Latest news with #ABC8
USA Today
05-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Nikolas Motta: Cyst made 'my jaw weaker' for KO, fractures in double bonus UFC loss
Nikolas Motta is in good spirits after suffering one of the more gruesome and unideal injuries a fighter can have in his epic battle with Nazim Sadykhov at UFC on ABC 8 in June. Motta (15-6 MMA, 3-3 UFC) became the first fighter in UFC history to receive a Fight of the Night bonus and a Performance of the Night bonus in a loss when he suffered a second-round knockout defeat to Sadykhov (11-1-1 MMA, 4-0-1 UFC) in Baku, Azerbaijan. It was a memorable scrap, with Motta putting Sadykhov on the cusp of a stoppage early, then Sadykhov rallying back to finish the fight in dramatic fashion, and inflicting some lasting damage in the process. "I had two fractures on my jaw," Motta told MMA Junkie Radio. "I came back to Vegas and I had the surgery like five days ago. My cheeks are still really swollen. … They put titanium plates because my jaw was broke and they had to put titanium plates." Motta gives Sadykhov full credit for his accuracy and power in finishing the fight, but he said he learned after the fact that the fractures in his jaw were also aided by another issue. According to Motta, 32, his wisdom teeth still hadn't been removed and created a cyst in his jaw that weakened the structure. He paid the price for not addressing that already, and now must deal with the fallout. "The doctor said after the surgery it's supposed to be six to eight weeks of liquid diet – it's like eight weeks," Motta said. "It wasn't only because I got hit hard, but he said because I have wisdom teeth still it created a cyst, and this cyst made my jaw a little weaker. It was still a hard punch, but that cyst made the inside of my jaw weaker. That's why I broke my jaw and I'm going to focus on the recovery." Motta said once his jaw heals, he will get a second surgery to "clean the cyst" and remove his three remaining wisdom teeth. It's an unpleasant recovery, but one that is certainly taken with less agony after he received an extra $100,000 in bonus money. Although he would've liked to get the win and be healthy so he could fight again soon, Motta sees all the silver linings for his overall career. "I always imagined having a war like that, with my shorts covered in blood and fighting a good fight," Motta said. "Before that fight in the locker room I was saying, 'I want to become a rock star tonight.' ... ($100,000) made me really happy, and the respect I earned, sometimes it's more important than a win."
USA Today
04-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
MMA Junkie's Fight of the Month for June: A record-setting UFC flyweight war
That will do it 🤯What a win for Philip Rowe! #UFCAtlanta With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from June 2025: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie's Fight of the Month award for June. At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice. Nominee: Phil Rowe def. Ange Loosa at UFC on ESPN 69 For nearly 90 seconds, Ange Loosa's (10-5 MMA, 2-3 UFC) mouthpiece laid on the canvas, and in about that same time, Phil Rowe (11-5 MMA, 4-3 UFC) started to mount a comeback in the welterweight bout. With less than a minute left in the fight, Rowe put Loosa away with a vicious TKO that easily could have been stopped sooner by referee Brent McKeehan, and finally was when Loosa collapsed to the canvas. Nominee: Tagir Ulanbekov def. Azat Maksum at UFC on ABC 8 Tagir Ulanbekov (17-2 MMA, 6-1 UFC) showed again that he is an emerging threat in the flyweight division with a entertaining win over Azat Maksum (15-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC). Ulanbekov extended his winning streak to four fights by being a step ahead of Maksum throughout the 15-minute affair, ultimately leaving with the unanimous decision nod. A post shared by 🇰🇿OMG (@qazomg) Nominee: JunYong Park def. Ismail Naurdiev at UFC on ABC 8 JunYong Park got one of the wilder decision wins in middleweight history when he claimed the win after Ismail Naurdiev was deducted two points for an illegal blow. With Naurdiev finding success early, he threw an illegal knee that cut Park open and nearly stopped the fight. Park battled on after the two-point deduction and