PFL

Biaggio Ali Walsh, the grandson of late heavyweight boxing legend Muhammad Ali, has signed an amateur contract with the Professional Fighters League.

According to ESPN's Brett Okamoto, the 24-year-old will compete at the PFL tournament finals in November.

Ali Walsh said the following about signing with PFL after posting a 1-1 record as an amateur MMA fighter:

"I want to thank Professional Fighters League for their support and confidence in me. I have a legacy to live up to, a legacy that my grandfather began, that my brother and I continue. I chose to continue that legacy here in the Professional Fighters League. My one and only goal is to one day become a PFL World Champion."

Aside from being the grandson of arguably the greatest boxer of all time, Ali Walsh is best known for being a star running back in high school who went on to play collegiately.

The 3-star recruit played at the renowned Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas before attending the University of California and transferring to UNLV.

Last listed at 5'10" and 185 pounds, he saw game action in both the 2018 and 2019 seasons, registering nine rushing yards on four carries in addition to making three tackles and forcing a fumble.

Per Okamoto, Ali Walsh transitioned to MMA in 2020, and he continues to train out of his hometown of Las Vegas.

The 24-year-old Ali Walsh told Okamoto that his grandfather had a "huge impact" on his life and has long been a source of inspiration.

Ali was a pro boxer from 1960 to 1981, and during that time he amassed a 56-5 record with 37 wins by way of knockout. He was also a multitime world heavyweight champion and one of the most outspoken, flashy, popular and recognized athletes of all time.

In 2016, Ali died at the age of 74 from a respiratory illness. Ali faced Parkinson's disease for many years prior to his death.

Many members of Ali's family have followed in his footsteps in the world of combat sports. His daughter, Laila Ali, went 24-0 as a pro boxer from 1999 to 2007. Ali Walsh's 22-year-old brother, Nico, is 6-0 as a professional boxer.

Biaggio Ali Walsh is expected to turn pro next year, and the PFL will represent his first significant challenge since making the move to MMA.

Former UFC fighter Rory MacDonald announced his retirement from MMA on Sunday at the age of 33.

MacDonald made it official in an Instagram post, writing: "My time has come to put the gloves down for good. I'm so thankful for this sport and every person I've been able to meet along the way."

On Saturday, MacDonald suffered a surprising loss to Dilano Taylor in the semifinals of the PFL welterweight playoffs. Following the first-round technical knockout defeat, MacDonald removed his gloves, which is normally a sign that a fighter is planning to retire, per ESPN's Brett Okamoto.

The British Columbia native trained with Canadian MMA legend Georges St-Pierre and became one of the greatest Canadian MMA fighters of all time in his own right.

MacDonald turned pro in 2005 and competed for many of the top promotions in MMA, including UFC, Bellator and PFL.

MacDonald fought for UFC from 2010 to 2016, going 9-4 during that time. He went 9-2 in his first 11 UFC bouts, earning victories over notable names such as Nate Diaz, BJ Penn and Tyron Woodley.

His second-to-last UFC fight was a welterweight title fight against Robbie Lawler at UFC 189, which Lawler won by fifth-round TKO.

MacDonald signed with Bellator in 2017 and had six fights for the promotion. He won the Bellator welterweight title in only his second fight but fell short in a subsequent attempt to become middleweight champion.

After Bellator, MacDonald made the move to PFL in 2021. He went just 2-4 in six PFL fights, however, and fell in the second round of the welterweight tournament in each of the past two years.

Overall, MacDonald went 23-10-1 during his career with nine wins by way of submission and seven by knockout.

A crossover superfight between PFL star Kayla Harrison and Bellator MMA featherweight champion Cris Cyborg has long been viewed as a pipe dream, but it appears there's a chance it becomes a reality.

On Tuesday, PFL CEO Donn Davis took to Twitter for a $4 million offer to Harrison and Cyborg in hopes of getting a fight agreement done.

