During Friday’s FNC 31 weigh-in, Hardy (8-5, 1NC) hit the scales at 291 pounds. Since it’s not a super heavyweight bout, that means Hardy missed the heavyweight limit by a full 25 pounds.

Shockingly, per a statement by FNC on social media, the fight will move forward, after an agreement was reached with Hardy’s opponent Darko Stosic.

Both Stosic and Greg Hardy are former UFC athletes. Hardy had a 10 fight run in the promotion after a quick rise in MMA. Having transitioned from the NFL, Hardy won three bouts, landed on the Contender Series, and won two DWCS fights before being granted a developmental deal that saw him compete outside the promotion once more.

Joining the UFC officially in 2019, Hardy lost via DQ in his debut, then won two fights and saw a third, initially a win, overturned due to use of an inhaler between rounds.

Two more wins followed, but a three-fight slump sent Hardy packing from the UFC. He’s since tried his hand at boxing, but returned to MMA earlier this year, picking up a victory over Phillip Latu.

Hardy’s NFL career was derailed due to domestic violence allegations that have dogged him ever since. A member of the Carolina Panthers in 2014, Hardy was arrested, tried, and convicted of assaulting his girlfriend, though the conviction was expunged when the victim failed to appear in court.

FNC 31 takes place on Saturday, May 30 in Belgrade, Serbia.

The post Greg Hardy Blows Heavyweight Limit by Whopping 25lbs for FNC 31 appeared first on Cageside Press.

On Tuesday, MVP released the much-anticipated viewership numbers from the event, the first-ever MMA card to be streamed on Netflix. Peak viewership hit during the main event of Rousey vs. Carano, with 17 million viewers tuning in for the fight.

The final three fights of the card averaged just over 12.4 million live viewers, with 9.3 million on average watching the event in the U.S.

That’s enough to make Rousey vs. Carano the highest-viewed MMA event in U.S. history, MVP noted in Tuesday’s press release.

In addition, gate at the Intuit Dome was in excess of $2.2 million.

The fight, held at featherweight, saw Rousey, a former UFC women’s bantamweight champion, return from a 10-year MMA retirement to take on Carano. The latter was a pioneer of women’s MMA and widely regarded as its first break-out star. She would later go on to an active career that saw her land the role of Cara Dune on The Mandalorian. While there were talks of a spin-off, controversial remarks Carano made online about Republicans being censored led to her dismissal by Disney, which in turn resulted in her suing the company.

That lawsuit was later settled out of court.

Carano, who made just over $1 million in a losing effort against Rousey that saw her submitted in just 17 seconds, had not fought since 2009.

The post MVP Touts Viewership for Rousey vs. Carano, Peaking at 17M Viewers appeared first on Cageside Press.

“Platinum” Mike Perry put Nate Diaz away in the second round of the Netflix card’s co-main event, having opened up a cut that cornerman “Stitch” Duran couldn’t close up. The TKO win is a big one for Perry, who has reinvented himself since exiting the UFC several years back.

Perry, for one, had a feeling following the second round that the fight was going to be stopped. “Sitting down in the second round, I was like ‘there’s no way it’s going to continue.’ I knew. And sure enough, there was too much blood,” Perry noted, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press following Saturday’s card. “I felt kinda bad, but that’s my job. I’m good at it, I worked really hard, I trained really hard, I’m violent as fuck and I can take it too.”

While a rematch with Diaz has been floated, other names are out there for Mike Perry moving forward. One is the long-brewing rivalry between himself and Darren Till. That could come in bare-knuckle, given Till recently signed with BKFC himself.

“I mean, he’s going to BKFC. I’m still good at that, I like that. But I like MMA too. I mean, I think I was the best welterweight in the world tonight. To be honest with you, I think I would hurt anybody, damage anybody. I made this weight crazy, I looked crazy physically, so I think people are going to be coming at [me with] fight offers, whatever. I can be ready to fight, but it’s got to make sense. I made noise tonight.”

Perry seems to have fully embraced his place as combat sports’ violence king of the moment. “Much respect to my opponent, and I appreciate all the fans, but I’m a really mean guy in this fighting stuff. So if they want to offer me some fights, I’ll f*ck somebody up,” he later added.

Watch the full MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano press conference with Mike Perry above.

The post Mike Perry Addresses Till Fight After Diaz Win appeared first on Cageside Press.

“Yeah I was mad, but I understand. My eye was leaking out a lot and they knew I wasn’t going to be able to get nothing done out there,” Diaz told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.

“I don’t think he would have done much more either, but I was blinded by blood on the right side.”

