A press conference is scheduled for Thursday morning at the Bell Centre in Montreal where Georges St-Pierre is expected to officially announce his retirement from MMA. St-Pierre has not fought since November 2017 when he moved up in weight to win the UFC middleweight title from Michael Bisping. St-Pierre suffered from colitis after the fight and vacated the title. According to ESPN, St-Pierre was hopeful of having a fight with UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, but the fight was unable to come to fruition.
Saturday’s UFC card on ESPN averaged 1,463,000 viewers for the main card, which featured Francis Ngannou knocking out Cain Velasquez in 26 seconds of the first round. The preliminary card on the network averaged 988,000 viewers from 7-9 pm Eastern.
The UFC has announced a return to Ottawa, Ontario on Saturday, May 4th at the Canadian Tire Centre. The promotion has announced the following bouts thus far for the card:
- Derek Brunson vs. Elias Theodorou
- Arjan Bhullar vs. Juan Adams
- Aiemann Zahabi vs. Vince Morales
- Mitch Gagnon vs. Brian Kelleher
- Andrew Sanchez vs. Marc-Andre Barriault
- Merab Dvalishvili vs. Brad Katon
Tickets go on sale Friday, March 8th with more fight announcements to come. The last time they ran a card in Ottawa was in June 2016 with Stephen Thompson defeating Rory MacDonald in the main event.
MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer has reported that Jake Hager’s opponent on May 11th at Bellator 221 will be 1-1 heavyweight TJ Jones. Hager made his debut last month with a first-round submission win against J.W. Kiser. Jones is coming off a the first win of his MMA career witha 59-second submission victory in October 2017. The card will take place at the Allstate Arena in Chicago.
Friday’s Bellator 215 card averaged 365,000 viewers on the Paramount Network for their first of two consecutive nights of shows. The card was headlined by Matt Mitrione vs. Sergei Kharitonov, which only lasted 15 seconds when Mitrione accidentally kicked him low and Kharitonov was unable to continue so it was ruled a no contest. Saturday’s card aired exclusive on DAZN, which streaming numbers have not been released. The promotion returns Saturday with a live card on the Paramount Network and DAZN from Dublin, Ireland.
USADA has announced that Jake Collier has accepted a ten-month suspension after testing positive for Higenamine in an out-of-competition test on December 27th, 2018. Collier put out a statement where he acknowledged taking a supplement that was recommended to him. The substance did list the banned substance on the label, which he states he was unaware was banned. Collier hasn’t fought since November 2017 and holds an 11-4 record and defeated Marcel Fortuna in his last fight.