Fans want the fight

Fighters want the fight

I have watched and listened … @PFLMMA will provide all money and handle all matters @KaylaH v @criscyborg

$1M each fighter + $2M winner bonus

PPV Super Fight … no more talk … decide the best inside the cage#KaylaCyborg

— Donn Davis (@DonnDavisPFL) August 10, 2022

Cyborg responded directly to Davis, questioning Harrison's credentials and the notion they should be paid equally:

😂 she gets an equal fight purse based on what? Being your champion? Beating a fighter who’s 12-13? All the PPVs she sold?

— CrisCyborg.Com (@criscyborg) August 10, 2022

Cyborg made an appearance on Wednesday's episode of The MMA Hour and announced that her next fight would be a boxing match against Simone Silva on Sept. 25 in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil. Afterward, Harrison made an unscheduled call into the show and laid down a challenge pleading for a fight against the 37-year-old.

"We can do winner takes all, or we can do when she loses, she gets to keep her purse," Harrison said. "If she needs help getting the deal signed, I will call [PFL executives] Peter Murray ... and Donn Davis and ask them, whatever price she wants, I will speak to them on her behalf."

Harrison continued: "And I'll go through a full [U.S. Anti-Doping Agency] drug testing—I will be drug-tested every day from now until the fight, if she's worried about that. And she doesn't have to be drug-tested at all. The only thing I ask is that they allow elbows." When asked why she wants to be allowed to strike with elbows, Harrison responded, "So I can put one through her skull."

Harrison is going after her third straight $1 million featherweight tournament victory, as she is scheduled to face Martina Jindrova on Aug. 20 in the 2022 PFL Playoffs. Still, that hasn't stopped her from calling for a fight against Cyborg because she wants to test her skills against the best fighters in the world.

However, Cyborg recently said she hasn't been contacted by PFL. She said Wednesday that she does have interest in a fight against Harrison, but it's not particularly important to her.

"I've been in a lot of big fights in my career," Cyborg said on The MMA Hour. "I think she really needs one biggest fight for her career too. I'm happy with my career. I can finish my career and not fight Kayla. But it's going to be great if this fight happens. If people would like to watch the fight, it's going to be great. But just not on the internet, they have to make it happen."

After Cyborg announced her agreement to fight Silva, Harrison called her out in a series of tweets and also made reference to Cyborg's 2012 positive steroid test result. Cyborg then blocked her on Twitter.

A Professional Fighters League Challenger Series event on Friday has reportedly been flagged for suspicious betting activity.

According to ESPN's Paula Lavigne and David Purdum, the event was originally promoted as a live broadcast on fuboTV, but the PFL later said that the fights had already taken place a week earlier. The odds had moved significantly in favor of each of the winning fighters on Friday afternoon leading up to the broadcast.

U.S. Integrity, a Las Vegas-based company that monitors betting markets, alerted sportsbooks on Saturday that the PFL confirmed it had pre-taped the event on March 25.

"As such, it's very possible that any potentially suspicious wagering activity is indicative of nefarious behavior," U.S. Integrity wrote in the alert, per ESPN.

In a statement provided to ESPN through a spokesperson, PFL denied any wrongdoing and did not specify the reason why the event was prerecorded before its initial airing, despite noting it was the first such occurrence in the company's history.

"Any sportsbooks that took bets on the prerecorded program did so without the consent or knowledge of the PFL," PFL spokesperson Loren Mack said in an email.

Mack also stated, "PFL did not include any betting lines, content, or promotion in connection with the program."

Regarding why the event was promoted as a live broadcast, senior vice president of communications for fuboTV Jennifer Press told ESPN, "We inadvertently used the same promo copy for the April 1 show as we did for previous shows, which was a mistake. We regret the error."

A spokesperson for DraftKings told ESPN that it had initially offered odds in several states before noticing some irregularities.

"At the time we believed the event in question was live. After noticing unusual activity on a number of fights, DraftKings removed the markets," the spokesperson said. "We are working with regulatory bodies to determine the appropriate course of action."

U.S. Integrity's investigation into the matter is ongoing.

