MMA News Roundup: Alex Pereira leaves cryptic message for Israel Adesanya, Zabit Magomedsharipov reveals "real reason" behind UFC retirement, Conor McGregor trolled for training on dock
Welcome to today's edition of Sportskeeda's daily MMA News Roundup, where we present the biggest UFC updates and other stories from the world of mixed martial arts.
In the latest issue, we talk about Alex Pereira tweeting a cryptic message at Israel Adesanya, fans trolling Conor McGregor for training on his yacht pier, and more.
#3 Alex Pereira stands in the way of Israel Adesanya's title reign
Alex Pereira has every intention of disrupting Israel Adesanya's middleweight title run when they meet at UFC 281 in November, and he's not shying away from letting it be known.
Adesanya shared a tweet by the UFC yesterday in which the 'Stylebender Era' was glorified with highlight reels of his greatest victories compiled together. Adesanya captioned the tweet:
"Still here, not going anywhere!!"
twitter.com/ufc/status/156ā¦
Still here, not going anywhere!! š twitter.com/ufc/status/156ā¦
Pereira tweeted a short but seemingly effective "double-eyes" emoji under Adesanya's post, making it clear that he plans on dethroning the middleweight king.
@stylebender š
The two have a storied history, with 'The Last Stylebender' losing twice to 'Poatan' twice during their kickboxing days.
#2 The UFC did not keep their promise - Zabit Magomedsharipov on his MMA retirement
Zabit Magomedsharipov is one of the biggest 'what ifs' of the MMA world.
He had an extremely prospective run in the UFC with a 5-fight winning streak in the featherweight division between 2017 and 2019. However, the Russian unexpectedly went off-grid for a significant amount of time before announcing a shock retirement from the sport.
Ariel Helwani reported that his religious dilemma was behind the decision, which was corroborated by his Instagram post on pursuing a career in medicine.
Magomedsharipov broke silence on the matter for the first time since retirement in a recent media scrum [translated by Fighting Flashback on YouTube], where he pin-pointed the main reasons why he left MMA:
"There were many reasons. Firstly, because of refusals to fight with me. I had no fights for two years. Then there were injuries, I was sick a lot. I didn't recover. Such, many reasons. The main reason was I was not able to fight. They didn't give me a title shot. They promised me one thing and did another. They promised me and didn't keep that promise. That was the main reason why I got mad."
Magomedsharipov did not rule out the possibility of a return to the sport. However, he said that he would want to stay away from MMA for at least 2-3 years.
Watch the video below:
#1 Conor McGregor trolled for outdoor training video
Conor McGregor has given MMA fans a lot of reasons to roast him all week long. In his latest Instagram post, he uploaded a video of him hitting the pads on a yacht pier. He also tried to refuel his longstanding feud with boxer Paulie Malignaggi in the caption of the post:
"Iām the Magic Man f*** malinaggi and the lot of them."
UFC fans obviously took the opportunity to troll the Irishman some more. While some pointed out how difficult it is to take a fighter seriously to trains on docks to show off his yacht-affording wealth, others did praise his speed and crispness of striking.
Check out the comments here.