Judo Gene LeBell

Gene LeBell, regarded as America’s first martial arts sensation before parlaying his athleticism into a career as a professional wrestler, actor and stuntman, has died at the age of 89, his family confirmed.

LeBell, who had been in declining health for the past eight months, died in his sleep at home in Sherman Oaks, with his loving wife of years, Midge, by his side on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022.

“He was larger than life, and he was so kind. If you said you liked his shirt, he would take it off and give it to you,” Midge LeBell said. “I am devastated. It’s very difficult. I have been with him for so many years. I don’t know how you go on without him. I am so used to him being there. He’s not hurting anymore. He was a wonderful man and was so good to so many. There is nothing bad you can really say about him. He was a good person, so I am sure he is doing well where he is at now. I am sure he is happy now. I want to thank everybody in the world who has said such wonderful things about him and all the prayers that were said for him. I am thanking them for both he and I.”

Midge and Gene were married twice. The second time, they said their vows on a motorcycle as Gene performed a wheelie with Midge holding on, followed close behind by the minister on a four-wheeler. The couple wore matching red, white, and blue wedding attire and Midge wore flowers in her helmet.

“Judo Gene” LeBell was revered for his strength and tenacity and often referred to as “the toughest man alive.” Beneath the rugged demeanor, the “Godfather of Grappling” was also known for his warmth and generosity. For years, he taught martial arts in Southern California.

Born Ivan Gene LeBell on Oct. 9, 1932, in Los Angeles, LeBell grew up at the famed Olympic Auditorium, where his mother, Aileen Eaton, was a boxing and wrestling promoter from 1942 to 1980. Eaton was the first woman inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

“Fighters practically raised the young LeBell at the Main Street Gym where he started going at 7 years old,” Midge LeBell said. He once sparred with legendary boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as a teenager. He also trained with wrestlers Lou Thesz, and Karl Gotch while growing up.

It’s no wonder LeBell flocked to combat sports and martial arts.

In 1954 and ’55, LeBell won the AAU National Judo Championships heavyweight and overall divisions. He then embarked on his professional wrestling career, implementing his years of judo and catch wrestling and helping popularize the holds and submission attempts that remain in the sports entertainment industry to this day.

LeBell famously wore a pink gi and would invite anybody to take a turn on the mat with him if they had anything to say about it. The pink uniform originated from a trip to Japan where a pair of red socks, or shorts, made their way into the laundry, turning his white uniform to pink. With only one uniform, he wore it and beat the competition. The newspaper the following day had a story saying the American radish wins. LeBell thought it was because he had red hair before someone told him it was because of his pink attire. He wore the pink gi from then on.

LeBell was a pioneer in the sport of MMA before there was MMA. One of the first martial artists to train in wrestling, judo, boxing, karate, and other combat arts, he blended the techniques into an efficient fighting style. In 1963, in Salt Lake City, LeBell took on boxer Milo Savage the fifth-ranked light heavyweight boxer in the world. Kenpo Master Ed Parker asked LeBell to take on the fighter after a challenge was issued stating that a boxer could easily beat any martial artist. LeBell wore a gi for the fight, and Savage had his body greased to make it difficult for LeBell to grab him. LeBell was victorious, choking out the boxer in the fourth round, sparking a riot in the auditorium.

Highly decorated in judo and jiu-jitsu, LeBell also began teaching grappling to notable names: Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Benny “the Jet” Urquidez, Roddy Piper, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Gokor Chivichyan, Steve McQueen, George Reeves, Robert Duvall, John Saxon and many more.

LeBell’s top student, Gokor Chivichyan, started training with him at the age of 16 and now runs the Hayastan MMA Academy in North Hollywood. “I look at Gene as my second father. He had a big heart. He was a good man. We are going to miss him a lot,” Chivichyan said of his teacher.

In 2006, LeBell even welcomed an unsuspecting Daily News reporter to the Hayastan Academy for a lesson that went about as you would think when LeBell started it with his common non-serious threat: “Alright, you bums! Let’s get working, or I’ll burn your houses down.”

In the 1960s, LeBell began acting and doing stunts, including in three movies with Elvis Presley. On the set of “The Green Hornet,” LeBell struck up a friendship with martial arts icon Bruce Lee, and they began cross-training, with LeBell showing Lee his pain-inflicting holds, locks and throws, and Lee demonstrating his lightning-quick kicks and strikes. Lee and LeBell had a rocky start to their friendship after LeBell hoisted Lee on his back in a fireman’s carry without Lee’s cooperation. Eventually, LeBell put Lee down, and the pair became friends.

LeBell’s students included AnnMaria De Mars, the first American to ever win a gold medal at the World Judo Championships in 1984, and De Mars’ daughter, Ronda Rousey, who became the first American woman to earn an Olympic medal in judo by winning bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before embarking on her illustrious MMA career.

“Very, very few people believed in me at the very beginning of my MMA career, you could literally count them on one hand. He was one of the people trying to convince my mom to let me do it, but he was also privately trying to convince me not to do it. He totally supported me, he was telling my mom to let me do it, and he was telling me, ‘I’ve won every R-E-A-L fight and never made a penny and lost every R-E-E-L fight and I am comfortably retired, think about that kid.’ He said he would help me out with this MMA stuff, but he was always trying to get me stunt jobs and to meet the right people in the stunt works so I would have somewhere to go after fighting. He not only tried to help me get into fighting, but he also helped me think about life afterward before anybody would even entertain the thought. He was already trying to get me out and convince me that I am more than just a fighter and capable of so much more,” Rousey said of her longtime friend and mentor, LeBell.

Rousey’s husband, Travis Browne, a former top-ranked UFC heavyweight fighter, met LeBell before meeting his future wife. LeBell gave Browne one of the coveted patches that he always had on hand to make a fan smile. Browne put a patch featuring Rousey and Lebell in his gym bag, and there it remained for five years before he met, fell in love with and married Rousey. “Uncle Gene let him (Browne) know all about me before we met. He put me over to my future husband before we ever met,” Rousey said.

LeBell also helped Rousey secure her nickname “Rowdy” from his former black belt student Rowdy Roddy Piper. “He told Rowdy Piper that he would stretch him if he didn’t let me use it,” Rousey said with a chuckle as she recounted the story.

As Rousey rose to prominence in the UFC as the first woman on its roster and its first female champion, LeBell was always in her corner, often seen with a stopwatch to record her first-round finishes. She has a tattoo of her winning fight times on her right wrist down her forearm. “I got a tattoo of how many seconds it took me to win all my (MMA) matches. My first match, the official time, and his time differed by two seconds, and I was like (expletive) the official time, Gene’s time is what matters, so I tattooed his time.” Rousey and mother De Mars gifted LeBell a new stopwatch for his 80th birthday in 2012.

