His first fight against future featherweight stalwart Darren Elkins lasted all of 41 seconds and six weeks later, he climbed on Efrain Escudero’s back and submitted the Ultimate Fighter winner, announcing himself as one of the top prospects in the always-competitive155-pound weight class. He was tagged as a future championship contender and hustled into a main card matchup against Top 10 fixture Jim Miller at UFC 124 in Montreal, a bout designed to determine if the gangly Brazilian was an unstoppable prodigy or another talented fighter still in need of some seasoning.

Miller submitted Oliveira two minutes into the bout, bouncing him from the ranks of the unbeaten in the process and kicking off a three-fight run where the Brazilian would go without a victory before decamping for an inconsistent five-year run at featherweight.

“Everything happened the way it should have happened,” Oliveira said on Tuesday through a translator, reflecting on his career inside the UFC cage as he readies to start his second decade on the roster when he takes on Jared Gordon on Saturday night in Sao Paulo. “I lost to some big names, former champions and fighters that became champions after, but everything that happened was part of my journey.

“I had my ups and downs,” added Oliveira, who carries a 15-8, 1 NC UFC record into his main card showdown with Gordon. “I accepted some fights that now I don’t think I should have, but I see myself in the best moment of my career right now and I’m ready for everything.”

The now 30-year-old is, in fact, in the midst of the best run of his UFC career and finally looking like the ultra-dangerous championship contender many envisioned him becoming when he burst on the scene in the summer of 2010.

In the three years since Oliveira has returned to the lightweight ranks, the dangerous Sao Paulo native has gone 6-1, breaking Royce Gracie’s record for the most submission finishes in UFC history with his victory over Christos Giagos and adding to his total with subsequent submission wins over Miller and David Teymur.

Heading into Saturday’s bout against Gordon, Oliveira has won five straight, all by stoppage, to climb to No. 13 in the rankings, but it’s the one loss since his return — and a major event outside of the cage — that the streaking contender points to as the catalysts for his impressive run of success inside the Octagon.

“My daughter was born two years ago and that changed my life completely,” said Oliveira, who has only lost once since she was born. “Also, after my loss to Paul Felder, my team and I sat down and said, ‘We need to change a few things.’ We figured out where I could improve, fixed things and that’s when everything clicked.”

“Clicked” is a good way to describe it too, as it’s not like Oliveira looks like a drastically different fighter inside the cage now than he did in previous years, though there is something clearly different about the way he carries himself and operates once the fight begins.

Stylistically and structurally, he’s the same fighter he’s always been — a tall, rangy striker with good power and an array of weapons at his disposal and a clear eagerness to engage — but he’s making smarter, more tactical choices and it’s paying considerable dividends. Where he used to take considerable risks and deal with the consequences, good or bad, he’s being more patient and letting opportunities come to him.

The ability to create chances to finish is as abundant as ever and Oliveira is even more efficient when it comes to making use of them. All six of his wins since returning to the lightweight division have been finishes and the last time he had his hand raised without securing a stoppage was nearly five years ago.

And the fact that he’s etched his name in the UFC record books clearly means something to the streaking Brazilian finisher.

“(The ups and downs earlier in my career) made me learn a lot, made me evolve and that’s why today I’m the UFC fighter with the most submission finishes ever,” said Oliveira. “(Holding that record) makes me really proud. I came from a poor community and now I have the most submission finishes in the UFC. I broke Royce’s record and have added to it two more times.

“I have a lot of good things going on in my life and I’m really proud of everything that has happened.”

Having worked his way into the Top 15 and won five consecutive bouts, this pairing with Gordon is one that caught many in the MMA community off guard when it was first announced. Yet with everyone ahead of him in the rankings either booked into bouts against other ranked competitors or destined to face another fighter with a number beside their name,

Oliveira was quick to sign on the dotted line.

“I wanted to fight and I was ready to fight anybody the UFC offered me,” he said, when asked his reaction to being offered a bout against Gordon, who defeated Dan Moret by unanimous decision in June to bring his record to 3-2 inside the Octagon. „I would have accepted any name the UFC offered me.

“He’s a tough guy,” he continued, offering his assessment of Gordon and how he sees the fight playing out. “He moves forward, has some good takedowns, and takes a lot of punches.

