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Tag: Fight

  • How Tyson Fury is training for the biggest fight of his career

    • Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing InsiderDec 18, 2024, 07:50 AM ET

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        Mike Coppinger has covered boxing since 2010 with roles at USA Today, Ring Magazine and The Athletic before he joined ESPN in 2021. You can follow him on Twitter: @MikeCoppinger

    TYSON FURY ABSORBED 14 unanswered punches as Oleksandr Usyk threatened to finish “The Gypsy King” in Round 9 of their May meeting for the undisputed heavyweight championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

    Usyk’s laser-point lead rights and overhand lefts sent Fury reeling around the ring in one of the most stunning moments in the glamour division’s history. Finally, Fury crashed into the ropes as the 14th of those shots connected flush on his head.

    Fury was the far bigger man at 6-foot-9, 260-plus pounds — Usyk at 6-3, 233 pounds, was formerly the undisputed cruiserweight champion — but that mattered little in this moment. The bout was deadlocked on one scorecard as it entered that pivotal ninth round while Fury was ahead in the view of the other two judges 77-75.

    The ref halted the action and rightfully started his count (the rules call for a knockdown when the ropes are deemed to prevent a fighter from touching the canvas from a punch).

    “I didn’t want to damage him,” Usyk, ESPN’s No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer, said in Ukrainian during a TNT Sports faceoff with Fury last month. “I know the game of boxing. After the fight, he would go back to his family. For this reason, there’s no reason to hurt him.”

    That was the eighth knockdown of Fury’s career but ultimately the only one that cost him.

    Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) was undefeated in 35 previous fights. The most indelible moment of his career remains the 12th round of his first meeting with Deontay Wilder. That’s when Fury returned from a 3½ year hiatus where he battled massive weight gain (over 400 pounds), substance abuse and depression to pull out a split draw with the then heavyweight champion.

    Fury brutalized Wilder in the rematch, doling out a busted eardrum as he stopped Wilder in Round 7 to reclaim the heavyweight championship he surrendered during the hiatus that followed his 2015 upset victory over Wladimir Klitschko.

    Against Usyk, Fury will look to make the proper adjustments as the underdog in his biggest fight in Saturday’s rematch in Riyadh (2 p.m. ET, DAZN PPV).

    “You’ve got to be a smart boxer,” Fury, 36, told ESPN last week from his camp house in Malta. “And like I did before, I was landing lead right uppercuts, lead right hands on him. I was hitting him at will. I was lighting him up.

    “So I got to be smart, light him up again and just not get a 10-8 round. … If I didn’t switch off for a minute, then I’d have won the fight comfortably on the scorecards. And that would’ve been it.”

    FURY’S FAMILIAR FACE, the one that’s largely responsible for revitalizing boxing’s glamour division, is partially hidden between a burly lumberjack beard.

    A black baseball hat shields his bald head while a hoodie promoting Saturday’s rematch with Usyk (22-0, 14 KOs) covers his upper body.

    The usual jovial antics that helped Fury reach the sport’s pinnacle aren’t present. An uncharacteristic stoicism has replaced them. Fury, eschewing the usual boxing clichés, is adamant this camp has taken on a far more serious tone for one simple reason: He’s coming off the first loss of his career.

    This is uncharted territory for one of boxing’s top stars. So he secluded himself from his family and left the confines of his lavish estate in Morecambe, England, for Malta, where he’s been training in the 12 weeks leading up to the fight.

    Fury said that for the past three months, he hasn’t had any contact with his wife, Paris, nor his seven children or even his outspoken father, John, who will be in his corner on fight night.

    “I think it’s distractions and stuff outside of boxing that can interfere with people’s camps and stuff,” said Fury, ESPN’s No. 2 heavyweight. “But this time it’s been good. I’ve not had any distractions. … I’ve got a big task. I’ve got a big fight with a man trying to take my brains out and take everything I have away from me; faculties, everything. … I’ve not been on the mobile phone at all.

    “I’ve just been keeping myself to myself. I’m trying. I’ve not even on the shave, look at the beard. I’ve been like a wild man, honestly.”