Diaz (21-14) admitted that getting back into MMA was tougher than he thought it would be. After taking mostly boxing bouts Diaz said that this one felt more like a warm up back to MMA, and that now he’d be ready to go.

“I didn’t actually feel good at all. I felt like sh*t. I just started back in it, I just got back to MMA, they were asking me how I been. I’m like, I never was gone, but then as I got closer I realized…MMA’s hard work. It’s a lot of work,” he said.

“I felt like I just started to callous everything up, and my body started to get hard. Everything started to move right together. Started to fall into rhythm and then it was time to fight.”

In the cage Diaz asked for a rematch with Perry, and it’s what he hopes happens next. He’ll be back to training in hopes that the fight materializes sooner than later.

“Right now, yeah, that’s what I want ASAP. Heal up and I’ll start running on Monday,” he said.

“I got a lot of making up to do.”

Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Nate Diaz above.

The post Nate Diaz Calls for Immediate Rematch With Mike Perry After Bloody Stoppage Loss appeared first on Cageside Press.

Not just to the streaming giant, either. Rousey vs. Carano got people talking. Social media interaction was high. Traffic was up on numerous websites. In that sense, Saturday was a good day for MMA.

Of course, there will always be naysayers. There are always ups and downs. MVP MMA’s Rousey vs. Carano card wasn’t a perfect event by any means, and there are lots of aspects about the show that can be criticized. However, if there’s any one takeaway, it’s that competition is good for the sport. With apologies to the PFL, MMA isn’t a “league sport.” It’s not stick-and-ball. It’s prize fighting, and the best comparisons are either boxing, or professional wrestling. 90s wrestling fans will tell you, that business was at its best when the “Monday Night Wars” between WWE and WCW were in full swing. It forced both companies to innovate.

Can MVP MMA, if it moves forward, do the same for the UFC, which has grown stale so far in 2026? Time will tell, but Rousey vs. Carano certainly suggested it’s possible.

We’ll get to that, and more, as we break down some of the biggest takeaways from Saturday’s card at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.

No, the fix wasn’t in

Perhaps the downright dumbest discourse surrounding Rousey vs. Carano, in particular about the main event itself, came after the fight, with various talking heads on social media yelling “fix!” As if rigging the main event in favour of the fighter widely expected to win it, exactly in the fashion she did, would make any sense at all.

Gina Carano was a massive underdog heading into Saturday’s Netflix card. She had not fought in 17 years, and dropped 100 pounds in the year and a half leading up to the fight. In fact, her shape, her physical condition, was in part what led Ronda Rousey to propose the fight in the first place: she wanted to give Carano something to work towards.

You can argue that, because of how friendly the main event pair were ahead of the fight, they didn’t give it their all. And that would be an acceptable take. Yelling fix? Just say you’re desperate for engagement and attention.

Fixes, actual fixes, are incredibly rare in MMA. Mainly because the money isn’t generally worth it, and they’re incredibly difficult to pull off. In fact, discounting betting scandals involving Darrick Minner and Alexander Hernandez (which weren’t fixes, but rather injury information being leaked to the betting public), there’s really only been one verified instance of fight fixing in the UFC: Tae Hyun Bang’s fight against Leo Kuntz at UFC Fight Night 79 in South Korea, back in 2015. And, hilariously, though Bang was later convicted of accepting bribes to throw the fight, he never went through with it, getting cold feet after the UFC noticed a shift in betting lines and winning a split decision.

Aside from that, you’re left with Isaac Dulgarian’s fight against Yadier del Valle last November, in which Dulgarian tapped suspiciously quickly to a rear-naked choke while displaying zero defense. That bout remains under investigation, and could still amount to nothing. Or wind up being a similar situation to Minner, who was injured ahead of his November 2022 fight with Shayilan Nuerdanbieke and failed to disclose it (only for his coach, James Krause, to do a little insider trading with the knowledge).

Now, back to Rousey. If you’re new to MMA, maybe you missed her prime, where she finished opponents in 16 seconds, 14 seconds, and 34 seconds, all in title defenses in the UFC. Takedown, mount, arm-bar, rinse, repeat is basically what Rousey did for years. It made her the biggest star in the sport in her day. So ignore the likes of ex-pro wrestling manager and modern-day internet troll Jim Cornette (if Cornette ever recommended a restaurant, your best bet would be to flee in the opposite direction). There was no need to fix this fight; the outcome was a forgone conclusion from the start.

Whether MVP MMA is a promotion or not doesn’t matter

Speaking of bad takes, here’s another one: MVP MMA doesn’t matter, because it’s not a “promotion” in the traditional sense.

Here’s what actually doesn’t matter: whether or not MVP MMA is a promotion. In fact, it might be better if it isn’t.