In a story in the L.A. Daily News in 2011 on Rousey’s breakout potential in the sport, nearly a year and a half before she made her UFC debut, LeBell offered his assessment of his pupil.

“She gets in that ring, and she owns it mentally,” said LeBell, then 78, who couldn’t resist touching upon his pro wrestling background and growling to describe Rousey colorfully. “She says, ‘This is my house. This is my bedroom, my kitchen, my garage and my front room,’ LeBell continued.

“She’s gonna annihilate you. She’s gonna mutilate you. She’s gonna assassinate you.”

In the end, LeBell had appeared in more than 1,000 films, shows and commercials. His roles went from such television series as “Mission: Impossible,” “I Spy,” “The Wild Wild West,” “Baretta,” “Married … with Children,” and “Baywatch” to feature films “Raging Bull,” “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins” and “Ed Wood.” One of his last appearances was in “Men In Black II” in 2002. LeBell was presented with the Taurus Lifetime Achievement Award on May 13, 2017 for his outstanding contribution to the world of action feature films. The Taurus World Stunt Awards are held yearly to honor stunt performers in movies.

It has been said that Brad Pitt’s character of stuntman Cliff Booth in the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood,” which included a memorable sequence with Lee, was an homage to LeBell.

LeBell was also at the center of one of the most highly anticipated fights of the 1970s. The “War of the Worlds” pitted heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, against Japanese professional wrestling star Antonio Inoki on June 26, 1976, in Tokyo, with LeBell working as the referee. Watched by more than a billion people worldwide, the fight ended in a draw, with LeBell’s score (71-71) determining the outcome after one judge scored it for Ali and the other for Inoki.

Into his 80s, LeBell was still working as a Nevada and California Athletic Commission MMA judge, scoring fights ringside with his ever-present bag of candy, which he always shared, tucked inside a larger bag resting at his feet.

Tributes came from around the world following the announcement of his passing, including on Twitter from Chuck Norris, Triple H, Titus Welliver and others.

LeBell is survived by his wife, children, and grandchildren.

***

One day in 1966, stuntman Gene LeBell was called to the set of the television series “The Green Hornet” to deal with Bruce Lee, the future martial arts superstar, who played Kato, the crime-fighting Hornet’s sidekick. Lee, it seems, was hurting the other stuntmen.

The stunt coordinator asked LeBell — a former national judo champion and professional wrestler — to teach Lee a lesson, perhaps with a headlock.

LeBell would later recall in many interviews that he went further: He picked Lee up, slung him over his back and ran around the set as Lee shouted, “Put me down or I’ll kill you!” When LeBell relented, he was surprised that Lee didn’t attack him. Instead they came to appreciate their different skill sets, and LeBell became one of Lee’s favorite stuntmen.

They also trained together, with LeBell’s expertise as a grappler meeting Lee’s fist-flashing kung fu brilliance.

LeBell never became as famous as Lee, who died in 1973, but into his early 80s — when he played, among other roles, a corpse falling from a coffin in an episode of the TV series “Castle” — he remained busy as one of Hollywood’s most soughtafter stuntmen. At 20, he was walloped by John Wayne in “Big Jim McLain.”

Nine years later, he was kicked by Elvis Presley in “Blue Hawaii.”

And he was knocked around a few times by James Caan.

“Every star in Hollywood has beaten me up,” LeBell told AARP magazine in 2015. “The more you get hit in the nose, the richer you are. The man who enjoys his work never goes to work. So I’ve had a lot of fun doing stunts.”

LeBell died Aug. 9 at his home in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 89. His death was announced by Kellie Cunningham, his trustee and business manager, who did not specify the cause.

Ivan Gene LeBell was born Oct. 9, 1932, in Los Angeles. His mother, Aileen (Goldstein) LeBell, promoted boxing and wrestling matches at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles; his father, Maurice, was an osteopath and diet doctor who died after being paralyzed in a swimming accident in 1941. His mother later married Cal Eaton, with whom she promoted fights.

LeBell started to learn to fight at 7, when his mother sent him to the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

“I went up to Ed ‘Strangler’ Lewis and said, ‘I want to be a wrestler,’” LeBell was quoted as saying by the Slam Wrestling website in 2005. Lewis, he recalled, asked him: “Do you want to roll? Do you want to do Greco-Roman? Do you want to do freestyle? Or do you want to grapple?”

“What’s grappling?” Le-Bell asked.

“That’s a combination of everything,” Lewis said. “You can hit ‘em, eye-gouge ‘em.”

He was sold. He started learning judo at 12 (although his mother told The Los Angeles Times in 1955 that he had been inspired a little later, in high school, when he was beaten up by a smaller teenager who knew judo), and by 1954 his proficiency had grown to an elite level: He won both the heavyweight class and the overall title in that year’s national American Amateur Union championships. He successfully defended his title the next year at the Olympic Auditorium, in front of his mother.

Realizing that judo was no way to make a living, he shifted to professional wrestling later in 1955.

LeBell never became a big name in the ring or even a great wrestler, either under his own name or in a mask as “the Hangman.” But he gained notice in his role as an enforcer, in which he compelled other wrestlers to stick to the script, even when they didn’t want to.

His work as a stuntman began in earnest in the 1960s and continued on TV series such as “Route 66,” “I Spy,” “The Incredible Hulk” and “The Fall Guy,” in which Lee Majors starred as a film stuntman. He also appeared in movies such as “Planet of the Apes” (1968), “The Towering Inferno” (1974) and the Steven Seagal crime drama “Out for Justice” (1991).

LeBell had a long list of acting credits as well, mostly in bit parts. He often played referees and sometimes a thug, a henchman, a bartender or, as in “Raging Bull” (1990), a ring announcer.

LeBell also worked over the years with many wrestlers, including Rowdy Roddy Piper and Ronda Rousey, and trained with Chuck Norris, the martial artist and actor.

More recently director Quentin Tarantino used Le-Bell’s initial encounter with Lee on the set of “The Green Hornet” as the basis for a scene in his 2019 film, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” in which Brad Pitt, as a stuntman, threw the Lee character into a car.

LeBell is survived by his wife, Eleanor (Martindale) LeBell, who is known as Midge and whom he married twice and divorced once; his son, David; his daughter, Monica Pandis; his stepson, Danny Martindale; his stepdaughter, Stacey Martindale; and four grandchildren. His brother, Mike, a wrestling promoter, died in 2009. His first marriage ended with his wife’s death; he also married and divorced two other women.

[New York Times]

***

Gene LeBell, the colorful judo champion, wrestler and stuntman who trained Bruce Lee, fought Elvis Presley and John Wayne in the movies and was an inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has died. He was 89.

