Welcome to a Monday edition of the Knockdown Daily! Today’s issue includes a preview of the super busy week coming up in MMA, talking six different events. We also have 10 takeaways from the past few days in the sport, and a few news notes as well!
Reminder: The Knockdown Daily does not publish on Tuesdays. We’ll be back on Wednesday with the latest story!
A Look At The Week Ahead
Thursday
PFL 2024 #1
PFL’s sixth time around running a year-long season format will kick off this Thursday from the Boeing Center in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
PFL is the only major MMA promotion to present a schedule that is similar to other major sports leagues. While it’s basically impossible in MMA to recreate the style that leagues like the NFL and NBA provide with a season and playoffs, PFL has tried their best to follow a timeline that is inspired by that structure.
Fighters compete twice in a “Regular Season,” battling for points that get them out of a 10-fighter regular season and into a four-man playoff bracket. The top four fighters then face off in a single elimination bracket, with the winner becoming the champion that year.
The promotion’s point system in the regular season rewards winning with an emphasis on finishes. A submission or TKO in the first round of a fight earns a competitor six points. Five points are given out for a second round win, and four if a victory emerges in the third round. A fighter that wins via decision scores three points.
One of PFL’s long-time divisions will return on Thursday alongside a weight class that will have a season in the promotion for the very first time. The men’s heavyweight division will take the stage alongside the women’s flyweight class.
Ante Delija will try to become the first-ever two-time PFL Heavyweight Champion this year. He notably won the heavyweight title in 2022, going undefeated with four victories that year. He has a big matchup for his first regular season bout, facing former Bellator title challenger Valentin Moldavsky. The booking will be Moldavsky’s first since spending 10 consecutive bouts in Bellator.
Bellator representation continues lower in the lineup as well. Linton Vassell and Steve Mowry will also be making their first bids for a PFL title.
PFL has built up a roster of many notable flyweights for this year’s tournament. The acquisition of Bellator—a promotion that presented a 125-pound women’s division for years—helped this project. Current Bellator Flyweight Champion Liz Carmouche will compete in her first-ever PFL bout as part of the main card, starting her season run with a trilogy fight against former champ Juliana Velasquez.
Another Bellator vet, Ilara Joanne, will have a big assignment for her first PFL booking. She’ll be facing Taila Santos, a former UFC flyweight title challenger competing for the first time since making the move over to the PFL.
Bellator alum Kana Watanabe and 2023 PFL Europe Flyweight Champion Dakota Ditcheva are also expected to be part of the lineup.
Along with the 10 regular season bouts scheduled, three non-tournament bouts will take place at the start of the night. This will include showcases with undefeated prospects Lucas Brennan and Bryce Meredith.
Here’s how the entire bout order looks:
Main Card (10:00PM EDT) (ESPN2 / ESPN+)
Bout 13: Ante Delija (24-5) vs. Valentin Moldavsky (12-3) (Heavyweight)
Bout 12: Denis Goltsov (32-8) vs. Linton Vassell (24-8) (Heavyweight)
Bout 11: Liz Carmouche (20-7) vs. Juliana Velasquez (12-2) (Flyweight)
Bout 10: Tyrell Fortune (13-2) vs. Daniel James (14-7-1) (Heavyweight)
Preliminary Card (6:00PM EDT) (ESPN+)
Bout 9: Dakota Ditcheva (10-0) vs. Lisa Mauldin (6-3) (Flyweight)
Bout 8: Blagoy Ivanov (19-6) vs. Sergey Bilostenniy (11-3) (Heavyweight)
Bout 7: Taila Santos (19-3) vs. Ilara Joanne (11-8) (Flyweight)
Bout 6: Steve Mowry (10-1-1) vs. Oleg Popov (16-1) (Heavyweight)
Bout 5: Kana Watanabe (12-2-1) vs. Shanna Young (9-5) (Flyweight)
Bout 4: Chelsea Hackett (4-1-1) vs. Jena Bishop (6-0) (Flyweight)
Bout 3: Lucas Brennan (9-0) vs. Dimitre Ivy (12-7) (Featherweight)
Bout 2: Marcelo Golm (10-4) vs. Jordan Heiderman (7-1) (Heavyweight)
Bout 1: Bryce Meredith (5-0) vs. Ty Johnson (13-6) (Bantamweight)
Friday
ONE Fight Night 21: Eersel vs. Nicolas
Kickboxing will be the main focus of ONE Championship’s “Fight Night” card this weekend. The promotion will host an event at its home location—the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand—with a 170-pound division title fight in the main event.
