On Tuesday, promotion officials announced that UFC 330 will be held in Philadelphia, PA on August 15, 2026 at the Xfinity Mobile Arena.

The show marks the first UFC date in Philly since 2019, and the first numbered event there since UFC 133 a full 15 years prior to their return, on August 6, 2011. That card was headlined by Rashad Evans and Tito Ortiz, meeting for the second time, and featured names like Vitor Belfort, Rory MacDonald, Alexander Gustafsson, Chad Mendes, and future welterweight champ Johnny Hendricks.

Justin Gaethje and Edson Barboza headlined the UFC’s 2019 visit to the city.

No fights have been revealed for this year’s trip to Philadelphia. However, UFC CEO and President Dana White, Philly native Pat McAfee, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro were on hand to announce the event on McAfee’s show.

“Philadelphia is hosting some of the biggest sporting events this year as part of the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary,” stated White in a press release issued in conjunction with the announcement. “It’s been fifteen years since the UFC brought a numbered event to the city, so now is the perfect time to go back. Philadelphia has always been a great fight town, and I can’t wait to return.”

Ticket details are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

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Rumors swirled throughout the latter part of 2025 that Rodriguez, who had dropped off the public radar, was stuck in jail in Mexico. Turns out, the rumors in true in this case. Nearly nine months ago, Rodriguez was caught crossing the border with an ounce of weed. That landed him in a Mexican prison, his case stuck in the country’s laughably slow judicial system.

After announcing his return days ago, Rodriguez appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show on Monday to detail the ordeal he’d been through.

With what he termed “a wad of cash” on hand, Rodriguez tried to bribe his way out of a bad situation, but got nowhere. “I tried to offer some money to get me out right there on the spot, but they weren’t going for it man.”

“It was 27 grams, I had a fresh ounce of weed on me,” the six-year veteran of the UFC revealed. Rodriguez admitted to pulling over before crossing the border last summer and thinkin about throwing the weed away, but convinced himself that nothing would happen. “Sure enough, I should have just stuck with my gut feeling.”

Nor was he the only one in a jam. Heading to Mexico to have a good time, Rodriguez had a female companion with him. “I had someone with me and unfortunately, that person had to do the time with me. So I wasn’t alone in there, but I feel really bad about that.”

When Rodriguez finally got his release, his companion did as well. “She unfortunately- we were able to get out together. At the same time.”

Rodriguez explained that there were ups and downs in the legal process, and several points where he thought he’d be released, but wasn’t. “I got an amazing legal team, and we were able to work some things out and get me out, but there’s a whole much of requirements and stuff behind it that I’ve got to stick to,” he added.

As to what those requirements are, Rodriguez didn’t specify, instead saying that “if you know my background, you know that this is not my first time going to jail. This is just a part of my journey through the whole MMA thing. MMA has really helped me, changed things for me. We’re able to start programs and try to help people, try to get the youth and start programs for them so they can experience what I experienced, which is the discipline and looking forward to something better in life than just a lot of troubled stuff like a lot of gangs. Mexico is way much worse.”

Yair Rodriguez, Brian Ortega, and even the UFC tried to get involved on D-Rod’s behalf. “There’s only so much they could do. The Mexican government, they weren’t having it man.”

Luckily, Rodriguez was able to pull some strings to get exercise equipment brought it, allowing him to train, in limited amounts, while imprisoned. As he put it, he had a few people “in very, very, very high places, especially in there” who looked out for him. “I was probably in the best living situation I could be in, in there, but it was still horrible.”

“Eight, minus nine months for a bag of weed is insane. I never thought twice,” Rodriguez later added.

Daniel Rodriguez sits on a three-fight win streak and is coming off a July victory over Kevin Holland. He’s now back in the gym working on getting back in fight shape. “It’s just conditioning right now,” Rodriguez stated on Monday, saying he plans to spend “as much time as possible” at the UFC PI to get healthy and bounce back.

As for a comeback opponent, it won’t be Kevin Holland, though Holland did slide into his DMs. “I already beat him,” noted Rodriguez, saying he wanted to go as high as possible, and was looking at a match-up with Leon Edwards.