LeBell died in his sleep early Tuesday morning at his home in Sherman Oaks, his trustee and business manager, Kellie Cunningham, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Affectionately known as the “Godfather of Grappling” and “Judo” Gene LeBell, he was a two-time AAU national judo champion early in his career. Later, he taught his masterful submission techniques to Lee, Chuck Norris, pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, MMA fighter Ronda Rousey and many, many others.

With his legendary strong handshake, red hair, weathered face and battered nose, LeBell was universally admired by fighters and wrestlers around the world.

By his own admission, “every star in Hollywood beat me up” when he was a stuntman and actor. Wayne punched him square in the face in Big Jim McLain (1952), Presley karate-kicked him between the eyes in Blue Hawaii (1961), Gene Hackman went toe-to-toe with him in Loose Cannon (1990), and Burt Reynolds kicked him where it hurts in Hard Time (1998).

Even Steve Martin roughed him up and threw him into a swimming pool in The Jerk (1979).

“The more you get hit in the nose, the richer you are,” LeBell liked to say.

On ABC’s The Green Hornet, he met Lee for the first time and forged a friendship with the Hong Kong martial arts star despite a rocky introduction.

During taping, it was reported that Lee was beating up on the stuntmen, prompting stunt coordinator Bennie Dobbins to bring in LeBell to help set the actor straight by “putting him in a headlock or something.”

In his 2005 autobiography The Godfather of Grappling, LeBell remembered grabbing Lee, who then “started making all those noises that he became famous for … but he didn’t try to counter me, so I think he was more surprised than anything else.”

He then hoisted Lee over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran around the set as Lee shouted, “Put me down or I’ll kill you.”

To LeBell, the altercation revealed that Lee’s repertoire was without submission maneuvers, armbars and takedowns. “He came to my school and worked out for over a year, privately,” LeBell said, “and I went and worked out with him at his school.

“I taught him judo and wrestling and … finishing holds that he later worked into some movies. And he showed me a lot of his kicks and striking.”

In The Way of the Dragon (1972), Lee polished off Norris with a chokehold, and in Enter the Dragon (1973), he employed an armbar finish to submit Sammo Hung.

When Quentin Tarantino made Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), he used LeBell as an influence for the character of stunt double Cliff Booth (Oscar winner Pitt) and adapted the LeBell/Lee confrontation into a much-debated fight scene between Booth and Lee (Mike Moh in the movie).

Booth also had an accusation of murder hovering over his head, which might have been a veiled reference to LeBell being charged in the murder of private investigator Robert Duke Hall in 1976. LeBell was acquitted of that charge, and his conviction as an accessory to the crime was later overturned.

Ivan Gene LeBell was born in Los Angeles on Oct. 9, 1932. His mother, Aileen Eaton, promoted fights at the Olympic Auditorium and was the first woman inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

LeBell moved to Japan to study judo and won U.S. titles in the 1950s before segueing to pro wrestling, learning the art of catch wrestling (a grappling style) from Ed “Strangler” Lewis, Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch.

From 1962-82, he ran the Los Angeles territory of the National Wrestling Alliance with his brother Mike.

The combat sport pioneer participated in what some credit as the first televised sanctioned mixed martial arts match on Dec. 2, 1963, in Salt Lake City when he took on light heavyweight boxer Milo Savage.

The impetus for the bout came from an article written in Rogue magazine by Jim Beck.

Under the headline “The Judo Bums,” Beck wrote that “judo … is a complete fraud … Every judo man I’ve ever met was a braggart and a show-off … Any boxer can beat a judo man.” Beck put up $1,000 to prove it.

LeBell said he was chosen by his peers because “you’re the most sadistic bastard we know,” and was put up against Beck’s choice of opponent — Savage.At a TV interview the day before the bout, LeBell choked out the interviewer, then screamed into the camera, “Come to the arena tomorrow night and watch me annihilate, mutilate and assassinate your local hero because one martial artist can beat any 10 boxers.”

The bout lasted four rounds and ended when LeBell submitted Savage to a rear naked chokehold. The crowd threw debris and chairs into the ring, and Savage had to be revived by LeBell’s cornermen.

“It sounds like I’m blowing my own horn, and I don’t mean to — I represented all the martial arts. I never said I was doing only judo or karate or kenpo,” he said. “I never said one art is better than the others. They’re all good. You should learn everything. You’re not a complete martial artist unless you do everything.”

He was rewarded when he fought Elvis in Blue Hawaii. The King was so happy with his work, he gave him a $100 bill. “I didn’t have any money then,” he said. “I used to eat every other day. So, I went out and I had the biggest fillet mignon and even tipped the waiter.”

He also did stunts for Presley’s Paradise, Hawaiian Style five years later.

While serving as the stunt coordinator on The Munsters, he appeared on a 1964 episode as grappler Tarzan McGirk in a bout against “The Masked Marvel” (Fred Gwynne’s Herman Munster in disguise).

As a stuntman across five decades on the small screen, LeBell popped up in everything from Gomer Pyle: USMC, Mission: Impossible, Ironside, Batman and The Beverly Hillbillies in the 1960s to The Six Million Dollar Man and Starsky & Hutch in the 1970s, Taxi, The Fall Guy and Married … With Children in the 1980s and even Reno 911! in the 2000s.

On the big screen, he did stunts, often uncredited, for the original Planet of the Apes movies, the 1974 disaster films Earthquake and The Towering Inferno and the Naked Gun flicks, plus King Kong (1976), Airplane! (1980), Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985), RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Independence Day (1996), Bruce Almighty (2003) and Smoking Aces (2006).

In  Raging Bull (1980), he had a speaking role as the ring announcer for one of Jake LaMotta’s (Robert De Niro) fights. Four years earlier, he was in another ring, as the referee in the wacky Muhammad Ali vs. wrestler Antonio Inoki match in Tokyo.

Legend has it that as stunt coordinator on Steven Seagal’s Out of Justice (1991), LeBell was involved in an on-set altercation with the actor and allegedly choked him out.

LeBell never denied the incident, though Seagal did.

In Bloodfist IV: Die Trying (1992), he attempted to stop legendary kickboxer Don Wilson from hot-wiring his car and, naturally, finished up battered and bruised in a pile of garbage cans.

He trained mixed martial artist and WWE wrestler Rousey and her mother, judo champion AnnMaria De Mars.

“Ronda is the best woman I have ever been associated with, as far as fighting goes,” he said in 2018. “So, when you see Ronda, tell her Gene sent you, that Uncle Gene sent you. But don’t get her mad. Don’t get her mad.”

He authored more than 12 books, including Gene LeBell’s Grappling World — The Encyclopaedia of Finishing Holds, Gene LeBell’s Handbook of Judo, Pro-Wrestling Finishing Holds and The Grappling Club Master, and filmed his techniques for instructional videos.