Regian Eersel will look to keep his double champ status alive when he faces Alexis Nicolas on Friday night. Eersel has held the division’s kickboxing belt since 2019, defending it four times in total.
Eersel is returning to kickboxing this weekend, with his last title fight in the division being a 2022 win over Arian Sadikovic. He been more focused on Muay Thai in recent years, earning the title in the combat sport and defending it twice over the past year.
Nicolas is getting a title fight just a few months after he joined ONE Championship. He picked up a win in his January debut, beating Magomed Magomedov on scorecards.
A grappling title fight will also take place lower in the lineup when Tye Ruotolo returns against Izaak Michell. Their meeting was first scheduled for ONE 166 last month but is landing on this card instead.
Three MMA bouts are booked for Friday’s ONE Championship card. In the highest billed of the trio, undefeated heavyweight Ben Tynan will search for his second promotional win when he takes on Duke Didier. Tynan, a former LFA prospect, won his debut late last year by submitting Kang Ji Won in the third round with an arm triangle choke.
Jeremy Pacatiw and Wang Shuo, a pair of featherweights who have been out of action since 2022, will also compete as part of Friday’s show.
Here’s the lineup for ONE Fight Night 21:
Main Card (8:00PM EDT / 7:00PM ICT) (Amazon Prime Video)
Bout 9: Regian Eersel vs. Alexis Nicolas (ONE Kickboxing Lightweight Championship) (170 lbs)
Bout 8: Tye Ruotolo vs. Izaak Michell (ONE Grappling Welterweight Championship) (185 lbs)
Bout 7: Suablack Tor Pran49 vs. Vladimir Kuzmin (Featherweight Muay Thai)
Bout 6: Ben Tynan (5-0) vs. Duke Didier (8-2) (Heavyweight)
Bout 5: Jacob Smith vs. Denis Puric (Bantamweight Muay Thai)
Bout 4: Kade Ruotolo vs. Francisco Lo (Catchweight 180 lbs Grappling)
Bout 3: Hiroyuki Tetsuka (13-4) vs. Valmir da Silva (9-3) (Middleweight)
Bout 2: Dedduanglek TDed99 vs. Taiki Naito (Bantamweight Kickboxing)
Bout 1: Jeremy Pacatiw (12-5) vs. Wang Shuo (16-7) (Featherweight)
LFA 181: Siqueira vs. Hernandez
Even though it took numerous adjustments, LFA is heading into this week with a flyweight title fight still atop their lineup for Friday night.
LFA Flyweight Champion Eduardo Chapolin was originally scheduled to put his title on the line against Eimar Hernandez this week. The fight would have been the champ’s first appearance since dethroning Cody Davis late last year.
But Chapolin suffered an injury, forcing a change to the LFA 181 lineup. The promotion announced earlier this month that he would be replaced by undefeated four-fight prospect Jordan Harris. Instead of the main flyweight title being up for grabs, LFA would introduce an interim belt for Harris and Hernandez to compete for.
But yet another change was needed after an injury took Harris out of the lineup. A third and potentially final main event for Friday night was revealed a few days ago: Igor Siqueira will make his second appearance in an LFA title fight, this time facing Hernandez. The new matchup will headline a card from the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota, USA.
Siqueira was previously expected to fight last week against Kevin Fernandez in a three-round non-title LFA fight. But after the promotion saw a shuffling in its schedule, he now finds himself in a short-notice title opportunity.
