2:29 PM ET Rory MacDonald had to wait a full year to make his PFL debut — and now he will do so against a late-notice opponent. MacDonald (21-6-1), who signed with PFL in late 2019 but didn’t compete in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, will face Curtis Millender (18-6) at PFL’s regular-season event

Apr 9, 2021 UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling will undergo neck surgery on Thursday in Los Angeles to address a medical issue he has dealt with for nearly 10 years. Sterling (20-3) won the UFC’s 135-pound bantamweight championship on March 6, when former champion Petr Yan was disqualified in the fourth round of their title

10:16 AM ET Brett Okamoto Close ESPN Staff Writer MMA columnist for ESPN.com Analyst for “MMA Live” Covered MMA for Las Vegas Sun Marc Raimondi UFC middleweight Kevin Holland agrees — he blew it three weeks ago in Las Vegas. It was his first appearance in a UFC main event, and he lost nearly every

8:30 AM ET For UFC middleweight Marvin Vettori, the past year has been equal parts rewarding and frustrating. Vettori (16-3-1) will face Kevin Holland (21-6) in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday afternoon — just the second UFC event to air on ABC (3 p.m. ET, prelims at noon on ESPN, early

12:42 AM ET Jeff Wagenheim It took Ryan Bader nearly a decade to get payback, but when it finally came on Friday night, it came in a big, brutal way. Bader, the reigning Bellator heavyweight champion and former light heavyweight champ, put a ferocious beating on former UFC light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida on his

2:39 PM ET In a brief interview this week, former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones expressed optimism he will challenge Francis Ngannou for the UFC’s heavyweight title at some point, although he doesn’t know exactly when. Jones (26-1), who is the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter on the planet according to ESPN, vacated his 205-pound

7:54 AM ET LAS VEGAS — Travis Lutter used to hate it when UFC middleweight Kevin Holland talked during competition. Lutter, who’s based in Fort Worth, Texas, and has been Holland’s head MMA coach for more than a decade, never had a problem with anything Holland said specifically — he just doesn’t believe an athlete

1:41 PM ET The UFC is finalizing a welterweight matchup between Neil Magny and Geoff Neal for a UFC Fight Night in May, multiple sources told ESPN. The 170-pound bout will take place May 8 on a card headlined by bantamweights TJ Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen. The UFC has not officially announced a venue for

6:18 PM ET UFC middleweight Darren Till laid into Marvin Vettori in a social media post Wednesday, shortly after Vettori publicly questioned the validity of an injury Till disclosed last week. Till (18-3-1) was scheduled to face Vettori (16-3-1) in the main event of UFC Fight Night on Saturday in Las Vegas, but he withdrew

2:33 PM ET Cat Zingano thought it was interesting, if unsurprising, when she found out last month that Miesha Tate would be returning to fighting in the UFC. Zingano beat Tate by third-round TKO in 2013, one of the first fights that shaped the women’s bantamweight division. Then she saw Tate’s return opponent: Marion Reneau.