Yes, MVP was playing with house money on Saturday. Netflix gave them a budget, had them work within it, and they put on the best show possible with the biggest names they could find. Now, that’s far different from investing in the sport, putting on multiple cards a month, and signing up a few hundred fighters to exclusive contracts. But isn’t that the problem? Exclusive contracts, and fighters not being able to make money elsewhere? At least if you’re a fighter anyway.

Netflix was a player in negotiations with the UFC for their latest broadcast deal, which ultimately saw Paramount+ become the exclusive home of the promotion in the U.S. and select other territories. Paramount Skydance arguably overpaid at $1.1 billion a year, but they’re trying to make their streaming service a real competitor. It’s a calculated risk, in other words.

Netflix is already number one, and the streaming giant wasn’t interested in Apex Slop. They wanted only the biggest UFC cards, the numbered events, which would have left UFC events split between broadcasters. Not impossible, the UFC, WWE, and other companies have done that repeatedly over the years. But Paramount came in with the sweetheart deal and snatched it all up.

MVP, should they move forward, likely will not be putting on multiple shows per month. Jake Paul has suggested maybe six or so a year. Which means no exclusive contracts, unless maybe only to a handful of top stars. And isn’t that a win, in a sense? Independent contractors should be free to fight where they please. Francis Ngannou spent years breaking free of the UFC’s shackles to get exactly this, the opportunity to take his services to the highest bidder. And MVP is going to be a very high bidder if they can keep putting on big events.

The disclosed payouts for Rousey vs. Carano, by the way, are worth looking at. California still releases disclosed fighter pay, and Rousey topped the payroll at $2.2 million U.S. Carano took home just north one $1 million, and Francis Ngannou earned $1.5 million. No one on the card made less than $40,000 in disclosed pay, far, far better than the UFC’s entry level fight purse of $12,000 to show, and another $12,000 to win.

In comparison, Rousey made $3 million for her final UFC fight, in 2016 in a loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. Rousey, however, was making her much-anticipated return following the first defeat of her career. Her star power was at its peak. Nunes made a paltry $200,000 in show/win money in comparison.

Nganou? In his final UFC fight in 2022, he made just $600,000 for a win over Ciryl Gane. That was a flat fee, with no win bonus.

Tell me again why it matters if MVP MMA is a true promotion or not, if they’re offering even limited opportunities for fighters to be paid as well or better than they are in the UFC. Now, these numbers don’t reflect the PPV bonuses the UFC offers top stars (lower-tier fighters get no such luck), at least when PPV still existed, but the same is true of MVP’s numbers: they do not include any bonuses tied to viewership, promotional activities, etc.

In any case, a show that pays well, even just in one-offs here and there, is a good thing for MMA.

The post Rousey vs. Carano Aftermath: Ups, Downs, and Really Bad Takes appeared first on Cageside Press.

A former KSW featherweight and lightweight champion, Parnasse has been considered one of the best talents outside the UFC for a couple of years now. He reminded fight fans why when he finished Kenny Cross in violent fashion inside of a round at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Following the bout, speaking via translator to media outlets including Cageside Press, Parnasse (23-2) stated that he was “happy with the atmosphere, and how things went through.”

With that in mind, he’s “happy to come back any time, and if it’s a good offer, happy to showcase [my] talents as well.”

One desire Parnasse expressed following his win on Saturday was a fight with a big North American name, with Mike Perry one option. While Perry fights at welterweight, Parnasee has competed at 170lbs previously, challenging for KSW’s 170lb title.

Parnasse stated that he’s “open to it,’ and “very excited about the idea of it. And if Mike Perry wants to come to Paris and fight [me], yeah. [We] can [trade] hands.”

On the time change coming to L.A., Parnasse stated that “it was pretty easy to adapt. I came two weeks ago. For me, I came in advance to prepare for this fight and be ready, and I felt good the day of the fight.”

Parnasse is well aware of MVP’s boxing roots, and won his own professional boxing debut last October. With that in mind, he’s open to either pursuit. “If there is any fight and good opportunity whether in boxing or MMA, [I’m] open to it.”

Watch the full MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano post-fight press conference with Salahdine Parnasse above.

The post MVP MMA: Salahdine Parnasse Eyes Mike Perry, in Paris appeared first on Cageside Press.

Jake Paul’s MVP, who hosted the card, had tried to secure bigger name opponents for “The Predator,” who left the UFC when his contract expired without ever losing his heavyweight championship. That included Rico Verhoeven, the GLORY kickboxing legend. Yet in the end they had to settle for Philipe Lins, the 2018 PFL heavyweight champion who like Ngannou had left the UFC on a win streak.