    A typical day for Fury in Malta includes two training sessions per day. If it’s a sparring day — there are four per week — he focuses on boxing technique in the morning and sparring at night. There are two strength and conditioning sessions a week as well along with a couple of roadwork days where he goes for runs.

    On Sundays, Fury goes to church (he’s a devout Christian), has fun and relaxes. And then there’s the camp chef/nutritionist who makes all of his meals.

    “It’s not a holiday,” Fury said. “It’s not like a five-star all-inclusive in Mexico or something. It’s not stuff that I enjoy. It’s like vegetables and rice and chicken and s— like that. It’s not like burgers and nachos and wraps and stuff. It’s all like healthy stuff. … No ice creams, no cakes, nothing like that.

    “I’m pretty lean. Other than the big beard, I’m doing well. I’m in good shape and I’m fit as a fiddle. I’ll be ready for Saturday night.”

    Usyk will be ready, too. He’s always in peak condition and is well-regarded for his incredible mental toughness that carried him to the peak in the amateurs (an Olympic gold medal in 2012) and now the pros.

    And it’s Usyk who is coming off the best win of his career in large part to that seminal Round 9 that was the difference on the scorecards. If Fury had lost Round 9 by just 10-9, the fight would have been a draw. If Fury had won the round, he would have won the fight. Instead, he dropped a split decision in the front-runner for ESPN’s Fight of the Year.

    “You have to be Tyson Fury for sure,” Fury said. “But this is a serious game, what we’re in next Saturday, so I’m going to be serious. They’re going to see a serious ‘Gypsy King.’ And I’m on a mission. There’s plenty of time for fun games after the fight, but for this one fight, first time in my life, this is a serious job.”

    FURY WILL HAVE to make adjustments. He claims he’s rewatched the first meeting with Usyk “hundreds of times.” His takeaway from all that film study: “I just gotta hit him more times in the face. That’s by layman’s terms hitting more times in the face than he hits me and I’ll win. That’s it.”

    What Fury doesn’t believe he needs to adjust, despite what many observers have opined, is to apply more pressure and try to make the fight on the inside. That’s what he did in the second fight with Wilder in February 2020, as he attacked in seek-and-destroy mode compared to the first meeting, where he outboxed the American from the outside. Fury elected to box Usyk with his quick feet and jab, too.

    “If it was easy just to walk down Usyk, if you’re just a big man just walking down and bullying him, then Anthony Joshua would’ve done it who’s 6-6 and like 260 [pounds],” said Fury, referring to two Usyk wins over Joshua in heavyweight title fights. “And Daniel Dubois [whom Usyk KO’d last year]. These are massive punching guys, big, strong men. They didn’t walk him down. So I don’t think it’s as easy as just walking into somebody with your hands up.”

    Usyk is widely considered the top pound-for-pound boxer for good reason. He possesses some of the best footwork in boxing and is exceptional at changing the trajectory of his shots to land accurate punches.

    His movement, punch placement and elite ring smarts have carried him to undisputed championships at cruiserweight and heavyweight. But Fury knows what needs to be done to extract a different result seven months later.

    He’s buoyed by the confidence built in his most serious training camp to date, preparation that’s especially different from what he did ahead of the first meeting earlier this year. He had just five weeks to train for Usyk after a scheduled February date was postponed following a severe gash suffered above his right eye while sparring. That meant fewer rounds for sparring ahead of their May date during an abbreviated camp.

    “It took seven weeks for the cut to heal … and I was trying not to get punched in the face as well in that training camp just in case the cut opened,” Fury said. “… It wasn’t ideal going into the biggest fight in my life. … Someone in the right mind, someone sensible, not me, will have said, ‘You know what? I need more time for the cut to heal and I’m going to have to postpone.’ But I didn’t. I put the fight on, I entertained and we had a good fight and that was it.”

    Fury said he will be very focused “and do a good job on him [Usyk] — a demolition job.”

    A “demolition job” is surely how Fury’s rematch with Wilder could be described.

    That’s not Fury’s only success in a return bout. Besides a spectacular 11th-round KO of Wilder in their trilogy fight that was named ESPN’s 2021 Fight of the Year and Knockout of the Year, there’s Fury’s trilogy with fellow Englishman Derek Chisora.

