Spinning Back Clique REPLAY: UFC 297's new champs, Bellator vs. PFL, Sean Strickland behaving badly, more
Check out this week’s “Spinning Back Clique,” MMA Junkie’s weekly live show that takes a spin through the biggest topics in mixed martial arts.
This week’s panel of Brian “Goze” Garcia, Matthew Wells and Mike Bohn will join host “Gorgeous” George Garcia live at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) to discuss and debate:
- The Sean Strickland era as UFC middleweight champion was a short one. He lost the title by split decision to Dricus Du Plessis in the UFC 297 main event. It seems like the debate is split down the middle for who won the fight. We’ll tackle the scoring, then dive into what’s next for Du Plessis, because the first South African champ in UFC history has a few solid options.
- The other title fight at UFC 297 was for the women’s bantamweight title vacated by Amanda Nunes when she retired. Raquel Pennington was the underdog against Brazil’s Mayra Bueno Silva, but she mostly dominated on her way to the belt. We’ll break down the fight itself and Pennington’s near-term future as champ.
- It wasn’t a great week for Sean Strickland. Before he lost the middleweight title, he doubled down on his reputation as a say-what-he-wants, consequences-be-damned type of personality by going on an anti-LGBTQ rant at the UFC 297 pre-fight news conference. Dana White excused him and said the reporter baited him. Regardless, Strickland’s schtick – are we over it? And what about the UFC for refusing to even threaten any kind of punishment?
- We might be on the cusp of hearing a bunch of news about UFC 300 in April. The promotion has a week off this week, so maybe there’s time to get to building the top end of that card. Who do we want to see on there, and just how big should the UFC go with the event in Las Veagas?
- We finally got the news that the Bellator vs. PFL crossover fights between champions will go down in February in Saudi Arabia. The card indeed is stacked. What expectations do we have for these fun crossover fights?