Johnson arrested
Former UFC light heavyweight title challenger Anthony Johnson was arrested in Florida on Monday on misdemeanor battery charges.
TMZ reported that Johnson was arguing with his girlfriend when he allegedly picked her up in a “football hold” and carried her into another room. The woman was packing up Johnson’s belongings in an effort to kick him out of the house when the alleged incident occurred. When calling the police, the woman said she was “scared due to his size and martial arts experience.” Johnson admitted to the police that he did grab and carry the woman during the argument but had no intention of hurting her.
The two-time light heavyweight title challenger Johnson was known for his knockout power. He retired after his second loss to Daniel Cormier in 2017.
Johnson was also arrested and pleaded no contest to domestic violence charges in 2009.
Makes sense
Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone talk is heating up again after “Cowboy” called for a July fight with McGregor after his UFC Ottawa win over Al Iaquinta. This is the second round of talks for the fight after it was rumored to be in the works earlier this year but eventually fell apart when Conor McGregor encountered some legal problems.
While McGregor’s issues have not gone away, the fight is back on the mind of UFC president Dana White.
“This Cerrone fight makes sense, there’s a couple different options out there for him,” White said on The Jim Rome Show (transcribed by MMA Junkie). “He was talking about the Cerrone fight at one point. I don’t really know but that fight makes sense.”
The fight does make sense. Definitely for Cerrone, who has put a nice win streak together at lightweight, and of course for fans who would love to see two of UFC’s most popular fighters opposite each other in the cage. But does it make sense for McGregor? White isn’t sure.
“I don’t know if you’ve read the business news recently, but he just hit a billion dollars of sales in his whiskey company,” White said. “So Conor McGregor is doing really well financially, and when you start doing really well financially, it definitely interferes with your fighting career.”
To clarify, total Irish whiskey sales surpassed $1 billion last year across all brands but McGregor’s Proper Twelve helped push that figure up and is making a large dent in industry leader Jameson’s sales.
McGregor has certainly made good money during his UFC career and now he has to fight because he wants to, not because he needs to. White plans to hammer things out with McGregor very soon.
“He and I are getting together very soon within the next week and we’re going to figure out what next for him and I see him fighting this summer,” White said.
Wednesday Notebook
-Dana White also told Jim Rome that he’d be interested in booking Olympic gold medalist wrestler Jordan Burroughs in a fight. Burroughs recently defeated Ben Askren in an exhibition wrestling match. “Yeah, obviously I’d be very interested,” White said.
-Tenshin Nasukawa will fight Ahmed Ferradji in a kickboxing match at RIZIN 16 on June 2 for the ISKA featherweight championship.
-Yoel Romero vs. Paulo Costa has been verbally agreed to for UFC 241 on Aug. 17 from Anaheim according to ESPN.
Namajunas vs. Jedrzejczyk II
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