Francis Ngannou was one of the biggest names and draws in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) at the start of 2023. Ngannou was the UFC’s heavyweight champion and was allegedly offered the biggest UFC heavyweight contract in history to resign with the organization.
Ngannou decided against resigning with the UFC as he wanted to pursue a fight in boxing either with Tyson Fury or Anthony Joshua as he wanted a $30 million fight purse. Since relinquishing his heavyweight title and parting ways with the UFC, things haven’t gone well for the 36 year old.
MMA Promotions Not Keen On Signing Ngannou
Initially there were a number of MMA promotions including Bellator and Bare Knuckle FC that were interested in singing Ngannou but they soon gave up as they felt Ngannou was asking for too much.
Tyson Fury did not show a lot of interest in fighting Ngannou and suddenly Ngannou found himself out in the cold. Asia’s ONE Championship said last week that they were looking to sign Ngannou but CEO Chatri Sityodtong said they decided not to make the offer in the end as Ngannou did not align with their long term vision.
Ngannou hasn’t fought for over 400 days and his star power is quickly declining without the UFC backing him. The only other big MMA organization that is yet to make an offer is the PFL and if that falls through, Ngannou might have to swallow his pride and accept an offer lower than his earlier expectations.
Philadelphia 76ers Center Joel Embiid came so close to winning the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Year award for the last two seasons in the NBA but fell just short as Center Nikola Jokic from the Denver Nuggets beat him to win on both occasions.
Joel Embiid Wins 2022-2023 MVP Award
The NBA polls showed that this season the competition for the MVP award was once again going to be between Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. Jokic was looking to win his third consecutive MVP award but had to settle for second place as Joel Embiid won the 2022-2023 MVP Award by a landslide.
Embiid ended up with 73/100 votes while Jokic could get just 15/100 for this season. Coming in third place was Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo who ended up with 12/100 votes.
This was the first MVP award for Embiid who was thrilled on being named MVP. Embiid said he was left speechless after finding out that he had won the MVP award and it was fitting as the 29 year old ended up having his best season for the Philadelphia 76ers averaging 33.1 points per game.
The 2023 Worlds Strongest Man (WSM) competition took place over the weekend and some of the strongest men in the world took part to test their strength and endurance against each other.
UK’s Tom Stoltman won the WSM during the 2021 and 2022 editions and was looking to make it 3 in a row. He came really close but could not beat Canada’s Mitchell Hooper who won three out of the final six events to beat Stoltman and take first place.
Canada Win’s WSM For The First Time
This was an incredible feat for Hooper and Canada as this was the very first time that a Canadian has won the WSM competition. This was also only the second time that Hooper has participated in the WSM with his first appearance in 2022, when he entered the competition as a last minute replacement and finished in 8th place.
Hooper has made a name for himself on the strongman circuit during the last couple of years as he has won some of the best strongman competitions in recent times which includes the The Giants Live World Tour Finals and the 2023 Arnold Strongman Classic.
The New Orleans Police Department confirmed earlier this week that they had viewed video footage of a fight outside a nightclub in Bourbon Street, which shows former UFC star Nate Diaz get into a fight and choke out a man.
The man who was a lookalike of Logan Paul fell unconscious to the flood and ended up banging and cutting his head. The New Orleans Police Department issued an arrest warrant for Nate Diaz for second degree assault which is a felony in the state.
There were talks on social media that due to this incident, Nate Diaz’s boxing watch with Jake Paul in August could be in jeopardy.
Nate Diaz’s Lawyer Releases Statement
Walter Becker, attorney for Nate Diaz said that they had received the information about the arrest warrant and looked forward to meeting with District Attorney to prove that Nate Diaz was acting in self-defense.
Diaz’s team will claim that the man choked out was Rodney Petersen who is a trained fighter. They will argue that Petersen aggressively went after Nate Diaz and wanted to start a fight and Nate actions were only in self-defense.
India will get another chance to win the World Test Championship when they take on Australia at The Oval from June 7 – 11. India also made it to the final of the inaugural World Test Championship in 2021 when they took on New Zealand but ended up on the losing side.
Ajinkya Rahane Names In 15 Member Squad
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not have many tough decisions to make when naming the 15 member squad for the World Test Championship. The BCCI has gone with the usual set of test players with one exception.
Former test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane has been recalled to the test team which comes as a surprise as many believed the 34 year Rahane’s test career was done. However, Rahane has a done well for India in the past in overseas conditions and given his recent run in the IPL, the selectors decided to add him to the squad.
Squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, KS Bharat (wk), Jaydev Unadkat, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Siraj and Umesh Yadav.