Survivors include his wife, Eleanor (he called her “Midge”); children Monica and David; stepchildren Danny and Stacey; and grandchildren Daniel, Tyler and Nicholas.

As for his work as a stunt double, LeBell revealed he loved that work because “they don’t even look at you, talk to you, but then you go and turn a car over, set yourself on fire and all of a sudden, the star comes up and says, ‘Hey, that’s great,’ and then you’re buds.”

BJ Penn won't fight again (in the UFC)

UFC president Dana White told ESPN today that former two-division world champion and UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn will not compete again in the UFC.

White had previously agreed to let Penn, who is on a seven-fight losing streak, face Nik Lentz at an event later this year, but that is no longer happening.

“He won’t fight again, that’s it,” White told ESPN. “After what I saw in that video, BJ needs to, you know, he needs to focus on his personal life before he thinks about fighting.”

White is referring to recent video posted by TMZ in which Penn is shown getting into a street fight on the Big Island and getting knocked out.

Penn has also been caught on video fighting outside of a strip club on Oahu recently.

Miocic reclaims belt from Cormier

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Stipe Miocic waited over a year to face Daniel Cormier again, and his plan for the rematch didn't start to work until they were deep in the fourth round.

That's when the patient, determined firefighter from Cleveland finally got his revenge -- and suddenly reclaimed his UFC heavyweight title.

Miocic stopped Cormier with a barrage of punches in the fourth, taking back his championship belt with a comeback victory at UFC 241 on Saturday night.

Miocic (19-3) lost the first two rounds on every judge's scorecard in his rematch with the 40-year-old Cormier (22-2). After making some progress in the third, Miocic steadily came forward through Cormier's blows in the fourth and finally hurt the champion with a punch to the body.

Miocic then landed several powerhouse right hands to Cormier's head, buckling his knees and eventually forcing referee Herb Dean to stop the fight with 51 seconds left in the fourth round. The 6-foot-5 behemoth leaped onto the wall of the cage and celebrated with fans still stunned by the fight's sudden turn.

"I saw some weakness in that third round," Miocic said. "And then in that fourth round, I caught him with that right hand. Thank God, because he's tough."

Miocic reigned as the UFC's heavyweight champion for 26 months, and he defended his belt a UFC-record three consecutive times before Cormier dethroned him in July 2018 with a first-round stoppage victory. Despite Cormier's decisive victory, Miocic campaigned for a rematch and eventually received it when Cormier said he "deserved it."

Cormier's quick hands were the difference early in the rematch. The 5-foot-11 Cormier also picked up his much larger opponent and slammed him onto the canvas during the first round, showing off the elite athleticism lurking in his dad bod.

"He got hit with everything but the kitchen sink, and he managed to stay in the fight," UFC President Dana White said of Miocic.

UFC 232: Nunes stuns Cyborg, Jon Jones stops Gustafsson

Amanda Nunes pulled off one of the most surprising wins in mixed martial arts history when she left the world’s most feared female fighter face-down on the canvas.

Jon Jones merely did exactly what everyone expects him to do whenever he manages to get out of his own way.

Nunes knocked out Cris “Cyborg” Justino 51 seconds into the first round at UFC 232 on Saturday night, ending the featherweight champion’s 13-year unbeaten run in spectacular fashion.

Jones also reclaimed his light heavyweight title in his return from a 17-month cage absence. The two-time champ stopped Alexander Gustafsson with strikes on the ground in the third round.

Nunes (17-4), the UFC’s bantamweight champion, made history after she fearlessly moved up 10 pounds to challenge Justino (20-2), widely considered the most accomplished female fighter in MMA.

The undersized underdog dominated her fellow Brazilian from the start, buckling Justino’s knees and knocking her down twice before landing the overhand right that ended it.

“Nothing was going to stop me from what I wanted to do tonight,” Nunes said. “When she connected with a couple of punches, I just said, ‘I’m going to walk right through her.’”

Nunes is the third fighter in UFC history to hold two title belts simultaneously, joining Conor McGregor and Daniel Cormier.

“I knew this was happening, I told you all!” Nunes said. “I’m the new ‘champ-champ.’ I said that before, and now I’m just achieving this dream.”

Just six days after the UFC moved the entire 232 card from Las Vegas to the famous Forum south of downtown Los Angeles, Jones (23-1, 1 no-contest) closed the show with a methodical dismantling of Gustafsson (18-5). The bout was a rematch of Jones’ toughest fight, a thrilling decision in 2013 over Gustafsson.

But in Jones’ first bout since completing his second drug-related suspension, the star picked apart Gustafsson with kicks in the first two rounds. He got a takedown in the third and finished the fight with several brutal shots to Gustafsson’s head on the ground.

“It was always about being the champion again,” Jones said. It was never about the opponent, nothing personal. I’m just happy with my belt, and for now I want to go back to the gym and improve my game.”

The UFC made the extraordinary decision to move its show 280 miles to California during a holiday week just to keep Jones on the card. The former champion recently tested positive for low levels of a banned steroid, but California regulatory officials didn’t consider the result serious enough to keep the long-troubled star out of the octagon, while Nevada’s commission did.

The 31-year-old Jones had fought only twice in the previous 47 months, losing an enormous chunk of his fighting prime due to his misbehavior. He held the UFC’s 205-pound title twice before, but had it stripped both times.

Jones returned from his first doping suspension with a stoppage of Cormier in July 2017 to reclaim his light heavyweight title, but lost the belt again after testing positive for steroids.

A capacity crowd of 15,862 in Southern California watched another groundbreaking achievement by Nunes, the ferocious brawler who calls herself “The Lioness.” Nunes also knocked out Ronda Rousey in less than a minute two years ago, and she has victories over bantamweight champion Miesha Tate and future 125-pound champion Valentina Shevchenko.

Nunes’ punching power is often too much for her male sparring partners, and she carved up Justino with astonishing ease despite a size disadvantage. Justino had won 20 consecutive fights since her MMA debut in 2005, and she had dominated since the inception of the UFC’s 145-pound division, which was created largely as a showcase for Cyborg’s talent.

“I know I hit hard, but sometimes you never know,” Nunes said. “When I hit her, I could see she got rung a little bit. I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to be fast, I’m going to move my head, and I know I’m going to get a knockout.’”

Earlier, Australian featherweight prospect Alexander Volkanovski (19-1) won his 16th straight bout in the PPV opener, stopping veteran Chad Mendes with right hands in the second round of a back-and-forth bout. Michael Chiesa also won his welterweight debut with a second-round submission of former champ Carlos Condit, who lost his fifth straight fight.