"Our goal as always is to notify the industry of any potential nefarious, abnormal or suspicious activity as soon as possible so they can take action as quickly as possible," U.S. Integrity president Matthew Holt said.

The Professional Fighters League is the "strong front-runner" to sign mixed martial artist and two-time Olympic gold medalist judoka Kayla Harrison, per MMA journalist Ariel Helwani.

"Not a done deal just yet, but they are definitely the strongest atop the leaderboard at the moment," Helwani wrote in his "Two-Cent Tuesdays" article on Substack.

Harrison, who has competed in the last four PFL seasons, most recently defeated Taylor Guardado via second-round submission to win the company's Women's Lightweight Tournament last October.

The PFL news comes amid talk that numerous organizations, including the WWE and UFC, were interested in signing the 31-year-old free agent.

"Everybody trying to sign Kayla. Even Walmart try to sign Kayla. The WWE been calling too, but we're interested in real fighting," manager Ali Abdelaziz told TMZ Sports.

"I think she's happy with PFL," Abdelaziz added. "But listen, I got great relationships with UFC, Bellator, but I have to show a little loyalty to PFL."

Harrison made her PFL debut in 2018. She has a lifetime 12-0 professional MMA record (11-0 PFL, 1-0 Invictus). Ten of her wins have come by knockout or submission.

Prior to her MMA career, Harrison was a dominant judoka who retired from the sport with a 45-7 record. She won gold medals in the 78-kilogram division at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics.

Her resume also includes a gold medal at the 2010 World Championships and two more at the 2011 and 2015 Pan American Games.

Mixed martial arts fighter Jordan Young died Saturday at the age of 27, according to ESPN's Marc Raimondi, who confirmed the news with the Broward County (Florida) Office of Medical Examiner and Trauma Services.

The cause of death is not yet known. Young most recently fought for PFL.

Young last competed on Oct. 27 as part of PFL's final card of the year. He snapped a two-fight losing streak by defeating Omari Akhmedov via third-round TKO. Young also fought for Bellator MMA during his career and had a record of 12-2 with 10 finishes.

A 6'4" light heavyweight, Young trained at American Top Team in Florida. The gym announced his death Sunday.

"It's with a heavy heart, we have learned about the passing of our teammate Jordan Young," American Top Team tweeted. "Our team is shocked and deeply saddened by this news. A great teammate, he will be deeply missed by all of us. Thoughts and prayers to his family. RIP to this warrior."

Young's boxing coach Derik Santos paid tribute to him in an Instagram post. Santos indicated that Young was looking forward to competing often next year after recovering from nagging injuries.

"He seemed to be overcoming obstacles and I became just a fan of him and that in itself," Santos wrote. "Just a few weeks ago we talked about how excited he was for 2022, and that as soon as he took care of some injury he wanted to schedule getting right back to work with me.

"When he spoke to me I had such a good feeling for him, he was on such an upswing and positive vibe after an injury plagued career. I was really looking forward to seeing him have continued success after his last big win."

Bruno Cappelozza was two nights away from the most important fight of his life when he awoke to the sound of his training partner, Ronny Markes, crying quietly in the bathroom of their Fort Lauderdale hotel suite.

He wouldn't learn the cause of Markes' tears until the fight had come to pass.  

Cappelozza was in Fort Lauderdale for the Professional Fighters League's annual championship event, which emanated this year from the guitar-shaped Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in nearby Hollywood, Florida. The Brazilian was matched up with Croatia's Ante Delija on the card, with the league's heavyweight championship and a million-dollar prize hanging in the balance. 

It was a wild and gruelling fight, but Cappelozza ultimately won a unanimous decision, earning the PFL heavyweight belt—his first major title in MMA—and a life-changing million dollars in the process.

"It was such an amazing feeling," Cappelozza told Bleacher Report through PFL translator Eduardo Lima, looking back on his win over Delija. "It was such a great moment for me, for my family, for my team. It was one of the happiest moments of my life." 

