Pereira Can't Let Go of the Gane-Hokit Booking
Alex Pereira is still steaming about the UFC 334 main event being Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit, accusing the promotion of manipulating public opinion to get that fight made, according to reports. The old stonefaced "Poatan" would never have bothered with this kind of complaining, and the new version isn't exactly winning anyone over with it. Pereira also fired back at Valter Walker after the submission specialist questioned how he'd fare against Sergei Pavlovich, challenging Walker to spar and dangling a purse-sized reward on it. Jon Jones threw gasoline on the whole situation, predicting the Gane-Hokit fight and saying he genuinely believes the heavyweight title could change hands at Madison Square Garden on November fourteen. Jones went as far as laying out his full prediction for how that fight plays out. Say what you want about the matchmaking, but Jones clearly isn't writing Hokit off, and that alone is going to make Pereira's complaints look either prophetic or very silly in a few weeks.
UFC 334 Keeps Adding Fuel
Kayla Harrison gave a health update ahead of her return at UFC 334, where she'll put the women's bantamweight title on the line for the first time against former champion and longtime rival Amanda Nunes in the co-main event. Brandon Moreno also has his next assignment locked in, with the former flyweight champion booked to keep his momentum going in December at UFC 335. Between Harrison-Nunes, Gane-Hokit, and now Moreno's addition to the December card, the next two months of UFC business are shaping up fast.
UFC Vegas 122 Ended Careers, Not Just Fights
UFC Vegas 122 was brutal on the roster. Longtime veterans Gerald Meerschaert and Niko Price both announced their retirements coming out of the card. Former lightweight prospect Ismael Bonfim got cut outright after losing to Francisco Prado. That loss was Bonfim's fourth straight defeat inside the Octagon, and he made it worse by missing weight by a staggering seven point five pounds before getting finished by first-round TKO. Not every story out of Vegas was bleak, though. Andre Fili talked about deliberately not piling on extra shots in his win, saying sometimes you just need to go out there and make a statement reminding everyone who you are. The card's winners and losers both had plenty to say in the aftermath, and the emotional range from that event, from retirements to releases to statement wins, tells you how much was riding on every fight.
Ketlen Vieira Popped Following the Cyborg Fight
Ketlen Vieira has been suspended for six months after failing a drug test stemming from her fight with Cris Cyborg. That bout happened August twenty-second in Tampa, and it marked the thirtieth career victory for Cyborg. Cyborg herself is calling the circumstances around the positive test "extremely unusual," and when the woman who got her hand raised is the one questioning the result, that's a story that isn't going away quietly.
Tim Kennedy Survived a Deadly Ambush in Congo
This one's bigger than MMA. Former UFC fighter and ex-Army Green Beret Tim Kennedy was hospitalized after reportedly being shot three times during a deadly ambush in Congo. Kennedy took three gunshot wounds to the leg in the September seventeenth attack, which left roughly twenty people killed or wounded. Whatever you think of Kennedy's post-fighting career, surviving something like that puts every other headline this week in perspective.
Jones Puts Steveson's Shocking Loss in Historical Context
Jon Jones compared the result of Gable Steveson's loss to Matt Serra's shocking upset of Georges St-Pierre. When Jones is reaching for Serra-GSP as the comparison, you know he thinks this one belongs in that same stunned-silence category.
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