Last week, we unveiled the pound-for-pound rankings for the best 1v1 players in the world on Verdict Tournaments. Shoutout to Santino Zarcone for being at the top of the leaderboard.
Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou is official
The details: Francis Ngannou will fight Tyson Fury in a 10-round boxing match on October 28 in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia. Ngannou’s manager Marquel Martin confirmed that Ngannou will make more money from this one fight against Fury than all of his UFC fights combined. The fight will be contested under the 10-point must system, and there will be a winner.
Will Fury’s WBC title be on the line? No. Ngannou is ineligible to compete for the championship because he’s not in the WBC rankings. The fight will go on their records, which means if Ngannou wins, he’ll be 1-0 as a pro boxer with a win against Fury.
Jared Cannonier vs. Khamzat leaked?
Possible leak: Khamzat Chimaev‘s coach Azamat Dugulubgov posted a picture on his Instagram story of him doing a film study with the caption “Already studying the next opponent for Borz” and tagged Chimaev. He tried to cover up the opponent but didn’t do the best job at it. It was later discovered by a fan on Twitter that the fighter he was watching was Jared Cannonier.
Why this makes sense: Cannonier is the only available fighter in the top 4 of the middleweight division that’s coming off of a win. Cannonier looked like a brand-new fighter in his last performance against Marvin Vettori, and beating him would guarantee Chimaev a title shot. If Chimaev intends to move to middleweight, there’s no better opponent than Cannonier at this time.
Kevin Lee retires from MMA
Why he retired: Kevin Lee is ending his career because he’s had several injuries that prevented him from competing at the level he wants. He has to get another surgery after losing his UFC comeback fight to Rinat Fakhretdinov two weeks ago. Lee previously tore both ACLs, which sidelined him for a long time. This sport is unforgiving on your body, and Lee knows that firsthand.
What’s
Why? Ten PFL fighters tested positive for banned substances throughout the PFL’s first three events in Las Vegas this year. All the fighters were fined and suspended, which led to them being kicked out of the 2023 season. What this means: The PFL cares about the integrity of the sport and intends to be around for a long time. Working with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is expensive and not mandatory. The PFL is going the extra mile to keep the sport clean, just like the UFC has been doing since 2015. What did they do? The three trained together in northern California after UFC 290 this past weekend. They then went boating while Mark Zuckerberg was water-skiing. Zuckerberg then posted a picture of them three while looking shredded. Why this is good: It’s always a good thing when one of the most powerful and influential people in the world is a huge fan of MMA. Zuckerberg is bringing more eyeballs to the sport, which will help it grow. Why not Dana? Dana White didn’t put the belt on Jorge Masvidal when he beat Nate Diaz for the BMF title in 2019. He brought in The Rock to tie the belt around the winner and is continuing the tradition of having someone else wrap the belt around the BMF champion. The problem: Masvidal is a close friend of Dustin Poirier, has trained with him for years, and is picking him to beat Justin Gaethje. He said he wanted to wrap the belt around Poirier but didn’t say what he would do if Gaethje won the fight. Why? Jamahall Hill blew out his ankle during a basketball game against Daniel Cormier during the week of UFC 290. He ruptured his Achilles tendon, which will put him out of action for a long time. He decided to vacate his title since the UFC has guaranteed him a title shot in his first fight back. What’s next? Jan Blachowicz vs. Alex Pereira at UFC 291 could go from a three-round fight to a five-round fight for the light heavyweight title. It’s either that, or the winner of Blachowicz-Pereira will fight Jiri Prochazka for the light heavyweight title. If you’ve made it up to here, thanks for reading. OverUnder drops every Friday at 8 AM ET. Verdict is the mixed martial arts platform for fan engagement. Available on iOS and Android. Verdict’s mission is to increase engagement of the MMA viewing experience. Primarily, using innovative data collection methods that are shared with the community. We’re increasing transparency within the MMA community and its thoughts by aggregating crowd-sourced data and sharing it back. By leveraging a user focused design, we’re bringing fight data to the community’s finger tips. 
The PFL is partnering with USADA
Mark Zuckerberg hangs out with Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski
Jorge Masvidal will present the winner of Poirier vs. Gaethje 2 with the BMF title
Jamahal Hill has vacated his UFC light heavyweight championship