Despite Lins pedigree (he’d won four straight at the end of his UFC run), the Brazilian wasn’t given much of a chance against Ngannou. And he didn’t last long, knocked out towards the end of the opening round.

Ngannou (19-3) has now won both his fights in MMA since exiting the UFC. The question now becomes, what’s next? The dream fight is Jon Jones, but Jones is unlikely to free himself from the grasp of the UFC, who seemingly shattered their relationship with “Bones” by refusing to let him compete on the White House card.

“I think it’s up to Jon Jones, and I can give you something if you want,” Ngannou said following the event at the Intuit Dome when asked about Jones, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press. “I’ve been thinking about it, if I was him. I don’t know if there’s a sunset on that contract anymore. What I know, he signed his contract in 2023, so three years [prior to] now. So the sunset is two years from now. I’m just saying, hypothetically.”

A sunset clause in his contract is how Ngannou escaped the UFC. Whether Jones has one is unknown, though he was on hand working the broadcast desk during the event. In any case, the UFC wasn’t taking Saturday’s Netflix card lightly. They opted to announce Conor McGregor vs. Max Holloway 2 just as Ngannou was making his walk to the cage.

“And what the f*ck do I have to do with that? So I should stop my walkout and look what is going on with— I don’t care, bro,” Ngannou said in response to one reporter who opted to bring it up. “Let’s move on. Life goes on. I’m doing my stuff here, I’m doing good. I have no problem. Everybody can do whatever he wants.”

Ngannou did respond to Robelis Despaigne, who called Ngannou out after his own knockout of former UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos.

“I’m down to fight, and if he thinks he can handle [me], okay. Why not?”

“He did make a statement, he had a great finish,” Ngannou added. “So after a finish like that, it’s hard to argue, to take something out of somebody.”

The options out there for Francis Ngannou do seem limited. Jon Jones is unlikely. Someone decided to bring up Brock Lesnar’s name on Saturday, probably for a headline, given Lesnar hasn’t fought professionally in a decade and is winding down his professional wrestling career. KSW has Phil De Fries, and PFL boasts Vadim Nemkov, both of who would be interesting names.

Ngannou just seems to want the biggest fight possible.

“What do I want? Whatever is out there. I really have nothing special. I mean, if not maybe that Jon Jones fight, some big fight. But I really have nothing special, I just want to keep doing it as long as we go. If I have something, I do it. I think I have done what could have been done.”

Watch the full MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano post-fight press conference with Francis Ngannou above.

The post Francis Ngannou Envisions a Way for Jon Jones to Escape UFC appeared first on Cageside Press.

A little anticlimactic, but not unexpected, given Carano had been out of the sport for 17 years.

Rousey herself hadn’t fought in a decade, spending time in professional wrestling’s WWE following the end of her UFC career. Yet her judo skills were clearly still in top form on Saturday, as she landed a takedown, moved to mount, and locked in an arm-bar in seconds.

“Rowdy” noted following the bout at the Inuit Dome in L.A. that there was no anxiety or stress in her latest fight camp. That’s something she credited Carano for. “She’s rekindled my love for this again. I used to feel such a huge wave of relief after a win, and I didn’t even feel that at all tonight. Because I wasn’t stressed out, I didn’t have all this anxiety weighing on my again.”

“Through this fight camp I kind of figured out the way I should have been doing it all along. That’s another gift that she gave to me. This experience, the last year and a half has been so fun. I’ve had such a great time. This is the best camp of my life, and I’m so glad I got to end it like this.”

Of course, with Rousey retiring once again following Saturday’s comeback, there was a lot of reflection during the post-fight press conference. Once upon a time, Ronda Rousey had hoped to retire undefeated in MMA. She’s now glad she didn’t.

“I think this is much better than retiring undefeated,” Rousey stated backstage after the event. “I think I didn’t really learn until I went into pro wrestling and saw that ‘oh, if you retire with the title, you take all the equity with you.’ And that would have been to the detriment of the division if I did that. I think that’s one part of why the 145 pound division is gone in the UFC. It retired with Amanda [Nunes].”

Now that she’ll be out of the public eye once again (Rousey has always done an admirable job of remaining private when not promoting a fight or wrestling appearance), will there be any attempt to get back in the spotlight? Are there really no more big goals?

“I do have big goals, but they’re not always for the public and other people to see,” she told Cageside Press on Saturday. “Fame and all that kind of stuff is a hustle. I don’t enjoy making social posts every day. The clap button is the best f*cking thing that ever happened to me. I’m like ‘clap clap clap clap clap.’ I ain’t doing sh*t. Because it’s work, and you have to put thought into it and stuff like that.”