Siqueira emerged from the Brazilian regional scene last year and challenged for a flyweight LFA belt against Cody Davis. Their fight went into the fifth round when Davis stopped Siqueira to earn the then-vacant title. After coming up short last year, Siqueira has an unexpected second chance at earning LFA gold.
Siqueira will now face Hernandez, a fighter who has put together an undefeated record of seven wins since turning pro in 2021. His victories include successful performances in Uriah Faber’s A1 Combat and Cage Warriors.
LFA 181 is a busy card. Bantamweight prospect Quang Le will return in the co-main event, facing ONE Championship alum Tial Thang. Here’s the entire bout order:
Main Card (9:00PM EDT / 8:00PM CDT) (UFC Fight Pass)
Bout 14: Igor Siqueira (9-2) vs. Eimar Hernandez (7-0) (Vacant Interim LFA Flyweight Championship)
Bout 13: Quang Le (7-0) vs. Tial Thang (6-3) (Bantamweight)
Bout 12: Wes Schultz (5-1) vs. Adland Benson (4-2) (Middleweight)
Bout 11: Isaac Thomson (6-1) vs. Shaheen Santana (7-3) (Featherweight)
Bout 10: Alvin Hines (2-0) vs. Justin Smith (3-0) (Heavyweight)
Bout 9: Santos Verdinez (4-1) vs. Keegan Witbeck (6-1) (Bantamweight)
Preliminary Card
Bout 8: Noah Lindsey (4-1) vs. Mark Choinski (4-0) (Lightweight)
Bout 7: Kelton Sneve (2-0) vs. Davion Trotter (1-0) (Lightweight)
Bout 6: Canon Swanson (1-0) vs. Kurtis Ellis (2-2) (Featherweight)
Bout 5: Steven Asplund (2-0) vs. Larry Gonzales (5-1) (Heavyweight)
Bout 4: Jayde Sheeley (2-1) vs. Hannah Brobyskov (0-0) (Strawweight)
Bout 3: Griffin Parriott (2-1) vs. Michael Banks (2-4) (Catchweight 150 lbs)
Bout 2: Mitchell Wilson (5-1) vs. Kendall Sandifer (2-0) (Amateur Lightweight)
Bout 1: Dalan Jones (1-1) vs. Zach Gehl (4-2) (Amatuer Featherweight)
Saturday
KSW 93
One of the most successful fighters in the Polish MMA promotion KSW has yet to fight in front of his home country during his multi-title run. But that will change this weekend when Salahdine Parnasse unifies lightweight titles against Valeriu Mircea at KSW 93 from the Adidas Arena in Paris, France.
Parnasse, a long-time featherweight KSW champ, picked up an interim title at lightweight in late 2022 with a submission victory against Sebastian Rajewski. He was supposed to meet the then-main 155-pound champ Marian Ziolkowski for a title unification fight. However, after Ziolkowski pulled out of a matchup due to injury, the Polish fighter was stripped of the belt and Parnasse was upgraded to the main featherweight champ status.
Parnasse has frequently moved around weight classes in KSW during recent years, giving reason for an interim belt to be established once again at lightweight. Since he earned the lightweight title in 2022, Parnasse has gone back down to featherweight for a belt and moved up as high as welterweight in an attempt to become a three-division champion.
While Parnasse spent time fighting at the top of two other divisions, Mircea established himself as an interim titleholder at 155 pounds. He overcame Leo Brichta just last month, catching him in the fourth round with a rear naked choke to capture his first KSW belt. He had a trio of wins in the promotion before then, including a pair of first-round finishes. This weekend will be a quick turnaround for him, facing one of the most successful current KSW champs less than two months after his most recent performance.
A win for Mircea would put him at the top of a promotion’s division for the first time in his decade-long career and spoil a long-awaited homecoming for Parnasse.
KSW has booked numerous French talents to appear on Saturday night. Marseille’s Wilson Varela will be the first opponent for Marian Ziolkowski after being stripped of a lightweight title. Varela is on a five-fight winning streak, including a 16-second win over Sebastian Rajewski late last year.