After posing for a photo with his team, with his new belt slung over his shoulder, Cappelozza headed backstage, ready to celebrate his success with the people that helped him achieve it. Instead, his world came crashing down as his team informed him that his father had died earlier in the week.

In an instant, all his elation faded away.

"I forgot about the belt, I forgot about the money, I forgot about what just happened," the PFL heavyweight champion said, looking back on the moment his team informed him of his father's passing. "I was just focused on what they were telling me." 

Cappelozza's team had learned the news themselves earlier in the week but refrained from telling him, fearing that it would tear his focus away from his imminent title fight—and perhaps even drive him out of the matchup.

Fans were quick to criticize the fighter's handlers for that decision but, as it turns out, it wasn't only their decision.

"I'm so thankful for my team, and especially to Ronny Markes, for keeping this information from me and for doing it the way it was done, because, at the end of the day, it was not only his decision but also my dad's," Cappelozza explained. "When my dad got admitted to the hospital, the first thing he said was 'do not tell Bruno. Don't let Bruno know. I do not want him losing focus on his fight and how big of an opportunity this is.'

"This was one of his last wishes."

It was the kind of selflessness Cappelozza expected from his father—particularly when it came to his MMA career.

"He's the main figure in my entire athletic career," he said. "At times when I was struggling financially, thinking about stopping fighting, he would take money out of his savings and be a sponsor for me and say 'don't worry about it, son, I've got you. Follow your dream.'

"When I was still living and training in Jau, my hometown, he would attend every single one of my training sessions, to the point of counting how many strikes I'd thrown in that particular training session," he added. "He was my biggest fan, my biggest supporter, and at times even a sponsor.

"It's just unfortunate that my biggest fan wasn't there—physically—for me to put the belt on his shoulder."

Time heals all wounds, but Cappelozza's have barely started scabbing. In the month since his victory over Delija, a stretch he might have spent settling into the luxe life of a millionaire MMA champion, he's been mourning.

He's finding the finality of his father's absence particularly difficult to fathom because it had already been seven months since they'd seen each other.  

"It still hasn't hit me, and that's because I'd spent the last seven months away from home, so I hadn't seen him for seven months," he said. "It's been a tough month. I've been struggling to sleep, struggling to keep my head up, struggling to absorb this whole thing."

Cappelozza hasn't done much training since his win over Delija, partly because he's distracted, and partly because the fight took an immense physical toll on both men.

He's been doing what he can, though, knowing it's what his father would have wanted.

"Slow and steady," he said. "I'm getting back into it. I took about three weeks off completely. I haven't gotten back into MMA training, per se. I've been working on strength and conditioning.

"Light work for now," he added. "It was a hard-fought battle, 25 minutes of war, so I'm still kind of healing. I still can't really close my hands. I have a couple of injuries I need to take care of, minor stuff, but I'm giving my body some time."

Just don't take Cappelozza's gradual return to training for flagging motivation. 

While the heavyweight says his father's death has taken an immense toll, he's already dreaming about returning to the PFL cage in early 2022 and beginning his pursuit of another championship and million-dollar payday.

It's the surest way to honor his father's memory.  

"This year has been a mix of a dream and a movie," he said. "I've matured a lot as a fighter. It's been a year of incredible growth for me, and I look forward to 2022.

"I'm going to do exactly what I did this year: keep on fighting, keep winning, and bring another belt home for Brazil, and especially for my dad."

To say fighting is a big part of Ray Cooper III's life would be an understatement. 

Like a lot of kids across the notoriously tough Hawaiian Islands, the Professional Fighters League (PFL) welterweight star often got into scraps in schoolyards, parking lots and wherever else disagreements were sparked.

"It's how we solved problems—and it worked," he told Bleacher Report. Yet Cooper's connection to fighting runs much deeper than that. For him, it's a family affair.

Cooper's father, Ray Cooper Jr., is a former professional fighter himself, having gone 14-9 in MMA between 1997 and 2008, with forays into wrestling and boxing as well. Cooper's Uncle was a fighter, too, and he was watching both men compete by the time he was seven. 