Former UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn tapped out for the first time in his MMA career, losing to Brazilian jiu-jitsu whiz Ryan Hall on a heel hook in the first round. Penn (16-13-2), an MMA pioneer who turned 40 this month, is 0-6-1 in his last seven fights since 2010.

Despite the late move to LA, the UFC sold out the Forum after just six days of ticket sales. The crowd included Justino friend Halle Berry, Dolph Lundgren, David Spade, NL MVP Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers, Travis Barker, Mick Foley and Amber Valletta.

brawl follows Khabib's win over McGregor

LAS VEGAS – A bout that was made when Conor McGregor attacked a bus ended with lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov leaping over the Octagon at T-Mobile Arena after a brilliant performance in the main event of UFC 229 and brawling with Dillon Danis, a member of McGregor’s team, at cageside.

Nurmagomedov submitted McGregor with a rear naked choke at 3:03 of the fourth before a melee broke out at cageside.

According to UFC broadcaster Joe Rogan, Danis was taunting Nurmagomedov from cageside, though Rogan couldn’t hear what Danis said.

A huge scrum of people got together near the Octagon, including police officers, members of both teams and members of the Nevada Athletic Commission. It was against the fence where fans were seated. Nurmagomedov and Danis exchanged punches as people attempted to separate them.

After the scrum was broken up after about 10 minutes, UFC president Dana White said to Nurmagomedov in the cage, “People are going to get arrested tonight.” Nurmagomedov responded, “Put me in jail. No problem.”

White said to Nurmagomedov, “This is what I believe: If I put this belt on you, everybody’s going to start throwing s–t into the Octagon.”

Not long after Nurmagomedov went after Danis, a man in a black T-shirt got into the Octagon and threw a least one punch at McGregor. Then, a man in a red T-shirt jumped over the cage and landed four punches on McGregor. It did not appear that McGregor ever left the cage. According to White, three members of Nurmagomedov’s team were arrested.

Courmier KOs Miocic

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Daniel Cormier knocked out the UFC heavyweight champion, argued with a professional wrestler and left the octagon dancing with glee and perfect balance, thanks to one championship belt on each arm.

There will never be another Saturday night like it for the 39-year-old former amateur wrestler who stands on the pinnacle of the UFC.

Make that two pinnacles.

Cormier added the heavyweight championship to his light heavyweight title when he stopped Stipe Miocic in dramatic fashion during the first round of their superfight at UFC 226.

Late in a lively opening round, Cormier (21-1, 1 no-contest) abruptly flattened the UFC's long-reigning heavyweight kingpin with a right elbow out of a clinch. He finished Miocic (18-3) on the ground with 27 seconds left in the round, landing several shots to the defenseless champion's head.

Cormier became the second fighter in UFC history to hold two championship belts simultaneously. Conor McGregor was the UFC's featherweight champ in 2016 when he took the lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez.

"I was a heavyweight for a long time, and I left the division," Cormier said. "I never knew what I could become, but tonight I got the answer. I'm a two-division champion, baby!"

Cormier, a former Strikeforce heavyweight champion who moved down in weight to avoid fighting a good friend, has never lost to anyone except Jon Jones, the star-crossed former light heavyweight champion who beat him twice. The second victory last summer was changed to a no-contest when Jones failed a doping test, and he remains out of the sport.

Cormier is on top of it with less than a year to go until reaching his self-imposed retirement age of 40.

"I'm 39 years old, and I've been second many times," Cormier said. "But today, I have accomplished everything I ever wanted. From crying in this octagon almost a year ago, to leaving as the heavyweight champion."

After beating Miocic, Cormier engaged in a bit of clearly planned theatrics with Brock Lesnar, the professional wrestler and former UFC heavyweight champion. Cormier called Lesnar into the cage, and Lesnar shoved Cormier in the chest while the fighters traded insults to hype a potential future bout.

"Push me now, (and) you're going to sleep later," Cormier yelled at Lesnar. "Your days are in the past. In the stone age."

Lesnar, likely the biggest pay-per-view draw in UFC history, is widely expected to return to MMA early next year. White confirmed he'll book Cormier against Lesnar as soon as Lesnar has completed the requisite drug testing, but Cormier said he would like to defend his 205-pound title later this year before fighting Lesnar.

GSP vs. Bisping

NEW YORK — So much has changed in the UFC in the last four years. The one thing that hasn’t is that Georges St-Pierre is a world champion.

Well, there is one difference: The long-time welterweight kingpin returned after a nearly four-year break and choked out Michael Bisping on Saturday in the main event of UFC 217 at Madison Square Garden to claim the middleweight title.

St-Pierre walked away from the sport in 2013 after defeating Johny Hendricks via a controversial decision in Las Vegas. He took more punishment than he was used to, the pressure he felt was about to make his head explode and he felt most of those he fought were cheating.

On Saturday, though, it was a replay to his heyday, though he was just a bit bigger and a lot more muscular. He survived several hard Bisping right hands, but finished him after cracking Bisping with a counter left.

Mayweather vs. McGregor

[8/26/17] LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Floyd Mayweather Jr. put on a show in the last fight of his spectacular career.

Conor McGregor didn't do so badly, either.

Mayweather figured out a 50th opponent Saturday night, letting McGregor have the early rounds before stalking him late and leaving the mixed martial artist defenseless and exhausted on the ropes in the 10th round.

It was a smashing end to a career that earned Mayweather more money than any fighter before him -- including an estimated $200 million for his last bout.

"I think we gave the fans what they wanted to see," Mayweather said. "I owed them for the (Manny) Pacquiao fight."

Mayweather battered McGregor around the ring in the later rounds, finally stopping him at 1:05 of the 10th with a flurry of punches that forced referee Robert Byrd to stop the fight.

Before a pro-McGregor crowd that roared every time the UFC fighter landed a punch, Mayweather methodically broke him down after a slow start to score his first real stoppage in nearly a decade. He did it in what he said would be his final fight, against a man who had never been in a professional boxing match before.

McGregor boxed surprisingly well but after landing some shots in the early rounds, his punches seemed to lose their steam. Mayweather then went on the pursuit. McGregor backpedaled most of the way, stopping only to throw an occasional flurry as Mayweather wore him down.

"I turned him into a Mexican tonight," McGregor said. "He fought like a Mexican."

Though Byrd cautioned McGregor for hitting behind the head on two different occasions, there were no real fouls in the fight and McGregor never tried to revert to any MMA tactics.

McGregor had vowed to knock Mayweather out within two rounds, and he won the early rounds with movement and punches to the head. But the tide of the fight turned in the fourth round as Mayweather seemed to figure out what he had to do and began aggressively stalking McGregor.