    Fury outpointed Chisora in 2011 before he scored a 10th-round stoppage three years later. In a third meeting in 2022, Fury delivered another 10th-round TKO of Chisora.

    “I’ve been in this position before,” Fury said.

    INTERNATIONAL BOXING HALL of Fame inductee Timothy Bradley Jr. is no stranger to rematches at the pinnacle of the sport. The ESPN boxing analyst scored a controversial decision victory over recently elected Hall of Famer Manny Pacquiao in 2012, then dropped competitive decisions in the rematch and trilogy bouts.

    Bradley wants to see Fury “assert himself” from the opening bell to “prevent the quick-starting 37-year-old Usyk from dictating the pace and gaining physical and mental control.

    “Fury won some rounds decisively, particularly by boxing effectively out at long range, jabbing, moving, and countering with uppercuts and right crosses, winning most of the middle rounds,” Bradley told ESPN via text. “In spots, Fury looked like the vintage Tyson Fury that fought Wladimir Klitschko years ago, sparingly.”

    Clearly, Bradley believes it’s important for Fury to not be totally serious in the ring, to not move away from what makes Fury an all-time great heavyweight.

    “Establishing control from the outset could help disrupt Usyk’s rhythm,” Bradley said. “Usyk’s offense is better delivered moving forward than backward, and when under attack, his primary defense is the use of the high guard [both hands up].

    “This could boost Fury’s confidence and set the tone for the fight, letting Usyk know right away this time will be different. … Fury’s stamina must be at an all-time high. And any lack of confidence from Fury will only amplify Usyk’s intensity and desire to win.”

    Antonio Tarver also faced a legend in a trilogy. After a controversial decision defeat to Roy Jones Jr. in 2003, Tarver delivered a second-round KO for the ages in the rematch six months later for the lineal light heavyweight championship. Tarver won a unanimous decision in their third fight a year later.

    The former three-division champion would hold training camp away from the comfort of home in Tampa, Florida, anytime he had a “real serious opponent in front of me” and would instead prepare four hours away in Vero Beach. Fury is going the extra step with no communication with his family in an attempt to have the best, most focused preparation possible.

    “He’s trying to do something that’ll be talked about forever and a day,” Tarver told ESPN. “He’s trying to get back something that he feels he lost and belongs to him. This is the fight that will define Tyson Fury.

    “As a fighter, as a champion, he’s giving it everything he has. He’s coming and leaving no room for error, and he’s giving himself the best chance to win if he’s made that type of sacrifice. And it really indicates that he still loves the game and he still sees himself as the best.”

    Fury is a slight underdog (+125 per ESPN BET as of Wednesday), but has had success in rematches, and he seems to be at his best when he’s counted out.

    He was a decided underdog when he upset Klitschko for the lineal heavyweight championship nearly 10 years ago.

    He was counted out once again when he met Wilder for the first time. And when he entered the ring to fight Usyk, he was months removed from a shocking struggle with former UFC star Francis Ngannou, who floored Fury but lost by split decision.

    Despite the hundreds of millions Fury has earned over the years, the desire remains strong to train hard and take on the toughest challenges. Marvelous Marvin Hagler famously said, “It’s tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5 a.m. when you’ve been sleeping in silk pajamas.”

    “I found it easy to get up in silk pajamas,” Fury said. “I’m motivated to keep going and keep earning money and keep entertaining and putting on shows. And if people are not motivated by earning lots of money and putting on shows and entertaining, then they’re in the wrong game, that’s for sure.”

    That’s quite the departure from 2½ years ago when Fury claimed he was retired following a sixth-round TKO win over Dillian Whyte. Now, Fury is looking ahead to an expected trilogy fight with Usyk if he can even the score Saturday. He’s even looking beyond that.

    “I want to be active next year,” Fury said. “I want to have at least three fights next year. … What else is there? Get fat, drink beer, eat s—. There’s not much else that we can do other than venturing off into stuff that don’t really concern us.”

