MMA

Israel Adesanya doesn't appear to be considering retirement despite suffering a swift defeat at the hands of Nassourdine Imavov during the UFC Fight Night 250 main event in Saudi Arabia.

Adesanya posted a video of himself reacting to the fight on social media afterwards, writing "I'll be back" in the caption.

The former UFC middleweight champion suffered a knockout loss in the second round to Imavov on Saturday, causing his overall record to fall to 24-5.

While Adensanya lost three of his past four fights heading into Saturday's bout, it was still a surprising result. He appeared to be off to a strong start against Imavov, winning the first round on all three scorecards from the judges.

In the second round, Adesanya was sent to the floor with a right hand to the chin by Imavov and was finished off with a left hand before covering up and subsequently ending the fight.

The 35-year-old was noncommittal regarding his future immediately following the defeat.

"I don't know, I have to chill then think about things," Adesanya said, via Yahoo Sports' Drake Riggs. "I'll relax first for a little bit, just to help the teammates who have fights coming up, and yeah, see what I want to do. I was going to do that anyway, but now I'm forced to. Shout out to Nassourdine for that."

Although Adesanya lost in his first nonchampionship appearance since 2019, UFC CEO Dana White was still impressed with the performance.

"I thought Izzy looked incredible until he got caught," White said, via ESPN's Brett Okamoto. "He was picking him apart, staying on the outside, takedown defense was incredible, chopping that calf kick. That whole round, he couldn't have had a better first round, but then he got caught."

Adesanya suffered a swift defeat on Saturday, but he already appears to be preparing for a return to the Octagon.

Israel Adesanya's evening came to a quick end on Saturday in Saudi Arabia.

The former UFC middleweight champion fell via knockout in the second round to Nassourdine Imavov, dropping his overall record to 24-5.

The defeat represents the third straight for Adesanya, and fans promptly took to social media to question the 35-year-old's future in the sport.

Adesanya began his career 20-0 before taking his first career loss in 2021. Since that loss, he has gone 4-5 and lost the UFC Middleweight Championship. The fight against Imanov was Adesanya's first non-title fight since 2019 and it will take a significant reversal in fortune for him to re-obtain his former glory.

This was the second time Adesanya lost due to a knockout and it was the shortest lost fight he has had in his career.

He does not currently have his next fight scheduled.

Five weeks after claiming to have agreed to an exhibition boxing match with Logan Paul, former UFC champion Conor McGregor says the MMA promotion put the kibosh on the bout.

In an interview with MMA personality The Schmo (starts at 2:25 mark), McGregor said UFC wouldn't grant him permission to do what he called a "glorified spar" with Paul.

In a Dec. 17 post on X, McGregor said he agreed to an exhibition boxing match with Paul in India that would serve as a stepping stone for his eventual return to UFC.

There was no indication from anyone else involved that such a deal had been agreed to. They did have something of a face-to-face confrontation when they, along with Jake Paul, were in Washington D.C. on Monday to attend the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

There's really nothing stopping a McGregor-Paul boxing match from happening if everyone involved wants to make it happen. Even though McGregor is a UFC fighter and Paul is a WWE superstar, both companies operate under the TKO umbrella.

History has shown that UFC president Dana White will offer some leeway to fighters if there's enough money to be made. He gave permission for McGregor to have a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017.

McGregor has a history of saying a lot of things that don't end up being true. He's retired from mixed martial arts at least four different times, most recently in October responding to a fan post on X that he has since deleted.

Even though Logan Paul has shifted his athletic career to professional wrestling, he did start out in boxing with a loss to fellow YouTube star KSI in 2019. He returned to the boxing ring in October 2023, scoring a disqualification win over Dillon Danis.

McGregor's status in UFC is seemingly always up in the air. He was scheduled to fight Michael Chandler at UFC 303 last June, but a broken toe suffered in training forced him off the card.

White has said he expects McGregor to fight at some point early in 2025. His last bout was a loss against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021. The fight had to be stopped after the first round when McGregor suffered a broken leg when his kick connected with Poirier's elbow.

Amid his extended hiatus from competition, McGregor has been embroiled in a series of legal issues. A civil jury ordered him to pay $250,000 to a woman who claimed he raped and beat her in 2018.

A civil lawsuit filed by a woman on Jan. 14 accused McGregor of sexual battery at an NBA game during Game 4 of the Finals between the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat.