rallied back to dominantly defeat Naurdiev with one ultra-rare 29-25 scorecard. A post shared by Combat Buzz (@combatbuzz) Nominee: Nazim Sadykhov def. Nikolas Motta at UFC on ABC 8 Azerbaijan's Nazim Sadykhov (11-1-1 MMA, 4-0-1 UFC) sent the Baku crowd into a frenzy when, after a back-and-forth war for nearly two rounds, he blasted and dropped a bloodied Nikolas Motta (15-6 MMA, 3-3 UFC) for the TKO finish. Both men were hurt and on the ropes throughout the just over nine minutes of chaotic action. Sadykhov was the winner, both men were rewarded as each got $100,000 in bonus money for Fight of the Night and an individual Performance of the Night award. NAZIM SADYKOV GETS THE KO AFTER AN EPIC FIGHT AT #UFCBAKU 💥 🇦🇿 The winner: Joshua Van def. Brandon Royval at UFC 317 If it wasn't already apparent that he's elite, Joshua Van (15-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC) proved that Saturday at UFC 317 when he defeated Brandon Royval (17-8 MMA, 7-4 UFC) by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27) in an elite flyweight featured fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Van's power and timing proved the difference. In Round 1, he out-timed Royval in the exchanges and appeared to land the more effective shots. Although Rovval came on strong in Round 3, Van dug deeped and out-dogged "Raw Dawg." In the final moments of the bout, Van may have stole the fight on the judges' scorecards as he badly stunned and dropped Royval. Though the buzzer saved Royval, he was still wobbly when he got up the shake hands with Van after the horn. The bout was one of the year's best by many accounts. Van and Royval showed off elite technical abilities, but also provided exciting levels of violence. Prior to the bout, Dana White said the winner of the bout would be next for flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja, and Van faced off with him in the octagon that same night. Cast Your Vote!
USA Today
03-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Jamahall Hill explains viral reaction to 'little crazy' scoring in Khalil Rountree loss
A lot was said about Jamahal Hill's reaction to the scoring of his loss to Khalil Rountree. Last month, in the main event of UFC on ABC 8 in Azerbaijan, Hill lost a unanimous decision to Rountree that read 49-46, 50-45 and 50-45, on the judges' scorecards. Many watching thought it was a clear, one-sided decision and were surprised to see Hill shocked by the cards. Hill, who recently addressed his defeat in a video on his YouTube channel, clarified what happened post-fight. He didn't think he beat Rountree but thought the fight was closer than what the scores read. "To me, at the moment, I thought I won the first round and the fifth round," Hill explained. "I've watched the fight back, and I still feel I won the first and the fifth round. I just think it was a pretty boring fight, and to score it that one-sided was a little crazy. I know people want to see me lose as bad as possible, but if you think that was on par with the type of dominations we've seen for five rounds, for example, I'll use my own experience, the Glover fight. If that was a five-round domination, then the Glover fight should've been 40-50. ... But ultimately, don't leave it in the judges' hands. You have to come out, implement yourself, and you don't have to worry about things like that." Hill's reaction to the scoring wasn't the only thing that was talked about following his bout. He also appeared to have confronted Rountree immediately after the bell, but it wasn't clear what was said. Hill was upset at the way Rountree fought him, but looking back, he now knows that fell on him. "The fight was more boring than I would've liked," Hill said. "I expected him to engage and come after me, so we could get after it and put more of a fight, of a show together, but it is what it is. The onus is on me to go in there and make fighters fight the fight that I want them to fight, and that didn't happen in this one." Hill, a former UFC light heavyweight champion, is now on a three-fight losing skid. His last victory came in January 2023 when he defeated veteran Glover Teixeira to win the vacant title. Hill opened up about his career rut on that same video, attributing the three defeats to his Achilles tear and lack of discipline.
