Though it has undergone a bit of a makeover, the Bellator 200: Carvalho vs. Mousasi fight card slated for Friday in London is set following Thursday's official weigh-in.

Stephen Thompson takes on Darren Till this weekend in the main event of UFC Fight Night 130 . “Wonderboy” is fresh off a win over Jorge Masvidal after two tough fights with welterweight champion Tyron Woodley and is looking to get back into the title picture. A win over rising star Till could do just that. A True Karateka Thompson began training in kickboxing and karate at the age of three under his father, former professional kickboxer Ray Thompson . By 15 he was competing in karate tournaments around the world but it wasn’t until 12 years later that he found mixed martial arts. In 2010 Thompson began his professional MMA career and just six years later was competing for an Ultimate Fighting Championship title. Thompson had quite the meteoric rise to stardom and quickly became known as one of the best strikers in MMA. Although known for his elite striking, Thompson is a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Carlos Machado and has some of the best takedown defense in the game, thanks in part to his time training with former UFC middleweight king Chris Weidman .

Headed to Hollywood. @CubSwanson prepares to make the walk against the rising Renato Moicano. #UFC227 pic.twitter.com/FopXtnlDnT — UFC (@ufc) May 24, 2018 Renato Carneiro called for it and he got what he asked for. Ultimate Fighting Championship officially announced Thursday that Cub Swanson and Carneiro will square off in a 145-pound contest at UFC 227 . The event goes down at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Aug. 4. Swanson will try to overturn a two-bout skid, dropping fights to Brian Ortega at UFC Fight Night 123 and former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar at UFC 128. Moicano (12-1-1) is coming off a unanimous-decision victory over Calvin Kattar at UFC 223. Previously, he had suffered his first professional defeat by the aforementioned Ortega. UFC 227 will be headlined by a rematch between bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw and former champ 135-pound king Cody Garbrandt .

LIVERPOOL, England – Sunday’s UFC Fight Night 130 lineup is down one of its scheduled main card bouts.

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“He’s a little (expletive),” Knight told MMAjunkie. “He thinks he’s going to go out here and finish me in the first round? He’s not giving me no respect at all. The lady (interviewing) asked him, ‘What do you think about your opponent Jason Knight?’ He said, ‘When I think about Jason Knight, I just think that I’m going to kill him.’ He said, ‘That’s all there is to it.’ … He says, ‘I’m a better wrestler than him, I’m better than him on the ground, I’m better than him standing up. I’ll beat him wherever it goes.’

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Contrast the NFL’s action, and the joy with which President Trump and his allies have greeted it , with the spurious outrage over alleged violations of freedom of expression on college campuses. As it happens, I testified on Capitol Hill this week in a House Oversight Committee hearing about freedom of speech on campuses. The hearing reminded me that conservatives only seem to be outraged about particular forms of speech suppression, usually when it involves their self-interests. As I told lawmakers , race is rarely explicitly discussed in debates about free speech, but so many recent controversies on campuses are about race (as are the NFL players’ protests). During the hearing, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) showed a large photo of a restricted speech zone on a college campus that was about the size of a parking space for one car. He argued, and I agreed, that speech ought not be limited in that way. Meadows and other conservatives in the hearing fiercely argued that speech zones are unconstitutional. But restricting NFL players’ activism to locker rooms and penalizing those who decide against standing for the national anthem is no different, especially when the policy is prompted by fear of angering Trump .

Shawn Betts and American Steve join Niall McGrath this weeks show in place of Petesy Carroll to talk UFC Liverpool in detail, potential Nurmagomedov vs. McGregor fight, UFC TV deals, Aaron Chalmers, Werdum, your question and more.

Alessio Sakara is by far the best-known Italian fighter in mixed martial arts, having spent eight years in the Ultimate Fighting Championship before joining Bellator MMA . After a promising start in the Scott Coker-led promotion, Sakara was awarded a shot at middleweight champion Rafael Carvalho at Bellator 190 on Dec. 9. It did not go as he had hoped, as “Legionarius” was on the receiving end of a brutal knockout loss 45 seconds into the first round. “There isn’t much to say because it was a short fight,” Sakara told Sherdog.com. “I took a shot which seemed harmless, but I went blind after that. I started backing away because I was completely blind; that was what bothered me the most. I don’t have any excuses. My training camp was the best I’ve ever had. I felt confident in the cage, and I sought out my opponent. He was the better man that night.” Fighting in the middleweight division took its toll on Sakara. After suffering through a four-fight losing streak, the American Top Team representative parted ways with the UFC and moved up to 205 pounds.

“So many fighters get bent up on, ‘I lost, and this is horrible’ – it’s not that,” she said. “Everybody now is training MMA. Top-ranked opponents, you’re going to win sometimes, you’re going to lose sometimes. That’s just how this sport is. If you take it too much to your head, it can ruin you.

KUALA LUMPUR, 25 May 2018  - UFC®, the world’s premier Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) organization, and AirAsia, sponsor of UFC and presenting sponsor of UFC® FIGHT NIGHT SINGAPORE: COWBOY VS EDWARDS presented by AirAsia, today launched the first UFC branded livery on an AirAsia Airbus A330-300.