“It’s going to be a big war on Saturday, but I’m going to do what I always do: show that I’m a better fighter standing up and put on a great show again for the Sao Paulo crowd.”

And if everything goes according to plan, he’d like to squeeze one more fight in before the year is out so that he can spend all of 2020 focused on chasing down the UFC lightweight title.

“I want to beat this guy on Saturday and hopefully it won’t last long so I can get another fight this year,” he said, “because next year, I want to focus on the belt.”

It may have taken longer than everyone expected, but that’s one of the benefits of reaching the biggest stage in the sport at the tender age of 20 — you get a decade to make mistakes, figure some things out and start living up to the lofty expectations that greeted you upon arrival while still being in the midst of your athletic prime.

Ten years after bursting on to the scene like he was shot out of a cannon, Oliveira is starting to show those championship forecasts weren’t wrong — they were just a little premature.

At 18 years old, Maycee Barber was looking to follow up her first amateur win with something a bit bigger. With literally zero options available in Colorado and the surrounding states, Barber told the promoter she would take care of the problem by going pro and opening up her options.

Opponents still weren’t touching Barber.

The options now were sit and wait or go out and find a fight. Breezing over the regional shows, Barber and her family went straight to Triple-A.

LFA is now on UFC Fight Pass!

On March 24, 2017 Barber and her father flew to Houston to catch an LFA card and find out what options were available with established talent. Midway through the card was a strawweight bout between Itzel Esquivel and Brandi Narvaez. Esquivel was 1-0 and making her LFA debut, and with the UFC typically only being a few wins away, Esquivel was looking to be the next UFC product if all went well.

Esquivel submitted Narvaez in the first round in front of Barber and her father, giving Barber her trial run at calling for a fight.

“At the time, Itzel was one of the top prospects for LFA,” Barber said. “When she won, I told them,  ‘Hey, I’ll fight her in your next show.’ So they gave me the opportunity.”

Three months later, the 0-0 strawweight stepped into the cage with Esquivel with the potential to be made an example of by a rising star in MMA.

Barber saw Esquivel’s submission inside five minutes and raised her a submission inside four minutes when her armbar took the fight out of Esquivel. Barber had called for a fight and followed through on the promise she made to the LFA, breaking on to the pro MMA scene and derailing Esquivel’s hype train.

LFA, trusting Barber only at her word, had found a new star following a sequence of events she wasn’t surprised by at all.

“I can’t speak for the promotion, itself, because I don’t know how they felt,” Barber said. “I can understand anybody coming in and having no footage on them or no experience, but I grew up in the gym and I’ve trained my butt off. Me and my family were fully confident that I could go out and fight any other woman and it’s paid off. I’m on a different level than these other girls and that’s something we’ve believed from the very beginning.”

Barber is very clear that her skill and confidence led her to the UFC, but it didn’t come without a little extra push. Without the right eyeballs, the flashy knockouts and demands for fighters, especially women fighters, go completely under the radar.

“I would say if you’re a female fighter and you want to make it to the UFC then you need to go through a promotion like LFA,” Barber said. “I wouldn’t have asked for any other promotion other than LFA and I couldn’t have gotten with a better promotion before getting to the UFC.”

Barber is over a year removed from her last fight with LFA, and while she’s comfortably burning through opponents and calling for bigger names, the Barber family still feels there work left to be done in the LFA and Maycee’s younger brother, Wyatt, is the next Barber to take the promotion by storm.

“My brother just fought for the LFA, too,” Barber said. He’s an amateur and he’s going through the same process I did. He’s having trouble finding fights. The LFA is a fantastic promotion and I think that a great place for him to fight because he’s got the eyes he needs on him. He hangs with Raufeon Stots, he hangs with Sergio Pettis and I think he’s with a great promotion. He is in a great position to go through to the UFC.”

You can now catch all of Maycee Barber’s fights, LFA live events and watch the rise of Wyatt Barber, ONLY on UFC FIGHT PASS!

UFC FIGHT PASS®, the world’s leading digital subscription service for combat sports, and Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA) today announced a multi-year streaming agreement in which UFC FIGHT PASS will serve as the exclusive global streaming provider for LFA events. The inaugural event under this deal, LFA 78, will take place on Friday, November 15, live from the Bell County Expo Center in Belton, Texas, at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT.

