Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show to feature Israel Adesanya and Yoel Romero
Former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson analyzes an issue he saw with Joseph Benavidez throwing an overhand right vs. Deiveson Figueiredo. (1:46)
Israel Adesanya will defend his middleweight championship against Yoel Romero at UFC 248 on Saturday night. But before they take center stage in Las Vegas, both main-event participants are set to join Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show on Monday.
It’s the first title defense for Adesanya (18-0), while Romero has lost three of his past four, all via decision.
Also scheduled for Monday are two women who made strong cases for a title opportunity at featherweight. Both Megan Anderson and Felicia Spencer earned first-round stoppages this past weekend. Has either emerged as the next challenger for Amanda Nunes?
Also set to join the show: Demetrious Johnson, Paul Felder, Luis Pena and Deron Winn.
Watch the show from 1-4 p.m. ET here.
“He’s so funny.” @yoelromeromma has seen @darrentill2‘s jokes, but believes Till would take the fight if “life put him in my way” (via @arielhelwani) pic.twitter.com/tLfAuQebJa
Yoel Romero appeared on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show sporting a black Miami Marlins cap with a special message in white print on the side: “And new.”
“Every time they give me the hat,” Romero said, “I win.”
Perhaps bad news for Israel Adesanya, who will defend the UFC middleweight title against Romero on Saturday night.
Romero said he’s confident that he can make weight for the UFC 248 main event, which has been a major issue for the muscular Cuban. He missed weight twice for UFC title fights, both in 2018.
Romero said that he’s 198 pounds, 13 over the middleweight limit of 185 pounds for championship bouts. That’s a positive sign, according to Romero, who said he’s ahead of schedule in his weight cut. He’s typically around 202 pounds on the Monday of a fight week.
Romero believes making weight in Las Vegas on Friday morning shouldn’t be a problem.
“You know what I do? Training, that’s the difference,” Romero said. “I have time for training camp. That’s it. There’s no excuses. The two times I missed weight, I tried to [make weight], but I know I can do it. … I don’t think about my weight for the fight. I’m thinking about the time for training camp. You need to lose your weight in training camp.”
There’s been speculation that Saturday’s main event in Norfolk, Virginia, might well have been the final entry in the twisted history of the UFC men’s flyweight division. Deiveson Figueiredo’s second-round knockout of Joseph Benavidez was exhilarating but at the same time anticlimactic, because the Brazilian had missed weight the day before, making him ineligible to win the belt.
If the UFC does opt to seize the moment, with the title vacant, and do away with the 125-pound class, that would surely be a sad day for the man who reigned for six of the division’s eight years, wouldn’t it?
“No, not at all,” Demetrious Johnson said matter-of-factly on Monday.
Johnson won the 2012 tournament to crown an inaugural flyweight champion and reigned until he was upset by Henry Cejudo in 2018. Later that year “Mighty Mouse” moved on to One Championship in an unprecedented trade that brought Ben Askren to the UFC. Now Johnson is preparing for an April 10 challenge of One champion Adriano Moraes.
If the UFC does shut down its 125-pound division, Johnson would welcome more competition to his new promotional home. He also sees Bellator, the PFL and Rizin as potential landing spots. And those who stay with the UFC could fight at 135 pounds.
“There’s a place for everyone to compete,” he said.
Johnson did find Saturday’s fight sad in a couple of ways.
For Figueiredo, it as an opportunity wasted. “You’ve got two jobs as an athlete: make weight and fight,” said Johnson. “That’s it.”
Regarding Benavidez, Johnson was personally disappointed. “I’m a huge fan of Joseph Benavidez,” he said. “We’ve shared the cage multiple times. We saw concerts together. We went to Australia together. I grew up watching Joseph.”
It was Benavidez whom Johnson defeated by split decision back in 2012 to become champion. During the promotional buildup to that fight, they had attended a Coldplay concert together while on a media tour. Less than two years later, Johnson won a rematch by knockout. It took Benavidez six years to get back to a title fight.
Johnson recognized the magnitude of that, which made the finish hard to watch. “When Joseph took that last shot, oof, you could see the energy go through him, from his chin, his shoulders, his back. And he falls flat. I’m like, damn.”
Paul Felder breaks down his fighting future in the UFC and discusses some of the medical issues he’s had from a loss to Dan Hooker at UFC Fight Night.
Paul Felder was battered and bruised in his split-decision loss to Dan Hooker in Auckland, New Zealand on Feb. 22. Felder suffered a serious eye injury and had to be transported to a local hospital, where he once again ran into Hooker after the fight.
Felder recalled his recovery time in New Zealand on Monday’s edition of Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show.
“It’s been a good recovery. Obviously I had to stay in Auckland for a few extra days to have my eye looked at. There were a couple of little fractures in the orbital, and they always want it to be safe before they send you off flying 20 hours to get back to Philadelphia.
“My leg is still really sore, but the swelling is healing up there. The other crazy thing that happened is that I ended up getting Rhabdo[mylosis] from that fight. It’s a condition where your muscles begin to actually break down and leak into your bloodstream, producing more myoglobin and it wears on your kidneys and turns your urine Coca Cola-colored.
“I went to the hospital for all of that other stuff, and I went and I had to take a pee at the hospital before I sat there for hours, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s not good.’ And I knew what it was right away — I had heard of this disorder from CrossFit athletes and things like that — guys that just kind of push it to the limit. I had to stay a little longer to make sure my kidneys were functioning correctly.