  • why Assad’s army failed to fight in Syria

    By Maya Gebeily, Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Ahmed Rasheed and Timour Azhari

    DAMASCUS/AMMAN/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Twenty-three-year-old Syrian military conscript Farhan al-Khouli was badly paid and demoralized. His army outpost in scrubland near the rebel-held city of Idlib should have had nine soldiers but it just had three, after some had bribed the commanding officers to escape serving, he said.

    And, of the two conscripts with him, one was regarded by his superiors as mentally unfit and not trusted with a gun, Khouli said.

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    For years, the Islamist rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had sat behind the nearby frontline, with Syria’s long civil war frozen. But on Wednesday, Nov. 27, Khouli’s commanding officer – at another post behind the frontlines – called his mobile phone to tell him a rebel convoy was heading his way.

    The officer said the unit should stand its ground and fight.

    Instead, Khouli put his phone on airplane mode, changed into civilian clothes, dropped his rifle and fled. As he walked along the road back south, other groups of soldiers were abandoning their posts too.

    “I looked back and saw everyone walking behind me. When they saw one person flee, everyone started to toss their weapons and run,” he told Reuters this week in Damascus, where he has found work at a horse stable.

    In a little less than two weeks, the rebels would sweep into the capital Damascus, toppling former president Bashar al-Assad as his army simply melted away. The rout abruptly ended a 13-year conflict that had killed hundreds of thousands of people.

    Reuters spoke to a dozen sources including two Syrian army deserters, three senior Syrian officers, two Iraqi militia commanders working with the Syrian army, a Syrian security source and a source familiar with the thinking of Lebanese group Hezbollah, one of Assad’s main military allies.

    The sources, along with intelligence documents Reuters found in an abandoned military office in the capital, painted a detailed picture of how Assad’s once-feared army had been hollowed out by the demoralization of troops, heavy reliance on foreign allies particularly for the command structure, and growing anger across the ranks at rampant corruption.

    Most of the sources asked not to be named because they were not authorised to talk to media or feared retribution.

    Since the war began in 2011, Assad’s army command had come to depend on allied Iranian and Iran-funded Lebanese and Iraqi forces to provide the best fighting units in Syria, all the senior sources said.

    Crucially, much of the Syrian military’s operational command structure was run by Iranian military advisors and their militia allies, they said.

    But many of the Iranian military advisers had left this spring after Israeli air strikes on Damascus, and the rest departed last week, said the Iraqi militia commanders, who worked alongside them.

    Hezbollah fighters and commanders had already mostly left in October to focus on the escalating war in Lebanon with Israel, the source familiar with Hezbollah thinking said.

    The Syrian army’s own central command and control centre no longer functioned well after the Iranian and Hezbollah officers left and the military lacked a defence strategy, particularly for Syria’s second city of Aleppo, a Syrian colonel, two Syrian security sources and a Lebanese security source familiar with the Syrian military said.

    By contrast, rebels in the northwest, on paper numerically far weaker than the army, had spent years consolidating under a single operations room that coordinated their groups and units in battle, an International Crisis Group report said after the fall of Aleppo.

    Reuters was unable to contact a current representative of the armed forces. Syria’s new most powerful figure, HTS chief Ahmad al-Sharaa told Reuters on Wednesday he would dissolve Syria’s security forces. Iran’s mission to the United Nations, the Iraqi militias and Hezbollah did not respond to requests for comment.

    ALEPPO

    As Aleppo came under attack in late November, army units were not given a clear plan but were told to work it out for themselves or to fall back to the strategic city of Homs to try to regroup, two Syrian security sources said.

    Aleppo fell without a major fight on Nov. 29, just two days after the offensive began, sending shockwaves through the military, three senior Syrian officers said.

    What was left on the ground was a Syrian army severely lacking in cohesion, all the sources said, describing multiple units that were undermanned because officers were accepting bribes to let soldiers off duty, or had told soldiers to go home and were collecting their salaries themselves.

    In 2020, the army had 130,000 personnel, according to think tank IISS’ Military Balance report, describing it as significantly depleted by the long civil war and transformed into an irregularly structured, militia-style organisation focused on internal security.

    In the days ahead of the regime’s collapse on Sunday, the United States had information of broad levels of desertions and military forces changing sides, as well as some elements fleeing to Iraq, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

    Reuters could not establish the overall manpower shortage in the military or current force strength.