Under the terms of the new agreement, UFC FIGHT PASS will live stream two remaining events in 2019, 20 events in 2020, and 24 events in 2021. In addition to live LFA events, subscribers of UFC FIGHT PASS will also have access to the entire LFA event library starting in 2020.

Historically, a total of 176 LFA athletes have transitioned to UFC, including UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo, UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, and UFC women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko.

LFA currently has alumni in every UFC weight class, 31 of whom are ranked, including former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm, UFC featherweight Brian Ortega, UFC light heavyweight Dominick Reyes, UFC heavyweight Curtis Blaydes, and UFC women’s flyweight Maycee Barber.

“It’s great to have LFA as the newest member of the UFC FIGHT PASS family,” said UFC President Dana White. “LFA has a long tradition of developing fighters that go on to compete at the next level, whether its Dana White’s Contender Series, The Ultimate Fighter, or on the biggest stage with UFC. I’m thrilled to give these up-and-coming fighters a platform to showcase their abilities, while also providing a new home for LFA.”

“I couldn’t be more excited about partnering with UFC FIGHT PASS,” said LFA CEO Ed Soares. “With LFA being the industry leader in developing talent and UFC being the industry leader in our sport, it’s a partnership that has all of the ingredients for success.”

“This new partnership with UFC FIGHT PASS allows us to streamline our promotional schedule and target our best markets for the 2020 season,” said LFA President Sven Bean. “I’m excited to return to work with some of our top venue partners across the country, while developing strategic relationships in some new markets as well. We will continue to bring top level production to MMA fans from coast to coast.”

“This new relationship will only strengthen LFA as a premium provider of talent to UFC,” said LFA Vice President Mark Bieri. “I look forward to working with our existing roster and also signing new talent as we continue to provide a worldwide platform for young fighters.”

To sign up for UFC FIGHT PASS, please visit www.ufcfightpass.com

Francisco Trinaldo’s advice to those asking about his longevity in the sport as he readies to make his 20th trip into the Octagon this weekend opposite Bobby Green in Sao Paulo, Brazil seems like pretty sound advice for everyone, pugilist or otherwise.

“Eat well and rest and everything will work out fine,” the Brazilian lightweight said while discussing his position as one of the elder statesmen on the UFC roster.

Given the results, it’s hard to argue with the approach.

After making his promotional debut with a victory over Delson Heleno in a middleweight bout at UFC 147 following his time on The Ultimate Fighter Brazil, Trinaldo has spent the last seven years amassing a 12-6 record in the deepest, most competitive division in the sport.

His two-year, seven-fight winning streak between September 2014 and September 2016 included victories over Chad Laprise, Ross Pearson, Yancy Medeiros and Paul Felder and carried him into the Top 15. Although he’s slipped from the rankings in recent years, the talented veteran has remained a tough out on the fringes of the championship chase, alternating wins and losses while sharing the cage with veteran stalwarts and emerging hopefuls alike.

Last time out, the 41-year-old dropped a debated unanimous decision to Alexander Hernandez in San Antonio, Texas, getting the nod on the majority of media scorecards submitted to the website MMADecisions.com, but falling short on the only three tally sheets that truly mattered.

“I want to fight until my body can’t handle it,” Trinaldo said of competing at an age when most of his contemporaries have hung up their gloves and moved on to other ventures. “I think of myself as a 29-year-old, 30-year-old guy, training with these younger guys, so I have a young soul and I want to keep training and fighting as long as my body is okay with it.”

While the focus with long-tenured fighters like Trinaldo is often, understandably, on when they will transition to the next stage of life, the only way to arrive at a point where you have an “eat well, get proper rest and everything will be fine” approach on life is through experience, and the lessons learned along the way are a major part of what contributes to his ability to continue competing at a high level.

Just like the old guy at the YMCA who doesn’t look like he’ll be able to hang with the kids in a full court run, only to bust out a few up-and-unders and get in perfect position for every rebound, Trinaldo has garnered the kind of crucial insights and perspective that can only be gleaned from competing alongside the best in the world for the better part of the last decade.

“When I was younger, I thought I needed to work everything out in the first minute of the first round,” admitted Trinaldo, who has earned three previous UFC victories inside the Ginásio do Ibirapuera where he’ll face Green on Saturday. “Now that I’m more confident, more experienced, I know I have three rounds to do what I came to do.