He couldn’t say specifically what form such an opportunity would take, but time and again, his thoughts drifted back to the idea of fighting at 155 pounds, challenging the likes of Conor McGregor or perhaps even fighting for the title. If he did so and won, St-Pierre would become the first athlete in UFC history to win championships in three different weight divisions.

Michael Page will be back inside the Bellator MMA cage after a one-fight detour into the boxing ring in 2017, as he meets David Rickels in the Bellator 200 co-main event on Friday at the SSE Arena in London. Page has compiled a perfect 12-0 record with 10 finishes, while Rickels enters their match on the heels of back-to-back victories against Adam Piccolotti and Aaron Derrow . Ahead of Page’s three-round showdown with Rickels, here are five things you might not know about him: 1. He is quite the performer. Page’s style is a good mix of karate, kickboxing and many other disciplines, including salsa. The welterweight loves to dance and believes it has made him more open-minded in martial arts. It should come as little surprise considering the movements involved. 2. He is a lifelong professional wrestling fan. Like many who grew up in the 1990s, Page became a fan of World Wrestling Entertainment and World Championship Wrestling. He counts The Rock, Goldberg, The Undertaker and Stone Cold Steve Austin among his favorite pro wrestlers. Page has drawn comparisons to many of them due to his charisma and in-cage antics.

“There’s definitely gonna be a lot more money flowing through the UFC with this deal and it has to trickle down to the fighters, right?” the former champ continued. “This is public knowledge. I know in the past the UFC has been somewhat secretive about exactly what the make and there’s speculation on what percentage actually goes to the fighters and how much it costs to run the business and all these things, but this is completely transparent. We know exactly what the UFC is making, we know exactly what this deal offers, and that’s not everything either. That’s just what they’re doing with ESPN. So I think it’s probably got to motivate some of these fighters to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, these numbers don’t quite add up.’ So there probably will be some tougher negotiations and all that.

The fighter tells her fascinating story as she prepares to compete at GLORY 54 at the Genting Arena on June 2

Grant (9-3 MMA, 1-2 UFC) vs. Bermudez (11-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) was scheduled for the main card of Sunday’s event. With Grant being removed from the lineup due to a staph infection , the previously planned featured preliminary card matchup between Nordine Taleb (14-4 MMA, 6-2 UFC) and Claudio Henrique da Silva (11-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) has been pumped to the main card.

Roughly six years ago, UFC welterweight Darren Till was nearly stabbed to death during a fight inside a nightclub. Ahead of his scrap with Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, which headlines the UFC’s debut in his hometown of Liverpool, Till recounted the grim night that he was stabbed.

“My body is one of the main things I neglected, because youth will leave you. My mindset and my pride was like, I’m fine, but as an athlete, you’ve got to work around that. You can’t just have one dimension to say I’m going to tough through it. You’ve got to have the responsibility to say, all right, there’s certain things that are not working in my favor. What can I do to adjust and move forward?”

Although the bout is being contested at a catchweight, Chalmers plans to move down to lightweight for future bouts. He figures he is too small to compete with bigger welterweights, though he leaves the option open for future fights if the cut to 155 pounds is too severe.

LIVERPOOL, England – The tensions are rising in Merseyside, and a handful of fighters weren’t exactly willing to just let it be.

Thus far, Chalmers has had a nice run in the MMA world. He’s won all three of his fights by first-round stoppage, which led him to signing a multi-fight Bellator contract. His debut with the promotion comes at Bellator 200, and although his intent is to get off to a positive start with the promotion, Griffiths (4-5 MMA, 0-1 BMMA) said he has other plans.

I’ve done and earned some cool shit in my lifetime things that were expected of me and things that I never ever could have imagined. I’m a house’o kid, I got kicked out of school and I’ve had my fair share of runnin a muck 👀 aka “cunt of a kid” 😂 and still find myself playing up sometimes no ones perfect especially me 😂 but I never let none of that stop me or cut me down if I said in my head I wanted to do something I did it. But to actually kinda be where I wanna be is abit surreal and if I was to tell my teachers or the kids at school that @reebok is making a shirt of me they’d all probably laugh at me I probably woulda laughed at myself too. But guess what next week they dropping my own shirt. FUKIN @reebok you wouldn’t read about it would yah. Life is good and I’m very great full for all that’s happened to me I have been through the lowest of the lowest and am yet to reach my highest but I always trusted the process. Cut a long story short it’s easy to give up. Always have a crack no matter what it is and remember don’t ever sleep on us FROM THE AREA ✊🏽✊🏽☺️☺️☺️ #bambam #FT

LONDON – Today’s Bellator 200 event kicks off at 12:30 p.m. ET (9:30 a.m. PT) and airs via same-day tape delay on Paramount. But if you want spoilers for the prelims before the broadcast, you can get them here.

This Friday in Dallas, Brahimaj (6-0) will look to keep his record unblemished when he faces Evan Cutts (8-3) in an LFA 40 main card 170-pound bout.

And to open the main card, Kate Jackson (9-3-1 MMA, 1-1 BMMA) takes on slight favorite Anastasia Yankova (5-0 MMA, 3-0 BMMA) in a women’s flyweight bout. And that fight is not only the card’s most competitive at the betting window, but the most competitive among our staff – even though Yankova has a 9-5 edge in the picks.