    The Syrian army sources described officers and troops alike as demoralised by pay that was consistently low even after painful military victories earlier in the war and by reports, which Reuters could not verify, that Assad’s close family were growing immensely rich.

    On Nov. 28, the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces issued a telegram, ordering all troops to be on full combat readiness, according to a military document found by Reuters at an Air Intelligence office in Damascus.

    In a sign the regime was desperate, Syria’s Air Intelligence Directorate, a key agency close to the Assad family, accused its men of “laxity” at checkpoints throughout the country after one was overrun by rebels in the south on Dec. 1, and warned of punishment “without leniency” if they did not fight, the document seen by Reuters shows.

    Despite the orders and threats, increasing numbers of soldiers and officers began to desert, all the sources said.

    Instead of confronting the rebels, or even unarmed protesters, soldiers were seen by residents of Syrian cities, and in many videos that began circulating online, abandoning their posts, changing into civilian clothes and going home.

    Reuters journalists entering Syria on Sunday found army uniforms still strewn across Damascus streets.

    OFFICERS

    The corruption and poor morale went up through the ranks.

    Many midranking officers had been growing increasingly angry in recent years that the army’s sacrifices and successes during the war were not reflected in better pay, conditions and resources, two serving, one recently retired and one defected officer said.

    In 2020, Russia and Turkey agreed a deal that froze the frontlines after Assad retook all major cities and the main highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, further partitioning a country also split by Kurdish-controlled areas.

    But Syria’s economy continued to reel from U.S. sanctions and reduced foreign aid, said Aron Lund, a fellow at Middle East-focused think tank Century International. Rampant inflation ensued.

    “Things just got worse for everyone, except for the oligarchs and elites around Assad. That seems to have been incredibly demoralizing,” Lund said.

    While decrees in 2021 roughly doubled military salaries to keep up with inflation that topped 100% that year, buying power rapidly fell anyway as the Syrian pound crashed against the dollar.

    Col. Makhlouf Makhlouf, who served in an engineering brigade, said that if anybody complained about corruption they were called in for questioning at a military court – something that had happened to him more than once.

    “We were living in a scary society. We were afraid to say a word,” Makhlouf said. He had been stationed in Hama but deserted before the city fell to the rebels on Dec. 5, he said in an interview in Aleppo on Tuesday.

    Anger had been building particularly over the past year or so, a serving senior military intelligence officer said, saying there was “growing resentment against Assad,” including among core high-ranking supporters from his Alawite minority community.

    YEARS OF DECAY

    Khouli’s military experience illustrated the army’s problems – and helps explain his lack of loyalty.

    He was drafted for the obligatory 18-month service at age 19, after having paid-off an officer to delay his service for a year.

    When his service period expired, he was ordered to remain in the army indefinitely. He deserted but was later picked up by a patrol, put in prison for 52 days and then sent to the remote outpost near Idlib.

    He was paid 500,000 Syrian pounds ($40) a month. Army rations were often pillaged before arriving. Sometimes his entire pay went on buying more food, he said.

    Comrades with money would pay officers $100, which he lacked, to get out of service, Khouli said. Khouli’s brigade was supposed to have 80 soldiers, but in fact there were only 60, he said.

    He described bad treatment from officers, including being assigned heavy manual labour digging earth berms in both very hot and very cold weather and during nights.

    Reuters was not able to verify independently the details of his experiences.

    One former major described the use of forced conscripts as a “fatal mistake”.

    A former army logistics serviceman, Zuhair, 28, said in an interview in Damascus on Tuesday he had seen officers steal and sell electricity generators and fuel. “All they cared about was using their positions to enrich themselves,” he said.

    He had fought for Assad for years but he had cousins among the rebels and when they advanced, he cheered, he said. “I don’t know how to describe how happy I am,” he said.

    RELIANCE ON ALLIES

    To fight back the earlier opposition uprising, which began with protests in 2011, Assad relied on allies. Russia sent jets that bombed rebel positions, Iran sent military advisers and fighters from Hezbollah. Iran-backed militias from Iraq and another group it formed from Afghan Shi’ite fighters also came.