“Each time I enter the Octagon, I’m more confident in my skills, and when I’m well-trained, no one can beat me.”

This weekend’s pairing with Green is a prototypical example of the kind of tough fights Trinaldo has consistently logged throughout his UFC career and there are a lot of similarities between the two.

A 34-fight veteran who fought a tough slate on the California regional circuit before landing in Strikeforce and eventually matriculating to the UFC, the 33-year-old Green is, like Trinaldo, one of those savvy, dangerous veterans no one is ever in a rush to face. He’s solid in every facet and comfortable wherever the fight goes, plus he’s tough to put away, which means you know you’re in for a long, hard night of work when you step into the cage.

Green, like Trinaldo, is a seasoned, professional fighter, and though there are no major stakes tied to their preliminary card pairing on Saturday in Sao Paulo, it remains one of the must-see matchups of the weekend and the kind of bout that keeps things constantly moving in the talent-rich lightweight ranks.

“I studied him a great deal, as I’m sure he studied me too,” Trinaldo said of Green. “I think we’re going to have a great fight, but I know I’ll end up as the winner. My intention is to knock him out.”

Whether that comes to pass or not, the result will not change Trinaldo’s approach or his outlook as the 41-year-old heads into 2020 and his ninth year on the UFC roster.

“I feel like a hero for the younger generation,” said Trinaldo, who, like many of his fellow fighters, has opened his own academy in order to give back to the community and inspire the next generation. “I have a social project, so I’m always there, training, helping with the kids. They see me as a hero, so I feel like a hero.”

Kazushi Sakuraba is bringing the most exciting grappling event on the planet back to Las Vegas for possibly the biggest grappling show of all-time: QUINTET Ultra.

Sakuraba has brought some of the biggest stars from the four biggest MMA promotions of all-time to square off in his four-team submission grappling competition on Thursday, December 12 at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas, live on UFC FIGHT PASS.

Sign-up for UFC Fight Pass

With each five-man team of grapplers being kept to a 960-pound maximum weight, Team UFC, Team Strikeforce, Team PRIDE and Team WEC are slated to battle for supremacy in QUINTET’s first show in America since October 5, 2018.

To better understand the concept of QUINTET is to think of it as a reflection of Sakuraba’s career and philosophy in combat sports. From the weight limit to the necessary ground skills to the forced action, the promotion oozes Sakuraba.

“At first I didn’t want it to be a free weight where it’s whatever weight,” Sakuraba said. “Otherwise it’s going to be all big guys and I wanted the possibility of the small guy submitting the big guy which is probably one of the most exciting moments in fight sports, when you have a David vs. Goliath situation, which I’ve taken on many times. So basically, what I did was take my own weight and multiplied it by five and came up with the team weight.”

The last time QUINTET was in America, QUINTET 3 brought the fans Sakuraba’s favorite round to date when the voice of Eddie Bravo echoed throughout the arena as he shouted directions to Team 10th Planet’s freaks as they went head to head with Craig Jones, Daniel Strauss and the rest of the standouts from Team Polaris.

With every man who was supposed to win, there was a counter. No win was easy, small took on large, draws, the whole package. It was everything Sakuraba could have imagined when putting together the concept for QUINTET.

“There were so many upsets and overturns,” Sakuraba said. “You think it’s going to go this way and it went that way and it kept going back and forth, you really didn’t know who was going to win until the very last guy and there were lots of submissions, lots of different techniques, lots of different combinations of techniques. There was a flavor to each team but, at the same time, there was a different flavor to each individual’s color and style. It was very exciting to watch.”

While the stars of each team will fight tooth and nail to bring home the win for their team, the comradery of BJJ mixed with a little bit of Sakuaba’s element of fun makes QUINTET the ideal combat sport for both competitors and spectators.

“You’re in there on the mat with your opponent but you just can’t help but want to go drinking with your opponent after,” Sakuraba said. “There’s not a lot of hyperbole or anger that seems to be the mainstay of men’s sports.”

With its team grappling and a relay to eliminate every member of the opposing team, it’s already an event like none other. With rules against stalling and referees more than willing to hand out warnings, the action is always pressed. With no heel hooks, the biggest health threat is eliminated. A man weighting 130 pounds could easily find himself the last man standing on his team staring down the barrel of three men north of 200 pounds.