Here’s how the nine-fight card is set up at the moment:
Main Card (1:00PM EDT / 7:00PM CEST) (KSW TV)
Bout 9: Salahdine Parnasse (18-2) vs. Valeriu Mircea (30-8-1) (KSW Lightweight Championship)
Bout 8: Wilson Varela (11-5) vs. Marian Ziolkowski (25-8-1) (Lightweight)
Bout 7: Madars Fleminas (12-5) vs. Artur Szczepaniak (10-2) (Welterweight)
Bout 6: Prince Aounallah (18-11) vs. Michal Martinek (10-5) (Heavyweight)
Bout 5: Laid Zerhouni (12-8) vs. Boubacar Niakate (9-5) (Middleweight)
Bout 4: Aymard Guih (17-13-1) vs. Francisco Barrio (12-3) (Catchweight 161 lbs)
Bout 3: Alfan Rocher-Labes (10-3) vs. Kenji Bortoluzzi (11-5-1) (Bantamweight)
Bout 2: El Hadji Ndiaye (5-2) vs. Nicolae Bivol (3-0) (Lightweight)
Bout 1: Sandra Succar (3-0) vs. Flore Hani (6-3) (Flyweight)
Cage Warriors 170
James Sheehan has the chance to become a champion in front of his home crowd on Saturday night. The Dublin, Ireland fighter will take on Daniel Konrad for the vacant Cage Warriors Welterweight Championship this weekend at the Simmonscourt RDS.
Cage Warriors is looking for a new top name in the 170-pound weight class after former champ Giannis Bachar was announced for the upcoming season of UFC reality TV show “The Ultimate Fighter.” The Cage Warriors 170 main event winner will become the 17th welterweight champion in the promotion’s history, coming after names like Ian Machado Garry, Dan Hardy, and Nicolas Dalby.
Sheehan has fought in Cage Warriors since 2019, earning six wins and two losses in that time. He bounced back from his second-ever loss late last year, going the distance against Olli Santalahti for a decision win.
Konrad, a 27-year-old Swiss prospect, will be making his promotional debut. All six of his pro victories have emerged in the first round or second rounds, including a 43-second submission victory for a regional belt in Austria last year.
Ireland will be well-represented in the lengthy 14-fight card. Former featherweight champ Paul Hughes will make his second lightweight appearance in the co-main event on Saturday night, taking on short-notice opponent Edgar Escarrega.
A portion of the Cage Warriors lineup will take place as part of a prelim card, which will begin at 1 p.m. EDT. It hasn’t been specified yet which bouts will be on the prelim portion, although the promotion usually publishes the exact bout order closer to fight night.
Here’s how the full show looks:
Main Card (3:00PM EDT / 8:00PM IST) (UFC Fight Pass)
Bout 14: James Sheehan (7-3) vs. Daniel Konrad (6-1) (Vacant Cage Warriors Welterweight Championship)
Bout 13: Paul Hughes (10-1) vs. Edgar Escarrega (12-3-1) (Lightweight)
Bout 12: Ger Harris (4-1) Vs. Gregory Wamytan (2-1) (Flyweight)
Bout 11: Solomon Simon (3-0) vs. Ieuan Mackenzie (3-0) (Featherweight)
Bout 10: Decky McAleenan (8-5-1) vs. Ville Mankinen (5-3-1) (Featherweight)
Bout 9: Taka Nhandu (4-2) Vs. Rory Evans (6-6) (Bantamweight)
Bout 8: Ryan Shelley (6-2) vs. Kallum Parker (2-3) (Featherweight)
Bout 7: Enrico Di Gangi (4-1) vs. Scott Harvey (3-0) (Bantamweight)
Bout 6: Ciaran Brady (0-0) vs. Tomasz Zdanowski (0-1) (Bantamweight)
Bout 5: Matthew Elliott (2-1) vs. Valentino Riva (3-2) (Featherweight)
Bout 4: Dara Ward (1-0) vs. Ben Petches-Kelly (1-1) (Welterweight)
Bout 3: Sineadh Ni Nuallain (0-1) vs. Jennifer Trioreau (0-4) (Catchweight 120 lbs)
Bout 2: Jamie Abbott-Bissett (0-0) vs. Pawel Jezierski (0-0) (Flyweight)
Bout 1: Eimar Darcy (0-0) vs. Jenny Line (0-3) (Flyweight)
UFC on ESPN+ 98: Allen vs. Curtis 2
This weekend is a true “calm before the storm” moment for the UFC. While the incredibly stacked UFC 300 lineup will go down next week, first a much quieter “Fight Night” card will take place at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. A middleweight rematch will go down in the main event, as Brendan Allen will try to avenge a loss against short-notice opponent Chris Curtis.