    Their fighting skill and well-being contrasted with Syria’s own soldiers. An Iraqi militia commander serving near Aleppo said he knew of a Syrian platoon meant to consist of 30 soldiers that had only eight present.

    The militia often invited those soldiers to eat with them out of pity at the poor condition of their rations, the commander said.

    Hezbollah and allied militias regarded the regular Syrian forces with little more than contempt, the Iraqi militia commanders and a source familiar with Hezbollah thinking said.

    They did not trust them for important operations and often would not fight alongside them, those sources added.

    OCT. 7 HAMAS ATTACKS

    Iran’s presence in Syria was curtailed in the months following the attack on Israel by Tehran-backed Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, the Iraqi militia commander based near Aleppo and an Iraqi military adviser based in Damascus said.

    Israel’s response to Hamas’ incursion included escalating strikes on Iran-linked targets, including in Syria.

    On April 1, a strike killed top commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards at a building in an Iranian consular compound in Damascus. Israel has not confirmed or denied responsibility for the strike.

    The Iraqi sources both said the number of Revolutionary Guards commanders present in Syria dropped significantly after that. One said Syria’s military operations command became ineffective as a result, a situation exacerbated by the withdrawal of Hezbollah in October.

    Russia conducted air strikes on rebels as they advanced on Hama and Homs, both sides said at the time, but unlike in earlier phases of the war there were no effective ground forces able to benefit.

    By Saturday, Dec. 7, Russia was calling for a political transition. The Kremlin and Russia foreign ministry declined to comment for this story. Russia, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, had “spent a lot of effort” to help Assad during the civil war but the situation had then deteriorated.

    In Aleppo, Syrian forces had relied on Hezbollah to provide operational command, an Alawite Syrian army colonel said. Without Iranian advisers or Hezbollah, the army could not hold onto territory near the city, the colonel, the Iraqi commander and the Iraqi adviser said.

    Iraqi militias sent more fighters to Syria last week, but they found all the contact channels to Iranian military advisors had been cut, the Iraqi commander said.

    On Friday, after rebels had taken the city of Hama, the Iraqi groups were told to leave, he said.

    “The battle for Syria was lost from day one,” the Iraqi military adviser added.

    (Reporting by Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari in Damascus, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Laila Bassam and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

  • Predicție UFC Fight Night — Petr Yan vs. Deiveson Figueiredo: carte de luptă, ora de începere, cote, stream live

    Petr Yan și Deiveson Figueiredo se află pe un curs de coliziune către campionatul UFC la greutatea cob. Foștii campioni promit sâmbătă un eveniment principal plin de acțiune la Macao, China.

    Yan (17-5) dă viață carierei sale odată prospere. Yan a câștigat primele șapte lupte UFC, culminând cu câștigarea titlului UFC la greutatea bantam. S-a prăbușit la scurt timp după. Yan a pierdut titlul în fața lui Aljamain Sterling prin descalificare și — după un scurt ocol învingându-l pe Cory Sandhagen pentru titlul interimar — a pierdut revanșa pe care se aștepta să o câștige. Au urmat pierderi în fața lui Sean O'Malley și Merab Dvalishvili. Yan găsește un confort minim în pierderea în fața a trei campioni UFC, dar este întinerit de victoria sa de recuperare împotriva lui Song Yadong în martie.

    „Am arătat că nu m-am dat bătut când majoritatea oamenilor ar fi făcut-o”, a spus Yan pentru CBS Sports printr-un interpret. “Aceasta este mentalitatea mea. Acolo este mintea mea. Privind la divizia noastră, cred că pot învinge pe toți acești tipi.”

    Yan trebuie să-l învingă pe Figueiredo pentru a-și menține locul 3 în clasamentul oficial UFC la greutatea bantam. El va fi un favorit considerabil în cotele de pariuri când va păși în Octogon pentru a face acest lucru. Campionul în vigoare, Dvalishvili, a declarat anterior pentru CBS Sports Figueiredo că cel mai mult merită o lovitură de titlu, laude Yan intenționează să fure.

    „Dacă Merab a spus că Figueiredo ar trebui să lupte pentru centură, iar dacă eu îl înving pe Figueiredo, va trebui să aflăm ce va spune Merab după aceea”, a spus Yan.

