UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs. Volkov Preview and Predictions
February 2, 2021
After Dustin Poirier’s second-round knockout of Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler’s stunning first-round dispatching of Dan Hooker at UFC 257, the UFC took a week off. The company departed FIght Island and headed back to its stateside home of Las Vegas. Now, the organization returns to the confines of the UFC Apex for
UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs. Volkov.
In the main event, two elite heavyweight strikers clash. The winner takes one big step toward the ultimate goal of fighting for a UFC championship. Former K-1 Grand Prix champion, Dream and Strikeforce kingpin, and UFC title challenger Alistair Overeem has won four of his last five fights and currently sits at fifth in the official UFC heavyweight rankings. Overeem collides with sixth-ranked Alexander Volkov. A victory for Overeem would put him only one or two wins away from another crack at the belt. It’s now or never for the 40-year-old to st
Kyoji Horiguchi knocked out Kai Asakura in the first round to become Rizin BW champion at Rizin 26. Photo courtesy of RIZIN FF.
RIZIN 26 saw a number of important outcomes for the winners. We saw new champions, dominating performances, and many vicious finishes. Here we will look at some of the standout performances from RIZIN 26 and what could be in store for the future of these winners.
Kyoji Horiguchi
The last time
Kyoji Horiguchi fought was August 18, 2019. He had lost the non-title match to Kai Asakura. We were supposed to get the rematch that year, but then Horiguchi suffered an ACL injury. When the rematch got booked finally, there were many questions. How would Horiguchi look post-surgery? Would he make the same mistakes in the 2019 match? Would he be slower? We got the answer to those questions in less than three minutes.
Five major lessons learned from UFC’s whirlwind 2020
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Photo by Press Office of the Head of the \TASS via Getty Images
While I’ll do my best to avoid the ever-present and annoying pandemic-isms would anyone say we’re in this together by any chance? it’s hard to ignore the simple fact that 2020 was . different. Regardless of wealth or location, the year will most likely standout for those of us who survived it, simply because
something was affected by the various s t storm of circumstances that made up the last 12 months.
This has been a tremendously long year. Remember all those training videos from Thailand? They were filmed this year, even if it seems several ages ago. The last six months have been perhaps the busiest in UFC history, as UFC rebounded from its forced slow period with a vengeance, putting on more events than ever before.
MMA Fighting
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Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
2020 was a wild year for MMA, that feels like it lasted a lifetime. With all the action that took place over the year, it’s hard to remember what took place. This series looks to help out with that, providing an overview on what happened in each weight class, and a look at what we can expect to come in 2021.
Year in Review
The Good
2020 was a year of transition for the bantamweight division as the UFC, Bellator, and Rizin all saw the crowning of new 135-pound champions. The UFC in particular felt in flux as the champion at the beginning of the year, Henry Cejudo vacated his title and retired from the sport. In the aftermath, Petr Yan claimed the vacated title with a win over Jose Aldo at UFC 251 to restore some hierarchy, even though many feel that Aljamain Sterling is the true uncrowned champion of the division.
Dec 31, 2020
Redemption for bantamweight standout, Kyoji ‘The Typhoon’ Horiguchi. Returning from a debilitating knee injury which forced him to vacant his Bellator MMA bantamweight crown, the 30-year-old headlined RIZIN FF 26 this morning in Saitama, Japan stopping two-time foe, Kai Asakura to reclaim the promotion’s world championship.
Unbeaten in his next thirteen outings since dropping a buzzer-beating armbar loss to ONE Championship tournament victor, Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson, Horiguchi battled with the above mentioned, Asakura in a non-title matchup, dropping a stunning first-round knockout defeat.
Sixteen months later, Horiguchi returned to action against two-time foe, Asakura, and after expertly finding his mark with calf kicks over and over again in the opening exchanges, Horiguchi countered a jumping knee from his compatriot to stun and subsequently drop him with a barrage before continued ground-and-pound strikes before the three-minute mark ended