Allen’s last loss dates back to late 2021 when Curtis scored a second-round stoppage win over him. He has put together a lengthy six-fight run of victories since that loss, with many emerging via finish. He is coming off his first main event appearance, scoring a submission over Paul Craig last November.
While Saturday doesn’t provide a potential big move in the rankings for Allen since Curtis is eight spots below him, it gives the 28-year-old submission specialist a chance to show that he has improved by beating the last name to get a win over him.
Curtis took this matchup just over two weeks ago after fifth-ranked middleweight Marvin Vettori withdrew from the bout. He’ll be trying to earn his second win this year already, as he is coming off a recent split decision win over Marc-Andre Barriault from UFC 297. While his time in the promotion started hot with three victories in 2021 to mid-2022, Curtis has struggled in recent years. A successful performance on Saturday would put him on a two-or-more fight winning streak for the first time in nearly two years.
The co-main event spot will go to featherweights Alexander Hernandez and Damon Jackson, a pair of experienced UFC talents who will both be fighting to get back into the win column.
A large number of fighters this weekend are coming in with little UFC experience. Five different talents will be making their UFC debuts, including undefeated heavyweight Valter Walker and decorated kickboxer Cesar Almeida. Four other fighters will be making the UFC walk for just the second time in their careers: The biggest spotlight out of those four will go to former Cage Warriors champ Morgan Charriere, who will face Chepe Mariscal in the third-last bout of the evening.
Here is what UFC is offering up this weekend:
Main Card (6:00PM EDT / 3:00PM PDT) (ESPN+)
Bout 13: Brendan Allen (23-5) vs. Chris Curtis (31-10) (Middleweight)
Bout 12: Alexander Hernandez (14-7) vs. Damon Jackson (22-6-1) (Featherweight)
Bout 11: Morgan Charriere (19-9-1) vs. Chepe Mariscal (15-6) (Featherweight)
Bout 10: Ignacio Bahamondes (14-5) vs. Christos Giagos (20-11) (Lightweight)
Bout 9: Lukasz Brzeski (8-4-1) vs. Valter Walker (11-0) (Heavyweight)
Bout 8: Trevor Peek (9-1) vs. Charlie Campbell (8-2) (Lightweight)
Preliminary Card (3:00PM EDT / 12:00PM PDT) (ESPN+)
Bout 7: Court McGee (21-12) vs. Alex Morono (23-9) (Welterweight)
Bout 6: Norma Dumont (10-2) vs. Germaine de Randamie (10-4) (Bantamweight)
Bout 5: Alatengheili (16-9-2) vs. Victor Hugo (24-4) (Bantamweight)
Bout 4: Cynthia Calvillo (9-6-1) vs. Piera Rodriguez (9-1) (Strawweight)
Bout 3: Jean Matsumoto (14-0) vs. Dan Argueta (9-1) (Bantamweight)
Bout 2: Dylan Budka (7-2) vs. Cesar Almeida (4-0) (Middleweight)
Bout 1: Melissa Tonya Mullins (6-0) vs. Nora Cornolle (7-2) (Bantamweight)
10 Takeaways From The Weekend
Discussing Manon Fiorot, eye pokes, Cage Warriors, and more.