Later, Rousey would explain that “being in the spotlight was never a goal, it was a tool to help me accomplish my goals. It’s fun, but it’s just so much more fulfilling for me to be with my family, spending time with them and being a mom and all this stuff. I don’t feel like I have to be witnessed to be validated.”

As for retiring off a win, when her UFC run wrapped up off back-to-back losses, Rousey noted that “this was just the best experience to walk away on. It couldn’t have been better.” From the build to the opponent, added Rousey, “it was just kind of like a feel-good experience all the way around. It was a feel-good story.”

Rousey also confirmed she sprained her ankle “pretty bad” about two and a half weeks out from Saturday’s fight, though it didn’t seem to impact her in the end.

Watch the full MVP MMA: Rousey vs. Carano post-fight press conference with “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey above.

The post Ronda Rousey Glad She Didn’t Retire Undefeated appeared first on Cageside Press.

On the heels of MVP’s first-ever MMA event, Rousey vs. Carano, Bidarian spoke with Cageside Press and other media outlets, and had high praise for current Professional Fighters League CEO John Martin in particular.

Sitting alongside Jake Paul, the other half of MVP, Bidarian explained to Cageside Press that  “It’s really interesting, because obviously Jake and I had a relationship with PFL where we were brought in to try to help the company. And I would say there was a transition period for them when we got on, and then they bought Bellator and kind of the focus changed, and so we didn’t really have the success that we would have hoped there. Nor the access, to be honest, or the consistent kind of communication that would have allowed him [Paul] to do the best of what he does.”

Jake Paul was signed to the PFL several years back and occasionally appeared on the league’s broadcasts, with an MMA debut rumored but never materializing. He’s no longer under contract with the league, though Bidarian previously told Cageside Press that Paul could compete in MMA next year.

As for the current PFL, led by John Martin and with founder Donn Davis out of the picture, “I would say they’re doing some great things now under John’s leadership. He’s obviously a seasoned media executive, but more importantly he’s passionate about MMA. Much more than I am. Not more than Jake, but much more than I am.”

“I’m not a boxing guy, I’m not a marketing guy. I’m a product guy. I’m a marketing guy, and I’m trying to disrupt and do amazing things and build a legacy for the athletes. But John Martin loves MMA. It’s very clear. When I met with him in 2015, 2016 when we were trying to sell the UFC, I walked away saying ‘that guy’s entity should own the UFC.’ Obviously they’ve done well with Ari [Emmanuel] and SilverLake and KKR, but we’d be open to talking to them about ways of leveraging their roster.”

Bidarian, who previously served as the UFC’s Chief Financial Officer, admitted that the PFL lacks “star power in terms of creating events that we could do what we did here tonight with Netflix,” but added that “there’s components of that organization that would fit nicely with our star power, or people that want to work with us. So that would be welcomed.”

Much will depend on how well MVP MMA’s Rousey vs. Carano did for streaming giant Netflix, mind you.

The post MVP’s Nakisa Bidarian on Potentially Working with PFL: “That Would Be Welcomed” appeared first on Cageside Press.

UFC lightweight Tsarukyan, who was recently booted from a plane, and is set to be the backup for Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje, was seen trying to hop a security barrier after briefly speaking with preliminary card winner Namo Fazil.

After that didn’t work, he was seen backstage trying to confront Fazil, with MVP MMA co-found Nakisa Bidarian, a former UFC exec, present. He appeared to be escorted away following that scene.

Arman Tsarukyan just tried to jump the gate and fight Namo Fazil 😬

Then went backstage to confront him 😳

“He wants to talk, I wanna talk!” pic.twitter.com/PuZwCYCymK

— Happy Punch (@HappyPunch) May 17, 2026

Tsarukyan can’t seem to go a minute without causing controversy these days. He notoriously tackled Urijah Faber off-stage at a Real American Freestyle wrestling event, and head-butted UFC opponent Dan Hooker at their face-off appearance last year.

Fazil, who spent much of the week trash talking opponent Jake Babian as well as Mike Perry, who he said declined to fight him, had previously called out Tsarukyan. Of course, the fight isn’t likely to happen, given Fazil doesn’t compete for the UFC, where Tsarukyan is a contender and title fight back-up. However, he chose to call out the Armenian again in the cage at the Intuit Dome.

Saturday’s Rousey vs. Carano card was the first-ever MMA event on Netflix, though Namo Fazil’s fight actually closed out the Youtube portion of the event.

The post Arman Tsarukyan Escorted Out of Rousey vs. Carano Event appeared first on Cageside Press.