USA Today
02-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Ex-UFC champ Jamahal Hill blames injuries, lack of discipline for recent career slump
Jamahal Hill has a hard look in the mirror amid his recent losing streak. Jamahal Hill's career has taken several hard hits in recent years, putting the former UFC champion on a three-fight losing streak, an unprecedented run for him. In his latest defeat, which came in June at UFC on ABC 8 in Azerbaijan, Hill (12-4 MMA, 6-4 UFC) lost a one-sided unanimous decision against light heavyweight contender Khalil Rountree. Hill entered the bout with plenty of confidence, assuring fans and media that Rountree (14-6 MMA, 10-6 UFC) was not at his level of competition. "Sweet Dreams" still stands by those claims, but thinks he hasn't been up to his own level, causing the discrepancy between his comments and performance. "A lot was made of the thing I said before the fight, me saying the comments that Khalil is not on my level, and I said the same things about my last few fights," Hill said on his YouTube channel. "But to be honest, I haven't been on my level. I haven't been on my level for quite some time." Hill thinks his decline comes down to two factors – one he can't control and one he can. After winning the UFC light heavyweight title against Glover Teixeira in 2023, Hill was forced to relinquish his belt after rupturing his Achilles tendon in an MMA pickup basketball game, which left him out of action for several months. Hill thinks the injury has affected his fighting greatly, more than people can imagine. "I think people severely underestimate the injuries that I've dealt with and the challenges I've had to overcome with that," Hill said. "An Achilles tear to an athlete is a career-ender in a lot of cases and to many, many people. Then you compile that with the tears to the knees of trying to come back and force my way back. I've gone against a lot of advice that I was given by my team and people close to me." On top of suffering a serious injury out of his control, Hill also takes some responsibility for his career rut. He admitted to not training as hard as he should be in order to compete at a high level. It's a bad habit he developed early in his career, and one that he didn't feel he needed to address due to the success he was having. "I'm a natural talent," Hill said. "Things came naturally to me at a certain level. Before I could hang around outside of camp and do things the way I wanted to do them, and whenever I was in camp I was just able to work at a level that I feel put me in a very good position to go on and put on the performances that I put in earlier on in my career on my run to the title. ... It brings me back to a quote my coaches tole me a long time ago: 'Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.' My work and my output have to go up. I have to do more. I have to work harder and grind harder. I've entered my last three camps at the lowest, maybe 260 pounds. This last camp I was maybe at 265 pounds. That goes into that work."
USA Today
25-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Tom Aspinall's dad 'can't think of a worse way' UFC could've announced son as champ
Tom Aspinall's dad thinks his son deserved better from the UFC. Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) was promoted to undisputed UFC heavyweight champion after Jon Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) retired and relinquished his belt. The announcement came from Dana White during the UFC on ABC 8 post-fight press conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. Aspinall's dad, Andy Aspinall, revealed that he was informed of the news by Hunter Campbell after White's announcement, which left him baffled. "I found out from Tom," Aspinall said in an interview with Uncrowned MMA. "At the same time, Tom was calling me to tell me that Hunter had told him. Hunter text me saying, 'Dana has just announced that Tom is the champ,' which was the same message he had sent Tom. I sent a message back to Hunter saying, 'I can't think of a worse way you could have done it.' I just think it's – I don't know if pathetic is the word, I just feel they didn't think about it. "For me, the heavyweight championship of an organization is quite a big thing, and I don't think Tom deserved to find out at a press conference in the middle of the night. I can't think of a worse way to do it, maybe if they had woke us up to tell us it would have been worse. We just happened to be awake at the time. It's poor man management of Jones and Tom. I like the personnel at the UFC, but for me, they just don't do things right sometimes. Of course it's a massively successful business, but I think something like that deserved more thought after everything we've been through with this." Almost two years have passed since Aspinall claimed the interim heavyweight title with a knockout of Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295. He even had to defend his interim belt when he stopped Curtis Blaydes in the first round at UFC 304 last July. It's been a long wait for Aspinall, who constantly heard assurances from the UFC that the title-unification bout with Jones would happen – until news of Jones' retirement emerged this past Saturday.