Manon Fiorot kept it simple, and it worked. Manon Fiorot’s gameplan was quite easy to explain. It was so basic you can really boil it down to four words: Use reach, stop takedowns. The French talent boxed up Blanchfield and prevented the fight from going to the ground. Saturday’s main event was boring, but in the way Fiorot wanted it to be. She found the flaws in one of the division’s top contenders and exposed weaknesses to put together a 25-minute showcase. Fiorot’s performance wasn’t incredibly fan-friendly, but it did more than enough to make the case that she’s ready for a title fight.
I don’t have a good feeling about what’s next for Manon Fiorot. What will happen now with Manon Fiorot? Your guess is as good as mine. While she is absolutely at the level of a title fight, it’s hard to tell when or if she will ever get a shot. Since UFC Flyweight Champion Alexa Grasso won’t be facing Valentina Shevchenko until late this year, Fiorot will have to probably wait until 2025 for a title fight. And if she fights before then, there’s a chance she could lose and miss out on her opportunity to challenge for a belt. It’s an unfortunate situation, and it’s not Fiorot’s fault at all. I’m worried Fiorot will have to wait too long for the fight or, even worse, for one reason or another, never even get the title fight.
Eye pokes remain a massive issue. I’m going to tell you something you have never heard before: Eye pokes were a topic of discussion this week. Okay, joking aside, here’s the story: Chris Weidman earned a technical decision win against Bruno Silva on Saturday after a brutal eye poke caused their fight to end. Sedriques Dumas also complained about a potential eye poke during a fight-ending sequence against Nursulton Ruziboev. Personally, I believe that the enforcement of eye pokes—like nearly all fouls in MMA—needs to be much stricter. Scare people into doing it less, even if it is truly unintentional. A lot of these unintentional fouls happen because there’s no incentive to learn to stop committing the fouls. You would think that when an issue occurs on a weekly basis and can sometimes be the reason a fight comes to an end it would be a huge priority to fix, but I guess not. It’s only going to keep happening.
Sedriques Dumas shouldn’t have been fighting. When Sedriques Dumas fought Nursulton Ruziboev this weekend, there was a huge elephant in the room: Dumas was already in a much bigger battle outside of the cage. Dumas—who was found guilty of domestic battery in 2016—is currently facing that same charge once again for a new alleged incident and is expected to appear in court later this month. By allowing fighters to compete while facing serious, disturbing charges, UFC is showing a certain level of carelessness about what fighters do when off the clock. That doesn’t sit right with me.
A pair of underrated strawweights put on a show. While the preliminary card wasn’t especially incredible looking overall, there was a specific fight that I thought would be an interesting clash of styles. Virna Jandiroba had a hard-fought, close performance over Loopy Godinez. I thought the fight showed two different names in the division that aren’t championship-level but are tough outs for anyone on the rise. While one won and the other lost, Saturday was proof that both Jandiroba and Godinez are names that people should pay more attention to.
Kyle Nelson is on his best run yet. If you watch UFC cards on a weekly basis, you’re likely familiar with Kyle Nelson. For the first few years of his UFC career, he wasn’t anything super impressive. He has been on the promotion’s chopping block a couple of times, avoiding falling into three-fight losing streaks twice over the past six years. But recently he’s really hit a stride that hasn’t been seen before. He earned a decision over prospect Blake Bilder in 2023, then beat Fernando Padilla as well. And last Saturday he picked up arguably his best win year, stopping Bill Algeo in the first round. Nelson has been looking great lately, and I’m really curious how he will perform when given another challenging featherweight opponent. At 32 years old, he can certainly still do some big things in the division. Let’s see what’s next.
There’s quality main events, and then there’s… This weekend’s UFC card was a perfect main event fight: Two contenders getting 25 minutes to prove why they deserve a title fight. That same day, UFC announced the antithesis of a good main event: Derrick Lewis against Rodrigo Nascimento for May 11th in St. Louis. Lewis, while a UFC fighter with some name value, has lost four of his past five. And while Nascimento has earned three wins as of late, he has almost no name value and is low in the heavyweight rankings. Some main event choices are simply puzzling. The sad part is, the show will likely do killer business anyway since St. Louis hasn’t seen a UFC card since 2018. And when the business is doing well, there’s no incentive to create better main events.