    FanDuel are cote pentru fiecare aspect al UFC Fight Night, precum și pentru cartela de sâmbătă. Consultați cele mai recente Promo FanDuel pentru a intra în acțiune.

    Figueiredo (24-3-1) este încurajat de credința că nu are nimic de demonstrat. Nu este îngrijorat de moștenire, deoarece se apropie de a deveni potențial un campion rar în două divizii. De două ori campioană UFC la greutatea mușcă are un scor perfect de 3-0 de când a trecut la divizia de greutate cob în decembrie. Yan a susținut că Figueiredo s-a confruntat cu o concurență de nivel mediu la 135 de lire sterline. Figueiredo îl încurajează pe Yan să-și demonstreze punctul de vedere.

    „Toată lumea a vrut să mă urmeze bun venit în divizie”, a declarat Figueiredo pentru CBS Sports printr-un interpret. “Rob Font a spus că vrea să mă urmeze bun venit. Am mers acolo și i-am mulțumit pentru primire. Apoi a fost Cody Garbrandt care a spus că îmi va arăta despre ce este vorba despre divizie. Am mers acolo și i-am mulțumit arătându-i lucruri. Apoi Marlon 'Chito' Vera a spus că mă va da în fund îi mulțumesc lui Yan pentru primirea pe care mi-o oferă.

    “Este un tip foarte periculos și sunt pregătit pentru el. O să plouă în Octogon sâmbătă și cred că vom rezolva unele lucruri personal.”

    Dvalishvili îl strigă pe Figueiredo pe cheltuiala lui Umar Nuromagomedov. Nurmagomedov (nr. 2) este clasat mai sus decât Figueiredo (nr. 5) și majoritatea cred că are dreptul la următoarea lovitură de titlu după ce l-a învins pe Sandhagen. Figueiredo nu a pretins că merită mai mult o șansă la titlu decât Nurmagomedov, dar a asigurat că îl va scoate pe campion după ce l-a învins pe Yan.

    „Când l-am învins pe Petr Yan, Merab este numele pe care îl voi striga”, a spus Figueiredo.

    Consultați mai jos interviul complet cu Deiveson Figueiredo.

    Mai jos este restul cărții de luptă pentru sâmbătă cu cele mai recente cote înainte de a prezice evenimentul principal.

    Cartea UFC Fight Night, cote

    Petr Yan -320 Deiveson Figueiredo +250 Bantamweights
    Yan Xionan -195 Tabatha Ricci +165 Greutăți de paie pentru femei
    Salikhov musulman -175 Song Kenan +145 Greutăți welter
    Wang Cong -1200 Gabriella Fernandes +700 Muscă pentru femei
    Carlos Ulberg -235 Volkan Oezdemir +195 Greii ușoare
    Zhang Mingyang -350 Ozzy Diaz +275 Greii ușoare

    Informații de vizualizare a UFC Fight Night

    Data: 23 noiembrie | Ora de începere: 6 am ET (cartea principală)
    Locaţie: Galaxy Arena — Macao, China
    canal TV: ESPN+

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    Petr Yan vs. Deiveson Figueiredo: Figueiredo avea o putere feroce la greutatea muscă. Această putere s-a dus bine la o clasă de greutate mai mare, dar nu va reduce distanța sâmbătă. Yan ar putea fi cel mai greu atacant la greutatea bantam și, spre deosebire de Figueiredo, nu a fost niciodată terminat. Ambii bărbați sunt familiarizați care luptă în cinci runde. Figueiredo beneficiază în continuare de o reducere a greutății care ar trebui să-și îmbunătățească rezistența în 25 de minute. Yan este atacantul superior: produce o putere mai mare, un diferenţial de lovitură mai bun şi un procent mai mare de lovituri blocate. Cel mai mare avantaj al lui Figueiredo față de colegul său campion sunt atacurile sale de supunere, dar lupta lui Yan este grozavă. Figueiredo va avea o perioadă dificilă de a duce lupta la pământ, ceea ce va face dificil să se alăture lui. Așteaptă-te ca Yan să se retragă în picioare. Yan prin decizie unanimă

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