“It’s pretty quick. They basically just flush your system, flush your kidneys. They gave me like five bags of IV, all, of course, administered in a hospital and under the watchful eye of USADA. … One of these days I’m going to fight and not end up in the ER.”
Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night card in Norfolk, Virginia was a showcase for two women chasing a shot at Amanda Nunes and the UFC women’s featherweight championship. Megan Anderson had a highlight reel one-punch knockout of Norma Dumont, and after a one-fight buffer, Felicia Spencer earned a first-round TKO via referee stoppage with ground and pound.
In Spencer’s mind, she did everything she had to do to line herself up to fight Nunes for the belt next, largely because she holds one key advantage of Anderson — she beat Anderson by first-round submission last May.
“I didn’t think that it was going to be such a big debate, to be honest,” Spencer told Helwani. “It kind of surprised me after the fact. … I think it’s pretty obvious — I beat Megan less than a year ago. … I’m a fan of Megan. I think she’ll get a title shot. I’ll give her a title shot next. When I’m the champion, I’ll give her the rematch at that point. I think I earned it.”
Although she was aware that Anderson had put on a strong performance of her own, Spencer was already in the zone and focused on her own fight to come.
“To me, it was just a matter of showing up, doing my job impressively — which I think I did — and taking my shot at the title next. … I needed to make a statement, and I really wanted to make it as violent as possible — show a little bit of a different side that people haven’t seen as much of.”
Despite Nunes winning 10 straight — seven straight in title fights — Spencer feels like she learned a lot in Nunes’ most recent fight against Germaine de Randamie.
“It was a good performance, [but] we were starting to see an Amanda that was just taking people out in the first round a lot, just crazy finishes,” said Spencer. “It was a good reminder that she’s a human being. Just like Cris [Cyborg]. She’s has a gameplan, and sometimes things go really, really well when you have a game plan and you take people out in the first round. Sometimes you just have to grind through it.
“She doesn’t have a perfect record, she’s not unbeatable,” she continued. “I know she’s done a lot of [great] things in the last part of her career, but there’s definitely a lot of things I see that I can capitalize on.”
Nunes last two fights have been at bantamweight, but with the double champion actively calling for a 145-pound title defense as recently as Saturday night, Spencer feels like she’s ready to step into the spotlight. Despite being only nine fights into her pro career and three fights into her UFC career, Spencer has already won the Invicta FC women’s featherweight title and took Cyborg the distance — something only Spencer and Holly Holm have done since 2008.
“I’m ready,” said Spencer. “If I wait another year, is it really going to be that much different? I just came off another great fight camp, feel better than ever.”
After posting a first-round stoppage Saturday that earned her a performance-of-the-night bonus, Megan Anderson said she was in a perfect spot to land a chance to challenge featherweight champ Amanda Nunes.
Her biggest challenge to that opportunity was Felicia Spencer, who fought later on the on the card and posted her own first-round stoppage.
Nunes tweeted that she liked both contenders and would leave it up to UFC president Dana White.
Anderson said Monday she has an idea how that decision will turn out.
“If they want me to fight Amanda next, I’m going to be 100 percent ready,” Anderson said. “But I also wouldn’t be surprised if they gave it to Felicia. I do understand she has a win over me.
“I have a feeling that they’re going to give it to Felicia. They seem to like her, and they like to give her those types of opportunities. If that’s the case, I feel she’s an incredible athlete, she’s a top competitor and I wish her all the best. But it’s going to happen when it’s going to happen, so there’s no point in me worrying about it. I’m not going to lose any sleep over me worrying if they don’t give me a title shot. I know it’s going to come when it’s supposed to happen. If they don’t give me the shot, I want to keep consistently fighting and racking up the wins and showcasing why I should be fighting for the title.”
Anderson said Nunes will be a tougher opponent for Spencer than was Cris Cyborg, who won a unanimous decision over Spencer on July 27, 2019.
“Amanda is very physically strong and she’s very well-rounded, so I feel like it’s going to be a tougher fight for Felicia than the Cyborg fight,” Anderson said.
Deron Winn should have some extra comfort when he faces Gerald Meerschaert at UFC 248. A familiar face will be near the Octagon — Winn’s AKA teammate Daniel Cormier.
The former two-division UFC champion will be serving as an analyst for the ESPN+ pay-per-view event. Winn considers Cormier to be a big brother. He also assists Cormier with the Gilroy High School wrestling team.
Both wrestlers have similar builds and some have even called Winn a younger version of Cormier. But the 30-year-old Winn said on Monday he wouldn’t mind if the comparisons came to an end.
“Me and DC have to skate the fine line of me just being all DC hype,” Winn said. “I can’t just be like riding his coattails all the time. I have to be my own guy. That’s OK that people call me mini DC. I’m probably never going to get away from that.”
Winning on Saturday would certainly help Winn make a name for himself. He’s coming off a loss last October to Darren Stewart, one where Winn missed weight for the middleweight bout.
He said Meerschaert, who is 29-12, has been playing head games through social media, creating Instagram posts aimed toward the inexperienced Winn (6-1).
That’s a big mistake, Winn offered.
“That’s all fun and games until we get into the cage on Saturday night and I’m smashing your face in,” Winn said. “So you can laugh and make all those jokes until you’re getting smashed. … I’m far from stressed from this dude.”