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“That was f*cking tight, but that was the thing. These decisions you make in life,” Radtke told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.

“I think everybody can understand that when you go in there you’re really going to learn if you’re about it or not.”

Radtke (12-5) leaned into the grit required to edge out a hard-fought win over Francisco Prado, embracing the kind of fight that tests a competitor’s resolve as much as their skill. After going through a back-and-forth battle inside the octagon, he made it clear the performance reflected exactly who he believes he is as a fighter.

“The difference between me and a lot of people is I can actually say I’m about that life,” he said.

“I’ll put it on the line, and he would have to put me out cold to get it done, and it was f*cking close. That’s why I’m giving him all the credit in the world. He could easily go out the UFC, and get back in the UFC, and definitely be a world-beater in time to come.”

Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Charles Radtke above.

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For Suarez (12-1) the opening round proved to be one of the few moments of adversity for against Godinez. Suarez admitted she had difficulty finding her timing early before eventually settling into her grappling rhythm.

“The first round I just didn’t see the shot, but then once we actually started wrestling, I took her down,” Suarez told reporters including Cageside Press at her post-fight scrum.

“I was on top for quite a while. Once I knew that I could take her down and hold her there, which I feel like I can do that to many people, everything was easier.”

“I knew that I’d make adjustments, and get her back. I actually told my coach, I said, I don’t know why, but I feel like she’s not good on the back and I think I can get her back and I think I can get her out of there,” she said.

“I felt this very strongly before my fight. No one’s put her there except for Virna (Jandiroba).”

“I guess it just depends on Weili. I heard that she was going back down to 115, but I will gladly go fight Mackenzie Dern for that belt,” she said.

“The UFC makes those decisions. I just go in there and when they tell me this is the time of the day, I show up.”

Watch the entire media day scrum with Tatiana Suarez above.

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Gamrot (26-4, 1NC) submitted Esteban Ribovics on the preliminary card at the Kaseya Center on Saturday, and noted that there’s a risk fighting unranked foes.

“This is always a risk, when you take guys without ranking, but I took second time, and second time I showed how the difference is between me and guys without rankings,” stated “Gamer” following the win, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press.

Now, he added, “I hope I get somebody from the top, because I deserve this. I’m getting better every time. Only give me a full camp, and then I can fight with everybody.”

Getting unranked opponents is something Gamrot understands, even if he wants to fight up. “I know it’s weird, but I little bit understand this position. UFC has to mix the guys with rankings, and no rankings, this is normal. I understand there’s politics.”

Still, “right now I deserve guys from the top. Maybe BSD [Benoit Saint-Denis], maybe Paddy [Pimblett], maybe Arman [Tsarukyan] again. Doesn’t matter who. I want to fight, I want to prove that I’m the best in the world. Like I said, only full camp, and then I’m ready to rock n’ roll.”

Oddly, Gamrot also called for a fight with Diego Lopes following his win at UFC 327. Lopes, who is fighting at the White House next month, competes at featherweight.

“I know he has booked a fight at the White House against Mexican guy, but I heard like he wants to move to the lightweight division because maybe he won’t get a chance for a title fight [unless] he goes up,” explained Gamrot. “I can wait for him, I am patient, I’m in no rush. Maybe end of the year, I can compete with this guy.”

Gamrot also believes his former foe, Tsarukyan, who he’d like to rematch, should be fighting for lightweight gold. “For sure, he deserves [to fight] for the title. I don’t know why he don’t get the title. Maybe that’s like, a pretty bad reason, but for sure he deserves the title.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Mateusz Gamrot above.

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“I feel great. I feel like I just had a wild night of sex,” Holland (29-15, 1NC) quipped while addressing the media backstage at the Kaseya Center.

Holland had an anaconda choke locked in during the second round, but couldn’t quite finish the submission. “Skinny necks are harder to submit,” Holland suggested, adding that “I should have probably transferred over, I started feeling like I really had it but I should have gone over to guillotine and then took top position and just finished him from top.”

