MMA News & Rumors: UFC Vegas 20 Recap & More

We could quite literally devote pages of text to the upcoming UFC 259 this weekend, as that event will be home to no less than 3 title fights on the main card. We will certainly be getting into that massive night of action throughout the week, but for the purposes of this piece, we are going to focus on the news and rumors that emerged over the past week. There was a lot that went down at UFC Vegas 20 this past weekend and some serious fallout, especially from the headline bout, which I think we can all agree was a bit of a dud. Let’s jump into all the latest news and rumors from around the MMA world so you can continue making your bets against their UFC odds.

2021 MMA Betting News & Rumors Update | Mar. 1st Edition

Let’s get the ball rolling by talking about the main event from this past Saturday night. Ciryl Gane came away with the unanimous decision over Jairzinho Rosenstruik, but it was certainly not a fight to remember. While the fight went the full 5 rounds, you do have to say that Gane won it without breaking too much of a sweat. The reality was that Rozenstruik looked totally disinterested, but UFC boss Dana White was critical of both fighters in his assessment of the bout, which may not bode well for either fighter when White thinks about upcoming matches.

Jon Jones was another interested party who was not particularly thrilled by what he saw on Saturday night. About midway through the headline event, Jones took to Twitter to call out the fighters and to remind the other members of the Heavyweight division that he will be back soon. In the Tweet, Jones said that “all this standing around ain’t gonna fly when daddy comes home.” If what we saw on Saturday night is the best that the Heavyweight division has to offer, then the return of Jones cannot come quickly enough.

This is not to suggest that the entire UFC Vegas 20 fight night was awful, though, as we did see some good performances. The fight between Pedro Munhoz and Jimmie Rivera was declared the Fight of the Night, as the two men went out and went toe-to-toe in an entertaining battle that Munhoz eventually won. While certainly not the most impressive performance of his career, Magomed Ankalaev kept his momentum going in the Light Heavyweight division with a decision win over Nikita Krylov. Ankalaev is edging ever closer to a title shot and this victory will have certainly helped his cause.

Since Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather squared off, we have heard countless rumors of potential MMA versus boxer matchups being floated. The latest is Jorge Mazvidal going against Canelo Alvarez, although that looks like a longshot. Mazvidal was actually in attendance at the Canelo fight over the weekend, where he dropped a bit of a bombshell in suggesting that a rematch against Kamaru Usman was set for September. This is a fight that has yet to be officially announced by the UFC as of yet, so it still resides in the rumor category.

I have read enough, I need to place my bet now. What to do?