Two Cage Warriors names are ready for a bigger challenge. Two winning names from Cage Warriors 169 might be ready for a bigger stage. In the main event on Saturday, Jordan Vucenic caught Simone D’Anna with a kimura for a second round submission. He’s now 12-2, with a whopping eight wins in Cage Warriors. He has earned a title before and has beaten some experienced names (including now-UFC talent Morgan Charriere). I honestly think Vucenic is ready for a shot in the UFC or a similar higher-tier promotion. Undefeated flyweight Lone’er Kavanagh also earned a victory in the co-main event, using his striking to hand another solid prospect, Shawn Da Silva, his first loss. He’s still just 24 and only has six pro fights, so I won’t go as far as to say he’s UFC-ready. However, I want to see him in a title scenario, or in a “Contender Series” position against another really high-level prospect.
Darren Stewart’s rebuild hits another bump in the road. 14-fight UFC alum Darren Stewart has been trying to regain momentum since leaving the promotion in 2021. He was seemingly getting somewhere last year, moving his winning streak to four wins. But he was stopped in his tracks on Saturday by Carlos Pereira, a Brazilian veteran who provided an ugly second-round finish with strikes. I’m not saying it’s over for Stewart, as he had a solid streak brewing before. But his recent loss has to sting, as it sets him back greatly.
Featherweights stole the show in Kentucky. One of the best fights of the weekend wasn’t at the Boardwalk Hall or in a packaged theatre in London, it was at a low-key LFA event in Louisville, Kentucky. Lance Lawrence picked up a win on Friday night, but he had to endure a real war to earn that victory. Lawrence kept knocking Landry Ward down, but the tough featherweight kept getting back up. And what’s more, Ward somehow gained momentum late and started to put Lawrence in trouble with leg kicks in the closing minutes of the fight. While the featherweight bout wasn’t originally scheduled to headline LFA 180, it lived up to its headliner status and became one of the stand-out bouts of the weekend. If you’re craving an underrated performance to watch from the past few days, seek out that one.
Notes On: UFC, ONE Championship & Cage Warriors
Mickey Gall (7-5) is back. The 32-year-old will return to action against Bassil Hafez (8-4-1) at UFC 302 on June 1st, per an announcement from the promotion over the weekend. Gall has lost in his past two appearances, being on the wrong side of a decision to Alex Morono in 2021 and getting finished by Mike Malott in 2022. Hafez lost his UFC debut last year, dropping a split decision to Jack Della Maddalena.
A pair of featherweight talents will return to ONE Championship for the first time in a while, as Jeremy Pacatiw (12-5) and Wang Shuo (16-7) will fight at the promotion’s April 5th card in Bangkok, Thailand. Pacatiw’s last fight was a submission win over Tial Thang in late 2022. Wang has been out of action even longer, with his last appearance being an early 2022 decision loss to Tatsumitsu Wada.
A trio of fights have recently been pulled from Saturday’s Cage Warriors card.
Adam Shelley (5-2) and Emanuele Sabatino (5-1) won’t be facing off. Shelley stated in a social media post that he tore a ligament during training and that a recent flare-up in the injury won’t allow him to appear this weekend. “Rehab has started already and I’ll be back in the cage as soon as possible,” he said.
Undefeated middleweight prospects Francesco Mazzeo (3-0) and Jordan O’Neill (2-0) won’t meet either. Mazzeo announced that a case of “aggressive staphylococcus” had taken him out of the bout. “Fighting with a broken rib in Rome last year taught me that I can persevere through anything without complaining, but staph (MRSA specifically) is a serious infection that cannot be taken lightly,” he posted on Instagram.
A featherweight bout between Luca Borando (4-0) and Scott Pedersen (5-3-1) is also no longer listed on the Cage Warriors 170 lineup. It’s unclear at the moment what caused the fight to leave the lineup.