Midnight Mania! Cris Cyborg vs Tonya Evinger set for UFC 214 with Megan Anderson out

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

What is it about the featherweight belt? First, the men’s division sees the weird situation with McGregor getting stripped, Aldo getting his interim belt upgraded to the “real” belt, and Max Holloway winning the new interim belt. Max only just managed to return the division to normalcy after defeating Jose Aldo in spectacular fashion.

The women’s featherweight division, though, takes the cake for weirdness. It was created as a vehicle to showcase Cyborg, despite the paucity of fighting women of high ability above 135 pounds. But Cyborg said she wasn’t prepared to cut weight on medium notice, and turned the fight down. Then she popped positive, before getting a retroactive Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE). Meanwhile, the UFC decided to book two bantamweights, Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie, for the belt at UFC 208. Germaine de Randamie won in a very forgettable fight, then began avoiding a fight with Cyborg as hard as she possibly could, first claiming a hand injury that conveniently wouldn’t affect a rematch with Holm, then just claiming she wouldn’t fight Cyborg because she had popped for PEDs. Eventually she was openly talking about returning to bantamweight, but acted surprised when the UFC finally stripped her of the belt and booked Cyborg against young Invicta champion Megan Anderson for a new belt.

Now, UFC 214 has a new co-main event. With Anderson out due to “pressing personal reasons”, the UFC has finally tapped the tough-as-nails bantamweight champion, Tonya Evinger, to face Cyborg.

Megan Anderson’s social media explanation:

In case you haven’t seen her social media, Tonya Evinger gets wild with the ladies

And has an adorable dog

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Insomnia

GSP crossing into basketball now

Felice Herrig won’t address the poop in the Octagon, but she does discuss this almost-choke.

Paige VanZant back in training

This weekend in combat sports, courtesy of the epicenter of MMA Twitter, Grabaka Hitman.

I saw some of you Maniacs in the comments debating the origin of Chandler’s leg injury yesterday. This might help:

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Slips. Rips. Knockout Clips

I hope you like old Pride highlights.

Some boxing from tonight

This submission is truly unusual. I remember an instructor showing it once upon a time, but I’ve never seen it actually work.

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Good Reads

• Ronda Rousey has gone from feminist icon to cooking for accused wife beater Travis Browne.
• In case you missed it, the awful Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation is screwing up Cortney Casey’s career, and so far refuses to own up to their mistakes.
• The hunt for the earliest use of the term “pound for pound” in combat sports history goes farther back than I realized
• Scott Coker has no idea how the UFC forces independent contractors (its fighters) to wear a uniform. The uniforms alone are probably not enough to demonstrate that the UFC is exploiting it’s fighters by keeping them independent contractors without employee benefits, while treating them like employees, but there are a number of other ways this is done- USADA drug testing requiring 24/7 access to fighter’s locations, for one, and exclusive long-term contracts, for another.

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Random Land

This isn’t strictly volleyball but its still pretty intense

Stay woke, Maniacs! Follow me on Twitter @Vorpality