Welcome to Midnight Mania!
Let’s start the night off by taking a look back over the three biggest stories of Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2025.
- Israel Adesanya not interested in jump to boxing: ‘My career is going to end in the UFC’: Israel Adesanya’s striking style wouldn’t likely cross well into the boxing ring, even if he’d still do better than most MMA fighters.
- Conor McGregor drops first UFC White House promo ahead of ‘The Return’ on June 14 (Video): At this point, you’re better off betting on IF McGregor returns rather than when.
- Face off! Arman Tsarukyan vs. Shara Magomedov staredown video ahead of Hype Fighting grappling match: I can’t believe after all this hype we only got a six-minute grappling match (highlights here). That’s less than a random purple belt matchup!
Insomnia
To Khabib’s point, there are a lot of great Russian fighters who will never compete in the UFC.
A great prompt! Some examples that come to mind include Nick Diaz vs. Carlos Condit, Rampage Jackson vs. Rashad Evans, and Francis Ngannou vs. Derrick Lewis, but I’d love to hear others.
Ilia Topuria’s son takes out Merab and celebrates in classic “El Matador” fashion.
UFC Bantamweight Cody Gibson is starting his own gym!
Relevant: Petr Yan grew up in Siberia.
Chase DeMoor — hands down the worst influencer boxer I’ve ever seen and somehow undefeated Misfits Heavyweight champion — is calling out Sean Strickland. Easy money if UFC were to allow it …
Slips, rips, and KO clips
Counter left hand to flying stomp might be my favorite sequence ever.
This is an egregious example of waiting way too long to fight hands/address the choke.
Both men tried to throw on the break, but Ayiboli was a bit quicker and had momentum on his side.
Random Land
Current favorite sports tradition:
Midnight Music: New wave, 1979
Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.