For one fleeting moment in the first round of Saturday night's UFC 311 main event, it looked like we might witness one of the greatest upsets in MMA history.

Lightweight champ Islam Makhachev, who is considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the business at present, was suddenly on his butt, and Renato Moicano, who stepped in to fight the champion on just one day's notice, seemed to have put him there—at least, to those of us without the benefit of instant replay.

As it turns out, things weren't quite as they seemed.

A moment later, the UFC commentators were clarifying that Makhachev had slipped and not been knocked down, and soon after that, the champ was doing what he does best—tapping his challenger out with a D'arce choke.

"I always looking for finish," the Russian juggernaut told commentator Joe Rogan after his first-round submission win. "I not just talk."

The victory marked the end of a chaotic 24-hour saga for Makhachev. As of Thursday evening, he was set for a Saturday-night rematch with surging No. 1 contender Arman Tsarukyan. By Friday night, Tsarukyan was out of the fight with a back injury, and the champ's focus was locked on Moicano, who had originally been set to fight fellow lightweight contender Beneil Dariush on the main card.

"For me, no matter," Makhachev said when asked about the last-minute shake-up. "Who can make 155 [pounds]? Just step into the cage and stay in front of me."

You're going to encounter people who try to downplay Makhachev's win over Moicano. Don't listen to them! Yes, Moicano took the fight on short notice, but so did Makhachev, and the Brazilian is a tough fight under any circumstances. Heading into UFC 311, the longtime BJJ black belt was riding four-straight wins over high-level opposition and had proven he could finish pretty much anybody on the feet or on the mat.

Yet Makhachev cut through him like a chainsaw through butter, and he made history in the process. After two wins over Alexander Volkanovski, a defeat of Dustin Poirier, and now his win over Moicano, he holds the record for most title defenses in lightweight history, scooting past his coach Khabib Nurmagomedov and former two-division champ BJ Penn.

That just about seals his future induction into the UFC Hall of Fame.

Despite all the drama and history-making attached to Makhachev's short-notice beatdown of Moicano, however, he is probably not going to be the fighter most fans are talking about at the water cooler on Monday morning. No, that distinction will most likely go to bantamweight champ Merab Dvalishvili.

Georgia's Dvalishvili returned to action in the UFC 311 co-main event, for a title defense opposite the unbeaten Umar Nurmagomedov—a friend and training partner of Makhachev, and cousin of the great Khabib. Heading into the fight, Nurmagomedov had built up so much momentum that he entered the cage as a hefty betting favorite, and in Rounds 1 and 2, it looked like he would prove the oddsmakers right, as he tagged the champ with some hard shots and denied any early takedown attempts. After those tough opening rounds, however, Dvalishvili began to crank up the pressure, mixing relentless takedown attempts with the kind of power punches we seldom see from him in the Octagon.

By the time the fifth round was over, the seemingly unbeatable favorite Nurmagomedov was visibly exhausted, and Dvalishvili deserved the victory. Thankfully, all three judges got it right and scored it for the champ.

"You guys know," Dvalishvili told Rogan after his win. "You know I'm training all the time. I am 'The Machine.'

"Umar is a tough fighter and he's good, but he called me old," he added. "The whole world was against me... I don't give a [expletive]. I believe in my hard work... I believe in myself."

The win over Nurmagomedov marked Dvalishvili's first defense of the bantamweight title, so he's still got a long way to go before he's in the same conversation as Makhachev in terms of championship legacy. However, it was arguably the most impressive performance of his career, against arguably his toughest opponent to date, and his win streak is definitely nothing to smirk at. It easily rivals Makhachev's.

After losing his first two fights in the Octagon, Dvalishvili is now on a 12-fight streak, including recent triumphs over a jaw-dropping list of former champs and title challengers in Marlon Moraes, Jose Aldo, Petr Yan, Henry Cejudo, Sean O'Malley, and now Nurmagomedov. That is truly the stuff of legend.

Sure, his fighting style isn't always pretty. Against Yan, for example, he attempted an absurd 49 takedowns and landed just 11, which didn't exactly endear him with fans. Yet if the crowd's reaction to his performance at UFC 311 was an indication, people are starting to appreciate his relentless style. His mid-fight showboating helped win them over, but there is no question that by the time his fight was over, nearly everybody watching his fight was prepared to put some respect on his name.

About time.