Mayweather was credited with landing more than half his punches, as he solved McGregor's defense after a few rounds. Ringside stats showed him landing 170 of 320 punches to 111 of 430 for McGregor.

In a fight so intriguing that it cost $10,000 for ringside seats, McGregor turned in a respectable performance for someone in his first fight. He switched from southpaw to conventional at times and used his jab well, but Mayweather's experience and his ring savvy paid off as he executed his game plan to perfection.

[8/12/17] McGregor says Mayweather will be unconscious in less than four rounds.

UFC 214: Jones defeats Cormier to (re)take title

Jones reclaimed his UFC light heavyweight title by stopping Daniel Cormier in the third round with a vicious head kick and a finish on the ground at UFC 214, completing his rocky journey back to the top after 2 1/2 years of drama with his 14th consecutive victory.

He fended off a stiff challenge from Cormier (19-2), who held the belt for most of the past two years while Jones (23-1) dealt with self-inflicted setbacks outside the cage. His title belt has been stripped twice, and he endured a yearlong suspension for a doping test failure before returning to beat Cormier for the second time.

After 2 1/2 rounds of even, high-level striking, Jones landed a left head kick that caught Cormier leaning in. The champion staggered backward and then around the cage with Jones in pursuit, and Jones finished the fight on the ground with a series of merciless strikes.

Jones’ next opponent for the 205-pound belt could be Swiss sensation Volkan Oezdemir, who kicked off the pay-per-view show with a sensational 22-second knockout of Britain’s Jimi Manuwa.

Earlier, Cris “Cyborg” Justino became a UFC champion for the first time at Honda Center, stopping Tonya Evinger in the third round to win the vacant featherweight belt. Tyron Woodley also defended his welterweight title with a clear decision over Demian Maia, thoroughly frustrating the Brazilian jiu-jitsu master in a fight that drew loud boos from the Honda Center crowd.

Former welterweight champion Robbie Lawler squeaked out a unanimous decision victory over Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in another compelling matchup on the UFC’s most stacked card of the summer.

After Oezdemir got the Anaheim fans on their feet with a vicious first-round stoppage for his fifth consecutive victory, Lawler (28-11) and Cerrone kept them up with an entertaining three-round striking exhibition between two of the toughest veterans in the sport. Cerrone (32-9) shrugged after the judges favored Lawler in two of the three rounds.

Jones’ victory thrilled a crowd that was deflated after Woodley defended his welterweight belt with a strong technical performance against the 39-year-old Maia, a vaunted jiu-jitsu specialist from Brazil. Maia couldn’t get the fight to the ground thanks to the wrestling acumen of Woodley, who patiently stuffed takedowns and grinded out a victory that bored UFC President Dana White.

Afterward, White said Georges St. Pierre will fight middleweight champion Michael Bisping next instead of Woodley. White claimed that “nobody wants to watch Tyron Woodley fight.”

Jones also called out former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar for what would almost certainly be the highest-profile fight in MMA history.

Holloway defeats Aldo to be undisputed featherweight champ

Six months after winning an interim 145-pound title, the 25-year-old Waianae native unified the UFC featherweight championship with a third-round TKO of Jose Aldo in the main event of UFC 212 on Saturday night in Rio de Janeiro.

Holloway (18-3, 14-3 UFC) withstood the best from Aldo (26-3, 8-2) for two rounds before turning it up in the third and dismantling the longtime division kingpin, who lost for just the second time in 11 years. Referee John McCarthy stopped the fight at four minutes, 13 seconds to give Holloway his 11th straight win, tying Royce Gracie for the fourth-longest streak in UFC history.

Nunes TKO's Rousey

Ronda Rousey is one of the biggest superstars in MMA history and turned into a crossover celebrity over the past few years. She made her reputation with dominant performances inside the cage, finishing opponent after opponent in extremely short order. Then Holly Holm came along. Last November, Holm shattered Rousey's aura of invincibility, her title run and her undefeated record. Rousey entered into seclusion and has largely avoided the public and the media since. Now she returns to recapture her title with questions abound about her mental state following the shocking upset loss. Nunes is a powerful striker and high quality jiu jitsu artist who tends to do better earlier in fights than later. She won the title with a dominant stoppage of Miesha Tate at UFC 200. This is far and away the biggest fight of her career and it's hard to imagine there will ever be another contender.

Round 1. Nunes throws some big punches early and connects well to the jaw of Rousey. She hurt Rousey with punches and has her in big trouble by the cage. Nunes is pummeling Rousey and Herb Dean has to step in. That was a one sided destruction.

Winner: Amanda Nunes, TKO, round 1.

The time of the stoppage came at 48 seconds. Most of that time involved Rousey getting punched in the face. Rousey leaves the Octagon after the defeat without saying anything. This has been such a strange and interesting path for Rousey. She rose to prominence in dominant fashion but clearly struggled greatly with her first MMA defeat just like she did when she lost in the Olympics. There are so many different angles as to why this fight went the way it did but regardless of whether it was about the style matchup, preparation, psychology or something else it was emphatic, violent and short. It seems unlikely Rousey will fight again given the options she has but it will take time to sort out the story of Ronda Rousey in general. Her fall as an athlete, just like her rise, was spectacular.

***

Champion Nunes earns $100,000, Rousey gets $3 million.

Holloway wins interim UFC featherweight title

An interim belt will have to suffice for now for Waianae’s Max Holloway.

Holloway joined B.J. Penn as the only fighters from Hawaii to win a UFC world title with a third-round TKO of Anthony Pettis in the main event of UFC 206 on Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

Holloway, whose 10-fight win streak ties Royce Gracie for the fifth-longest in UFC history, was awarded the interim 145-pound featherweight title.

He is expected to unify the belts against champion Jose Aldo in a fight next year and wasted no time just moments after the victory over Pettis to call out Aldo.

“Meet me in Brooklyn in February,” an-amped up Holloway yelled to the crowd. “Let’s get the (expletive) real (world title).”

Holloway improved to 17-3 overall and 13-3 in the UFC by becoming the first fighter to finish Pettis (19-6, 6-5) in 25 professional bouts.

Pettis, who failed to make the 145-pound weight limit and was forced to give up 20 percent of his fight purse to Holloway, refused to touch gloves when Holloway extended his hand before the fight. Holloway earned a performance of the night bonus of $50,000.

After a close first round, Holloway took control with an early knockdown in the second round and poured it on from there.

Holloway scored two takedowns in the third round and then finished the fight with a series of punches to the face and body that forced Pettis to turtle up against the cage.

Referee Yves Lavigne stopped the fight at the 4:50 mark of round 3.

Pettis said after the fight he broke his right hand early in the first round. He also said he will move back up to lightweight (155 pounds) because the weight cut is too tough.