"Down here, everybody's dad fought," Cooper said. "[My dad] wasn't a full-time fighter. It was just like a hobby to them—to him and my uncle. They wanted to still compete [after wrestling], and MMA was coming up at the time."

Given his surroundings, it should come as no surprise that Cooper ultimately began feeling the lure of MMA himself. And after completing an impressive high school wrestling run, briefly considering a professional boxing career and receiving a potent dose of inspiration from Hawaiian MMA legend B.J. Penn, he finally committed to the sport in earnest. 

Cooper came up fighting for regional promotions in Hawai'i, with occasional bouts in California and on Guam. When he was 13-4, he was signed by the PFL. He made his promotional debut with a dominant defeat of former Strikeforce champ Jake Shields—who coincidentally also fought his father twice—and has since competed 13 more times under the league's banner.  

The PFL presents MMA in a seasonal format, with playoffs and finals at the end of each year, and million-dollar prizes for the champion of each weight class. Cooper won the welterweight title—and a million-dollar check—in 2019, and he will have the opportunity to do so for a second time on October 27 when he battles Magomed Magomedkerimov.

Cooper and Magomedkerimov have met once before, back in 2018, with the PFL welterweight title and the customary million-dollar prize on the line. Magomedkerimov was triumphant in that first meeting, submitting Cooper with a second-round guillotine choke.

"Last time I was a young version of myself—a more immature version," Cooper said of the imminent rematch. "I've had plenty of experience fighting since then. I feel more confident. I'm better than him. I was beating him in that first fight until I made a mistake. I corrected those mistakes and now there's nothing he can do to stop me. 

"He's nothing fancy, and he's nothing I haven't seen before," he added. "I feel like I have the better wrestling—and I can punch. That's one thing he can't do. He can strike, he can point-fight, but he's got no punching power."

If Cooper's confidence proves justified, he'll simultaneously avenge a tough loss, become a two-time PFL champion and achieve multimillionaire status. That reads like the recipe for a delectable night, but Cooper isn't overly concerned about having a squeaky-clean record, or a closet full of championship belts, or even a bursting bank account.  

"I'm not really too keen on having belts and medals," he said. "I don't even know where my 2019 belt is."

For him, the real prize is the fighting itself. It's been part of his life since he was a kid, and from the sounds of it, it will be for a long time yet. 

"I just love what I do," he said. "I love that I'm going to be able to keep doing what I'm doing by winning this next PFL belt. Not many people can train and fight for a living, and this is my job.

"I'm going to die fighting—or [fight] until the wheels fall off and my body doesn't allow me to do this anymore," he added. "I'm doing this until I physically can't, and that's going to be a hard day for me."

The street Claressa Shields grew up on doesn't appear on any current maps of Flint, Michigan.

It was called Spencer Street. She was brought up there by her grandmother—the most influential figure in her life—and her parents. The dining room table was crowded with friends and family around the holidays. There were fish fries and dodgeball games every summer. It's also the street she lived on when she first discovered boxing, spurred on by a friend that bet her $10 that she wouldn't last a week at the local gym—a sum she never collected despite becoming one of the most accomplished figures in the history of women's boxing and one of the brightest prospects in mixed martial arts today.   

"Everybody on the block was family," the 26-year-old told Bleacher Report of her childhood on that unassuming stretch of pavement in Flint. 

Spencer Street wasn't razed for a new condo development or strip mall. The sidewalks Shields scraped her knees on as a rambunctious kid are still there. Most of the houses she spent time in are too. But the street signs all say something different. Walk to an intersection and you'll see them. Fresh sheets of green metal honoring street's most accomplished former resident: Shields herself. 

"It was such a great experience," Shields said several days after her childhood street was renamed in her honor. "I only know three fighters who have streets named after them, and that's Terrence Crawford and Muhammad Ali, and now myself."

Congrats to me🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣 my childhood street is being named after me! pic.twitter.com/b1od3KG95S

— Claressa Gwoat Shields (@Claressashields) August 22, 2021

Shields is deserving of all the praise and commemorations she receives. 