It’s an event that Sakuraba feels is impossible to avoid investing your heart into.

“At least give QUINTET a chance,” Sakuraba said. “Even if you don’t know grappling it’s very easy to root for a team because if one team only has one guy left, he’s going to have to beat three guys to win, and dramatic situations like those are really easy to occur. There’s just something about grappling. It should have that fun aspect of something that people would enjoy to be a part of but at the same time the concept has proved to be strong enough that the popularity is going to continue to rise.”

Sakuraba and the other stars of PRIDE FC QUINTET Ultra come at you LIVE, Thursday, December 12 at 7 p.m., ONLY on UFC FIGHT PASS!

Before “Sugar” Sean O’Malley was in the Octagon lighting up opponents with his “where is this coming from?” striking power, he was an amateur fighter in Montana with more submissions than knockouts.

Yet something about going pro flipped a switch, and in ten professional fights, only one has ended in a tap out.

Since his debut in 2013, O’Malley scored one of the flashiest knockouts in the history of North Dakota MMA, in his opinion the best knockout in LFA history and statistically the most popular knockout in DWCS history. Couple that with his swagger and you’ve got an undefeated fighter with a knack for turning heads.

While no press is bad press, O’Malley feels criticism and trash talk from fighters in the division have placed him in a box.

“I think a lot of people in the division are underestimating me,” O’Malley said in a recent interview with UFC.com. “I feel like they think I’m the hype train, but my whole life is dedicated to training, recovering and doing it all again the next day.”

Training out of The MMA Lab in Arizona, O’Malley has a star-studded group of mixed martial artists around him who are no stranger to the ground game. And after being on the sidelines since March 2018 due to a USADA and then a NSAC suspension, O’Malley plans to show the world the improved reboot of “The Sugar Show.”

“Within this last year and a half or so I’ve done a lot of gi training which I feel like has translated extremely well to no gi and MMA,” O’Malley said. “I was going to do No Gi Worlds actually, which is the same day, but then I got offered QUINTET and I would, for sure, rather do this.”

Comparable to rattlesnake venom, a tiny dose of QUINTET was all it took to do O’Malley in.

After watching a brief amount of QUINTET 3, O’Malley loved the concept and when he saw the lineup, he was in. The immortality of a No Gi Worlds win couldn’t compete with the allure of representing Team UFC at QUINTET Ultra.

“A lot of the high-level grappling matches with straight jiu-jitsu guys, you see a lot of 50/50s and a lot of stalling in positions,” O’Malley said. “All these guys are fighters or former fighters; these guys aren’t into that. The list of people I saw in this looked like a ton of killers.”

With black belt after black belt in the lineup, O’Malley knows he comes in as an underdog, and while he’s eager to enjoy his time in his first grappling event, there’s a certain pressure coming in, a pressure that helps his agenda of proving he’s one of the baddest all-around fighters in the world.

Lack of experience, “only” a BJJ purple belt and a reputation for striking are all factors working against O’Malley, but would the young man who won Fight of the Night at UFC 222 let any perceived disadvantage ruin his experience?

“With the people I’ve seen, the only guy that’s similar size to me is Chad Mendes. I don’t see anybody even close to my size,” O’Malley said. “I feel like I’m going to be a huge underdog since all of these guys are high-level black belts, but I think there’s still a fun aspect to it where since it’s jiu-jitsu you can’t really put yourself in that much of a dangerous position but anything can happen.”

O’Malley doesn’t guarantee a clean sweep of any team in front of him, isn’t making boasts of an advantage or a plan he has in store. But the one thing he is guaranteeing is the same wow factor he brings to the Octagon.

Win, lose or draw, O’Malley is giving a screening of “The Sugar Show” to the grappling world and it’s just as flashy and just as technical as his striking game.

“I guess I haven’t come up with much of a game plan, but I’ve got to go in there and attack,” O’Malley said. “If I can be on top, that’s good but we’ll see. I’ll have to think of a game plan once it gets closer, but I’d definitely rather lose than not have the matches be fun and exciting.”

Catch O’Malley as he represents Team UFC at QUINTET Ultra, Thursday, December 12 at 7 p.m., ONLY on UFC FIGHT PASS!