“Max Holloway is a beast. Give the dude credit,” Pettis said. “He stepped in there and did his thing.”

UFC sold

for $4 billion

UFC 200

Meisha Tate upset by Amanda Nunes for women's bantamweight title
Brock Lesnar outlasts Mark Hunt
Daniel Cormier smothers Anderson Silva
Jose Aldo defeats Frankie Edgar for the interim featherweight title
Cain Velasquez TKOs Travis Browne

UFC 196

LAS VEGAS - With a pair of rear naked chokes that finished two celebrated champions, Nate Diaz and Miesha Tate both accomplished the improbable in a pair of sport-shaking victories at UFC 196.

The main event was the greatest moment in the career of Diaz, a pugnacious veteran from a notorious fighting family in Stockton, California. Diaz had lost three of his past five fights, but his size and power abruptly finished McGregor, who had boasted of his plans to hold championships in multiple weight classes.

The loss was McGregor's first since November 2010, and it put a blemish on the loquacious Irish face of the UFC and the best-paid fighter in this rapidly growing sport.

McGregor agreed to fight Diaz at the welterweight limit when 155-pound lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos dropped out of his matchup with McGregor due to a foot injury. McGregor set a new UFC record with his $1 million disclosed purse for this fight, and he predicted a comfortable win over Diaz, comparing the veteran to a gazelle about to be eaten by a lion.

Instead, McGregor got bit.

"(McGregor) punches hard," Diaz said. "He's a hard-hitting little guy, but nothing I never felt before."

***

LAS VEGAS – Less than a year after she was denied a shot at the championship that had been promised to her, Miesha Tate completed an amazing comeback journey with a dramatic submission of Holly Holm Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 196 at the MGM Grand Garden.

Tate, who lost her Strikeforce title to bitter rival Ronda Rousey in 2012 and then lost a shot at the UFC belt in 2013, submitted Holm with a rear naked choke at 3:30 of the fifth round.

It was a sensational submission. Tate took Holm down, who fought to stand up. Tate stayed on her and sunk in a rear naked choke. Holm moved over to the cage and then somersaulted forward, flipping Tate over.

Tate, though, didn’t release the hold and when they hit the ground; she kept the choke. She squeezed with all her might and Holm went out at 3:30, making Tate the new champion.

She nearly finished Holm in the second after a takedown, eventually getting the champion’s back and sinking in a choke. Holm fought it and the bell sounded, saving her.

Holm seemed to take control by winning the third and fourth rounds.

But Tate, who is as dogged as any fighter in the UFC, kept coming.

“I had to be patient,” Tate said. “She’s dangerous and is capable of catching anyone at any moment.”

Her win will likely mean a third meeting with her bitter rival Rousey, though that has yet to be determined.

The victory was especially sweet for Tate after she got bypassed for the title shot last year. UFC president Dana White had promised that the winner of the Tate-Jessica Eye fight in July would meet Rousey for the title. Tate won and White confirmed that she’d meet Rousey a third time.

But he thought better of it and several weeks later, changed his mind and gave Holm the shot instead. Tate found out while she was on a movie set with Holm.

Tate was bitter, and it was made worse when Holm went to Melbourne, Australia, and knocked out Rousey on Nov. 14 at UFC 193 in arguably the greatest upset in UFC history.

***

Conor McGregor mocked Diaz, taunted him at every turn and predicted a first-round finish during the intense 10-day promotion that came about when lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos pulled out of UFC 196 because of a broken foot.

Seconds after he submitted the heavily hyped McGregor on Saturday in the second round of their welterweight bout at the MGM Grand Garden, Diaz grabbed the microphone and said, “I’m not surprised, [expletive].”

In addition to being one of the world’s best fighters, Diaz is the UFC’s undisputed king of F-bombs, and he dropped one in the cage Saturday as he was basking in the glow of his greatest victory.

McGregor, though, was the star of this show. He opted to stay on the card following dos Anjos’ injury, even though as he said afterward, “they gave me every opportunity to pull out.”

He promoted the match with Diaz hard, and turned fans who showed up at a UFC gym in Torrance, Calif., for a hastily thrown together news conference into a frenzy with his taunts.

The fight was going his way for much of the night, but he learned a lesson that welterweights are vastly different than featherweights. He started slowly, but by the mid-point of the first round, he was picking Diaz apart.

McGregor opened a cut over Diaz’s right eye and his fast hands were getting through and hitting the mark.

But when McGregor hit featherweights like Jose Aldo, Chad Mendes and Dustin Poirier with those shots, they fell and he finished them.

Diaz, though, not only took them but relentlessly kept pushing forward.

“It is what it is,” McGregor said. “He’s a heavier man. It was simply me fighting a heavier man. He can take a hell of a shot. Him and Nick have that kind of style where they can take it and remain in there and remain in your face. … I make no excuses. It is what it is. I took a chance and it didn’t pay off, but I’ll be back.”

Most likely, he’ll be back at UFC 200 in July. Whenever he’s back, it will be at featherweight, he said. That means he’ll defend against either Aldo or Frankie Edgar.

Diaz isn’t a champion, but he may have earned himself a shot at dos Anjos’ belt. Dos Anjos holds a win over Diaz, but with Diaz’s momentum, he may get the shot.

Rousey KO'd by Holm

In arguably the biggest upset in UFC history, Holly Holm knocked out Ronda Rousey on Saturday in Melbourne, Australia, with a kick to the head in the second round to become the women's bantamweight champion in the main event of UFC 193.

Rousey, who blossomed into a superstar with a series of spectacular finishes, was never in the fight.

A multiple time boxing champion, Holm easily won the first round by picking apart Rousey with her hands. Rousey's coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, said before the bout that he felt Rousey could outbox Holm, but that battle wasn't even close.

Holm circled, moving in and out, firing both lefts and rights, landing with great accuracy. Rousey kept moving forward, but her defense was loose and she didn't have much of an answer for Holm's accurate, precise strikes.

View photo

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Holly Holm delivers a punch to Ronda Rousey during their title fight Saturday. (Getty)

"I'm trying to take it all in, but it's crazy," Holm said before breaking into tears.

Rousey got Holm down one time in the first round, and went after her famous arm bar. But Holm easily escaped and that was pretty much the extent of Rousey's offense.

At one point, Holm took Rousey down before immediately bouncing up.

When the first round ended, Rousey walked back to the corner and was clearly winded, bleeding from the nose and mouth. But she didn't do anything different in the second.

She attacked again when the bell range, but Holm again belted her from range. A Holm left badly hurt Rousey and spun her around. Holm put her arm on Rousey and turned her, then fired a kick to the head and Rousey went down hard, clearly out.

Holm went after her and landed a couple big punches from the top before referee Herb Dean stopped it.