Still, the win over Brown puts Holland back in the win column, and he’s now looking to run a few fights back. “I need my rematches. I need my rematches. I need D-Rod, I didn’t spend all that bail money for no reason, and then I need Mike Malott,” stated Holland. “He gets past Gilbert Burns, then I’d like to fight Mike Malott. If he doesn’t get past Gilbert Burns, then somebody shoot him in the nuts and give me Burns.”

Burns faces Malott in the main event of UFC Winnipeg next Saturday. Rodriguez, until recently, had been AWOL, reportedly in prison in Mexico. He recently returned to social media.

As for where he’d like to fight, Holland seems to enjoy Miami, for one.

“If I could choose, it would always be Vegas-Miami. Vegas-Miami. Vegas-Miami. If I could just do those two for the rest of my career, that would be wonderful.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Kevin Holland above.

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Aaron Pico (14-5) has reason to be excited. After being embarrassed, frankly, in his UFC debut when Lerone Murphy knocked him out, Pico returned to form at UFC 327, notching his first UFC victory and picking up a win over longtime Bellator MMA rival Patricio Pitbull in the process.

Online, Pico’s performance has been called his best ever. In the cage at the Kaseya Center in Miami, he felt things were slow, he told media outlets including Cageside Press.

“I felt everything was slow in there. I felt like my punches were slow. I have to go back and watch it,” Pico stated. “I felt like I was hitting him and blood was coming down his face, I felt like everything was so slow.”

Despite a big win, Pico also admitted that “I have a lot of things to work on. He got up from me, I have to hold him down. But he’s a veteran, how many times was he champion in Bellator? He fought the top guys. I was just the better fighter tonight, but much respect to him.”

Pico’s future now looks bright once again. A lot of match-ups in the featherweight division await. When he first signed with the UFC, Pico was linked to a fight with Movsar Evloev, which never came to fruition. That’s still a possibility.

“I want to fight ranked guys. I hope this puts me in the rankings. I would love to get a rematch with Lerone Murphy, I would love to run that back. There’s Movsar, there’s so many guys in the division, and this is one of the toughest weight classes in the UFC,” noted Pico.

“I was hungry to get a win, but now I’m starving to be a champion. So I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Aaron Pico above.

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Featherweight Swanson (31-14), a longtime fan favorite fighting as a pro since 2004, fought in the WEC, later absorbed into the UFC to bring in the lighter weight classes. He’s a member of the UFC Hall of Fame thanks to his 2016 classic against Doo-Ho Choi. His retirement bout, against Nate Landwehr, came over a year after his win against Billy Quarantillo last time out.

Surprisingly, Swanson looked better than ever at age 42 on Saturday. He came out aggressive, yet picked his sports, piecing up Landwehr perfectly. Multiple knockdowns arrived before all was said and done inside of a round.

Announcing his retirement fight in advance might have led to a slightly more emotional Fight Week than normal for “Killer Cub.” During media day, the soft-spoken fighter even said outright he didn’t want to talk about his retirement anymore.

“I was kind of hitting those normal emotions, but I think sometime yesterday was probably my worst time where I was like ‘man don’t go out there and get beat up.’ So, I just put pressure on myself like always.”

Speaking with media outlets backstage at the Kaseya Center, Swanson noted that “fighting is painful. I’ve been able to have a high threshold of pain for a long time, and be able to ignore it and tell myself ‘you’re good, you’re good.’ But I’m over that part.”

Having accumulated lots of knowledge throughout his career, Swanson added “I’m better off sharing that knowledge with the next generation. I’m 42-years old, sometimes I sit back and like, ‘what are you still doing dude? Get a job, do something else.'”

While some fighters retire and return, retire and return, rinse and repeat, don’t expect to see Cub Swanson return to fighting. His decision, it seems, is a little more final than most.

“Yeah. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. I’ve said this before, when I fought Giga [Chikadze], a good friend of mine by the way now, I struggled about life after fighting and I made myself a promise that I was going to start working on the next chapter of my life. And I’ve been doing that, and I built this amazing fight team, Bloodline Combat Sports. That’s my passion now.”

That, and his family, Swanson added. “I’m pretty content.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Cub Swanson above.

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