Leah Roberts

Francisco Trinaldo is making the move up to welterweight and he takes on Muslim Salikhov at a UFC Fight Night card set for June 5. Trinaldo is coming off of an unbelievable KO win over Jai Herbert on Fight Island last summer, but he missed weight for the fight. The Brazilian is coming off of three straight wins over Herbert, John Makdessi, and Bobby Green and overall has looked outstanding despite being one of the oldest fighters in the UFC. But he has proven time and time again that he is still a great fighter and you can’t count him out despite his advanced age.

When it comes to the public falling out (and eventual reconciliation) between Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight titleholder Aljamain Sterling, and day-one coach Matt Serra, even “ During an appearance on the Jason Burgos Back Talk podcast to talk about his role as lead cornerman for Francis Ngannou in his heavyweight title fight at UFC 260, Nicksick spoke in-depth about the surprising issues that came up between the Long Island, New York natives, after cornering “Funkmaster” at UFC 259. The Las Vegas native eventually heard the audio of Serra explain the “upsetting” turn of events that led to him not being in Sterling’s corner for the biggest fight of his long-time pupil’s career. I felt like he set such a hard [and] high pace in his sparring rounds, and he sparred some great training partners from Xtreme Couture and Serra-Longo.

The atomweights competing in the ballyhooed ONE Atomweight World Grand Prix spoke to the media about their respective bouts. Unbeaten #1-ranked contender Denice Zamboanga takes on promotional newcomer/ elite atomweight Seo Hee Ham in the ONE Circle. She also talked about possibly fighting close friend Stamp Fairtex in the Grand Prix semi-finals. Former two-sport ONE World titlist/ #4-ranked contender Stamp Fairtex runs it back with #3-ranked contender Alyona Rassohyna in a high stakes sequel.

Earlier today, RIZIN announced an upcoming press conference featuring a live fighter match-up drawing for their upcoming 16-man Japan Bantamweight Grand Prix. He won the 2017 bantamweight grand prix on Rizin’s NYE show that year and as mentioned, is also the reigning divisional titlist. This win also came at Rizin 27 and could very well have punched Watanabe a ticket to this Grand Prix. The 16-man Japan Bantamweight Grand Prix press conference and live fighter match-up drawing goes Friday, March 26th at 3:00 AM EST.