"I just had so much help with everything," Holm said, who was as high as an 18-to-1 underdog before getting a lot of late wagering action.

Rousey takes 34 seconds this time

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- It's not a good idea to give Ronda Rousey some extra motivation.

Hurt by comments about her family and moved by the death of a close friend and idol, Rousey got off to a quick start and knocked out home-crowd favorite Bethe Correia only 34 seconds into the first round at UFC 190 on Saturday night.

Rousey defended her bantamweight title by throwing a rapid sequence of punches at the Brazilian's head, landing a combination of right and left strikes that sent her opponent face-first into the ground and disappointed the local fans packing the HSBC Arena.

It was yet another impressive performance by Rousey, who improved to 12-0 in her incredible MMA career.

She has been crushing her opponents inside the octagon, but this victory seemed special.

Rousey came into the fight upset with Correia after the Brazilian made a comment apparently referencing to Rousey's father's suicide. Rousey said Correia crossed the line, so she would try to embarrass her in front of her fans.

"I hope that nobody really brings up my family anymore when it comes to fights," she said. "I hope this is the last time."

Before the fight, Correia had said she didn't know about what happened to Rousey's father and never intended to attack her personally.

Rousey also was extra motivated after the death of Hall of Fame wrestler Roddy Piper, who was one her greatest idols and inspired her to take the "Rowdy" nickname. She had said she would be fighting for him.

"We've lost a really close friend, `Rowdy' Roddy Piper, who gave me his permission to use his name as a fighter, so I hope he and my dad had a good time watching this today," Rousey said.

Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock

They're still active?  I guess this would be good match in a video game.  Or a movie..

Anyway, they actually did meet at Bellator 138 tonight.

Friday night's Bellator event in St. Louis was headlined by a fight six years in the making, pitting 41-year-old onetime Internet sensation Kimbo Slice vs. 51-year-old MMA legend Ken Shamrock. Kimbo ended up scoring a knockout with a vicious punch in 2:22 of the first round. Neither man had participated in a professional mixed martial arts fight since 2010.

When the bell rang to start the fight, Shamrock went for a takedown right away, eventually scoring a trip takedown, although Slice was able to get right back up. A minute later, Shamrock scored a single-leg takedown, then got Slice's back. He sank in a rear naked choke, then a neck crank, but Slice was somehow able to survive in the submission attempt for over half a minute, then wriggled free. Both men made it to their feet and Slice immediately unloaded, rocking Shamrock and then knocking him down and out for the win.

Slice entered the fight (his first for Bellator) with a professional MMA record of 4-2. Shamrock (also making his Bellator debut), entered with a 28-15-2 record, with two of those losses coming in his most recent year in MMA, 2010. The catchweight fight in the main event of Bellator 138 was at 232 pounds.

*** [6/28/15] fight fake? (see comments)

Cormier defeats Johnson to win UFC light heavyweight title

LAS VEGAS » Daniel Cormier was clearly conflicted when he got the UFC's light heavyweight title belt strapped around his waist in the same Vegas cage where he failed to win it a few months ago.

While Cormier celebrated the biggest night of his career, the new champion also realized a bigger fight casts a shadow over this achievement.

"I have a message for one man," Cormier said. "Jon Jones, get your (stuff) together. I'm waiting for you."

Cormier beat Anthony "Rumble" Johnson with a rear naked choke in the third round, dominating on the ground to win the vacant 205-pound title at UFC 187 on Saturday night.

Cormier (16-1) controlled Johnson throughout the final two rounds to claim the title stripped from Jones, who was suspended indefinitely by the UFC last month after his arrest when police said he left the scene of a car accident.

Cormier lost a decision at UFC 182 in January to Jones, widely considered the world's best mixed martial artist. He returned to the MGM Grand Garden to replace Jones on short notice, but still gave a dominant effort against Johnson (19-5), ending his nine-fight winning streak.

Chris Weidman also defended his middleweight title in the UFC's hometown, stopping Vitor Belfort in the first round with a relentless series of punches on the ground.

Jones is expected to get an immediate title shot when he returns to the UFC, and Cormier realizes his cathartic victory over Johnson will ring hollow until he beats Jones.

Johnson floored Cormier with a huge right hand in the opening minute, but Cormier recovered and survived the round. Cormier then lifted Johnson off his feet early in the second round, dumping him onto the canvas and taking ground control for a dominant round that left Johnson blinking blood out of his eyes.

Cormier was clinical in his finish, mounting Johnson and getting control before forcing Johnson to tap out 2:39 into the third round.

"He did everything I thought he was going to do," Johnson said. "I have nothing but respect for him. Have you seen the size of his melon? I wasn't surprised he could take (the punches)."

Cormier unexpectedly got another shot at the title less than five months after Jones handed Cormier his first career defeat by a clear decision. The former U.S. Olympic wrestler was in training for a bout next month when Jones imploded, and Cormier eagerly accepted a chance to fill the vacancy.

Johnson has revitalized his career after he was dropped by the UFC in early 2012. He earned his title shot with a surprising first-round stoppage victory over Alexander Gustafsson in Sweden in January, and he didn't hesitate when Jones' arrest forced a change in opponents to Cormier.

Weidman (13-0) survived an early scare from Belfort and quickly took control of his third title defense, taking down Belfort and battering his head against the canvas until referee Herb Dean stopped the bout with 2:07 left. Weidman walked around the cage with an American flag on his back, celebrating his latest dominant victory.

The 38-year-old Belfort (24-11) briefly appeared to get Weidman in trouble, backing him against the cage while Weidman covered up. But Weidman landed a takedown and took control, mounting Belfort and battering him.

"He hit me with some good shots, but I've been there in sparring," Weidman said. "I was just covering, covering, covering, and I was ready to come back."

Jon Jones stripped of title

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has been stripped of his title effective immediately and is suspended from the promotion indefinitely.

UFC president Dana White made the announcement via "FOX Sports Live" on Tuesday night.

Jones was arrested on Monday in Albuquerque on allegations of leaving the scene of an accident, which is a felony charge in New Mexico due to one of the drivers suffering a fractured wrist and arm. The injured driver, later identified as Vanessa Sonnenberg, was taken to the hospital because she is pregnant and felt like she might pass out at the scene.

Jones was sought as a "person of interest" in the hit-and-run accident, but the Albuquerque police eventually upgraded him to a suspect before issuing a warrant for his arrest on felony charges for leaving the scene of an accident. Jones eventually surrendered to police on Monday before being released on $2,500 bond.

Jones was set to face Anthony Johnson in the main event of UFC 187 before he was suspended. Now, Jones' hated rival Daniel Cormier will take his place in the May 23 fight as the new main event with the light heavyweight title on the line.