7:44 AM ET By the time fighters in Bellator and UFC return to their respective cages on Friday and Saturday, the calendar will have flipped over to December. Although there are only a month’s worth of fights remaining in 2021, there’s still a lot left to be sorted out for both promotions. A lot of

6:02 PM ET Conor McGregor for the first time has given fans some insight into the timetable for his return to the Octagon. The former UFC lightweight and featherweight champion tweeted Saturday that he will be cleared to return to MMA sparring by April. And after that, McGregor wrote, “a return will be imminent.” The

10:53 AM ET UFC lightweights Beneil Dariush and Islam Makhachev have agreed to meet on Feb 26, manager Ali Abdelaziz told ESPN. The 155-pound, five-round contest will headline a UFC Fight Night, said Abdelaziz, who managers both fighters. The promotion has not yet announced a location for that event. “I don’t like it when two

7:59 AM ET Valentina Shevchenko was inside of a boxing gym in Newark, New Jersey, preparing to go on a run. It was the fall of 2019, and the next day Shevchenko would start filming an MMA movie alongside A-list star Halle Berry. To prepare for the shoot, Shevchenko was cutting weight, and the run

8:00 AM ET Four months removed from a devastating leg injury against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264, Conor McGregor has begun his public campaign to line up his next opponent inside the Octagon. Unlike previous efforts, however, this latest push has been broader in scope. As he sat injured in the cage back in July,

9:30 PM ET Ketlen Vieira defeated Miesha Tate via unanimous decision in a five-round main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday in Las Vegas. It was Tate’s second appearance since returning from a nearly five-year layoff, as she was retired from 2016 to 2021. Two takeaways from this one: First off, Tate (19-8) wants

9:22 PM ET Miesha Tate‘s highly anticipated comeback run has been upended. Ketlen Vieira defeated Tate, one of the most popular women’s fighters in MMA history, via unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46) in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday in Las Vegas. Vieira used her counter-punching and length to win the standup

3:00 PM ET LAS VEGAS — Former UFC bantamweight champion Miesha Tate proved she can still fight earlier this year when she returned from a five-year retirement to defeat Marion Reneau in July. But we’ll find out tonight if she can still fight with the best. Tate (19-7) looked terrific in that third-round finish over

7:56 AM ET UFC president Dana White is fond of saying there are no tune-up fights in the UFC — and for the most part, he’s right. There really aren’t many. But Miesha Tate did get one this year. Tate (19-7) returned from a nearly five-year layoff in July and picked up a dominant TKO

8:00 AM ET Miesha Tate reached out to UFC president Dana White in the summer of 2020. Tate and her husband, Johnny Nunez, had just had their second child, Daxton, and Tate was contemplating a comeback to the Octagon. At the time, Tate and Nunez were living in Singapore. Tate was working in an office