In the time since she first started training not far from Spencer Street, she's won two Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016 and a panoply of championships in two divisions as a boxer. She's also boldly committed to a career in mixed martial arts—a transition few boxers have ever attempted, let alone accomplished.

She's undertaking this journey with the Professional Fighters League, an upstart organization that presents MMA in a unique, seasonal format with playoffs, finals and million-dollar prizes for the champion of each weight class. Her MMA debut, a rousing third-round TKO win over Brittney Elkin in June, is already in the books. Her second fight, an Oct. 27 date with Abigail Montes, is rapidly approaching. 

Neither of Shields' first two bouts are part of the PFL's 2021 season, but she expects to join the fracas in earnest next year. Winning the 155-pound championship will be a monumental task—particularly if Olympic judoka and MMA powerhouse Kayla Harrison remains with the PFL—but the rewards will be massive.

For all she's accomplished in boxing, and contrary to the perception that the Sweet Science is more lucrative than MMA, Shields says she has never deposited a million-dollar paycheck. The possibility of doing so through the PFL understandably excites her. 

"I think it's super fair, and it gives you more to look forward to," Shields said of the PFL format. "I feel like the more boxing championships I won, the more undefeated fighters I beat, the more divisions I conquered, everybody would see my work and think, 'duh, we should be paying her more than a million. We should be paying her two million, three million, four million, five.' That never happened.

"I'm super happy that the PFL is giving me those kinds of opportunities, and it's all about hard work. It's all about how much hard work you put in."

Shields has long been vocal about the way women are paid in boxing and has never hesitated to name sexism as the culprit. She hopes that by speaking out, she might be able to fix the situation. She also recognizes that becoming an MMA champion with the PFL will elevate her platform and make her voice all the louder.

"I think it's sexism," she said. "All it takes is the people in charge to give women boxers the opportunity. 

"I feel like I get a lot of respect, and the girls at the top get a lot of respect, but there are girls who get overlooked—girls with great records and a lot of knockouts, they get overlooked because they're women. Even with me, I feel like I deserve more in terms of how I'm paid, how I'm promoted, how the story is told. That's something that boxing has to work on. I always tell all the women fighters to build their social media [followings], build their platform and just be in charge of their brands. 

"If I can do that, I can control my destiny in boxing too."

Shields' determination to narrow the pay gap in boxing—and her willingness to venture into a brand-new sport in the name of elevating her platform—can be attributed in part to her time on Spencer Street, specifically the time she spent with her grandmother, who called her Cocoa.

Shields was in her grandmother's care for significant portions of her childhood, most notably when her father was incarcerated. It was under her grandmother's watchful eye that she was taught to ignore gender stereotypes and fight for the causes she believes in. In fact, it was Shields' grandmother who encouraged her to stick with boxing when the going got tough.

"My dad said boxing was a man's sport, but he signed me up anyway," Shields said. "I started boxing and I fell in love with it, but on my bad days, when I was feeling discouraged or upset, my grandmother knew. She always said, 'Cocoa, keep going with it. Always keep boxing. You love boxing. That's what you're meant to do. No matter how hard it gets just keep doing it.' My grandmother was huge influence for me, getting into boxing.

"My grandmother said, 'you can't do everything a man can do, but one thing you can do is sports. Whatever sports you want to do, you can do it.' So, when it came to playing street ball, running track, playing soccer, even wrestling, my granny said, 'go out there and do it.' The only thing she hated was when I used to get hurt. She hated to see me bleed, but she was a huge advocate for women in sports." 

Her grandmother died when Shields was in the 10th grade. It's a loss she still feels sharply, but she knows that if her grandmother could see all her belts, watch her boldly transition into MMA under the PFL banner or simply walk down the sidewalk on what's now known as Claressa Shields Street, she'd glow with pride.

"I've remained a humble and kind person throughout this whole process. I know she's proud of that," Shields said. "And I know that she's proud that I continue to make history, no matter who overlooks me."