” which gives judges more power to have defendants held without bond in cases involving violent crimes.
Yazeed plead not guilty to the crime and his attorneys argued for additional delays in starting the trial with hopes to push back the date until later in 2026. The courts disagreed under the recently enacted Speedy Trials Act, which seeks to address the tremendous backlog of criminal cases in Alabama.
Now Yazeed is set to stand trial starting in March.
Reinier de Ridder knew beating a former UFC champion like Robert Whittaker would get him a lot of attention and plenty of callouts from fighters who suddenly wanted to challenge him.
Perhaps chief among them is one-time title challenger Paulo Costa, who stopped a two-fight skid with a decision win over Roman Kopylov at UFC 318, and he immediately started launching insults at de Ridder following his win over Whittaker. Even days later, Costa was still going on his tirade on social media but it turns out many of his responses were directed at a fake account that didn’t actually belong to de Ridder.
That account was eventually suspended but de Ridder couldn’t help but laugh at Costa’s antics as he sought attention for his online matchmaking skills.
“He really, really wants that fight I think,” de Ridder told MMA Fighting. “He really wants to set something up. Keep trying. Keep trying, Paulo. You’ll get there.”
Beating Whittaker — a feat Costa didn’t accomplish when he had the same fight back in 2024 — put de Ridder near the top of the middleweight division rankings and likely no more than one win away from a title shot.
Actually given the buzz he’s received with a perfect 4-0 record since joining the UFC roster, which now includes wins over Whittaker and highly touted prospect Bo Nickal, there’s definitely a world where de Ridder gets a shot at gold in his next fight.
That’s why he’s not sweating callouts from Costa or anybody else right now because de Ridder has bigger goals in his mind.
“He would be a fun buildup,” de Ridder said about fighting Costa. “Would be very fun in the press conference and everything with Paulo because he’s a character. But right now I don’t think he’s there.”
With a 2-4 record in Costa’s past six fights, it’s difficult to argue with de Ridder’s assessment, especially knowing how close he could be to a title shot.
While he’s remained incredibly active ever since signing with the UFC following a tenuous breakup with ONE Championship, de Ridder admits he’s ready for a little break and maybe a vacation. In the meantime, UFC middleweight king Dricus du Plessis is defending his title against Khamzat Chimaev in the UFC 319 main event, which is a fight de Ridder definitely plans on watching.
“Every time since I joined the UFC, I had a fight lined up three days after the last fight,” de Ridder said. “But I don’t think it’s going to be like that this time. It will take a couple of weeks, I want to see at least the Khamzat-Dricus fight first and then we’ll see what happens. We’ll see. I think that’s smart to hold back for a little bit.
“It’s been four fights in eight months. I would definitely like to spend some time at the beach, eat some nice barbecue, have a good time with the kids and the wife. That’s what I’m looking for right now but I can never stay inactive for too long. I might be in the gym sooner rather than later but it would be nice to chill a bit as well.”
A five round war ending in a win over an established veteran like Whittaker has de Ridder in a very good position for the future. He’s also finally getting the recognition he deserves after his win over Nickal largely got overshadowed by the former Penn State wrestler suffering his first loss.
Now de Ridder has taken a dramatic step forward in the rankings and he knows the champion walking out of UFC 319 has to pay attention to him now.
“I’m top five right now as far as I know,” de Ridder said. “I’m coming up there. Give me a couple weeks to recover and let’s see if I can climb any higher.”
Dricus du Plessis | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Dricus du Plessis defends his UFC title for the third straight time soon when he faces Khamzat Chimaev, and if he overcomes that test, there could be bigger things ahead for him.
Podcaster and former fighter Brendan Schaub opined on the Aug. 16 UFC 319 main event on a recent episode of the JAXXON podcast, stating his case for why du Plessis could possibly become a three-division champion. Current lightweight titleholder Ilia Topuria became a “champ-champ” after abdicating the featherweight throne and then knocking out Charles Oliveira to win a vacant 155-pound belt, which was made vacant when Islam Makhachev moved up to 170 pounds for a future fight with Jack Della Maddalena.
Schaub thinks du Plessis could not only move up to 205 pounds for a second belt, but that he should consider jumping to heavyweight after that to make UFC history.
“I think for Islam it made sense,” Schaub said. “For Topuria, I still [think] he had some work to do, but for Makhachev it made sense to jump up to ‘70. He can definitely capture ‘55, ‘70. ‘85’s a different animal because you have guys like DDP and Khamzat.
“I think whoever wins out of Khamzat and DDP, whoever wins that can go for three belts. DDP’s bigger than Khamzat, so light heavyweight, he’s probably a light heavyweight naturally. So it makes sense for DDP to go to light heavyweight. Heavyweight’s not as far a stretch for him. DDP’s a big boy.”
Du Plessis knows what it’s like to hold titles in two divisions. Prior to signing with UFC, du Plessis won middleweight and welterweight titles in KSW, though he has since said he would never try to cut down to 170 pounds again. Should he defeat Chimaev, it’s not out of the question that du Plessis attempts to conquer two more weight classes, especially considering heavyweight and light heavyweight are currently in a down period.
But a win at UFC 319 is no guarantee. Schaub argued that anyone assuming a Chimaev win has to happen early and a du Plessis win has to come late could be mistaken.
“First thing I said to the boys when we were watching Khamzat train, because when I do a breakdown of fights, I’m like, ‘How’s his cardio?’” Schaub said. “They’re like, ‘Buddy, not an issue. At all.’ Because my biggest thing for him going into the DDP fight, DDP’s a big dude, durable, so how’s Khamzat going to be in the fourth and fifth round. They’re like, ‘Trust me, not an issue.’”
“DDP is huge and he’s durable and unorthodox,” Schaub added. “So the oddsmakers are going to say if it ends before two rounds, it’s Khamzat all day. I would extend that after seeing this to even the first three rounds. Four and five is what I want to see. I want to see Khamzat in the fourth and fifth, and if Khamzat’s lighting his ass up - because DDP’s going to be tough to finish - so if Khamzat’s in the fourth and fifth and finishes him, then you’ve got one. We’ve got a real one.”
On To the Next One. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee lay out what’s best for the brilliantly talented Tatsuro Taira, plus matchup picks for the main card winners of UFC Vegas 108.
SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE
I don’t know.
Hector Lombard and Cheick Kongo competing in the Pillow Fight Championship on ESPN.pic.twitter.com/02SJbA12Bx
Tatsuro Taira is very talented and that loss against Royval has only helped him improve. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him as UFC Flyweight Champion in 2026 #UFCVegas108
Doing a thing where I have this UFC card open in one tab and Michael Mann’s 1995 crime thriller Heat in another, flipping back and forth while waiting for an actual fight. Brother, we’ve squeezed in 3-4 great scenes since the last unscripted punch was thrown.
TIL I learned one of the other candidates seeking nomination for Ireland's 2025 presidential election is none other than the Lord of the Dance himself, Michael Flatley pic.twitter.com/SmyJAIpvtH
Hope you’re all loving the UFC APEX, because we’ve got back-to-back events at the world’s most violent warehouse with UFC Vegas 109 just around the corner. Credit to all the fighters who still find a way to make memorable moments in there, but how much better would some of Saturday’s slobberknockers been in front of an actual crowd?
Keep Contender Series and The Ultimate Fighter in there, maybe share space with some regional promotions in exchange for content (got that new TV/streaming deal coming up!) and talent deals, and reduce the amount of UFC Vegas events as much as possible.
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