UFC 318 takes centre stage in New Orleans this weekend as long-time rivals Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier contest a high-profile trilogy fight. It will be an emotional occasion in his home state of Louisiana for Poirier, 36, who is fighting for the final ...

If we’re lucky here in the combat domain, there are a couple of times a year the fight world explodes with options. This weekend is one of those.

During his media day interviews on UFC 318 fight week, Dustin Poirier confirmed that the dream scenario that he pitched for his final walk out is set to happen on Saturday night. Anyone who has been watching ‘The Diamond’ for some time knows that his walk out song of choice is the iconic James Brown track, ‘The Boss’.

NEW ORLEANS – Paulo Costa has seen better days, but Roman Kopylov still considers him to be at elite level.

New Orleans rapper Alfred Banks celebrates his birthday on Saturday, July 19, with a show at Gasa Gasa. He’ll be joined by La Reezy, who recently has been catching some national attention, and gifted lyricist Kaye the Beast. Music starts at 9 p.m., and tickets are $19.29 via gasagasanola.com.

At 42 years old, Melvin Guillard is still an ‘anytime, anywhere’ kind of fighter. The 60-fight MMA veteran fought under the UFC banner 20 times against the likes of Nate Diaz, Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, and more.

"The Italian Dream" takes on bitter rival Brendan Allen on the preliminary card of Saturday's UFC pay-per-view event at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. Vettori (19-7-1 MMA, 9-6-1 UFC) and Allen (24-7 MMA, 12-4 UFC) have plenty of history, more infamously getting into a brawl on the casino floor of the Hard Rock Hotel in South Florida.

The fatal mistake wasn't nerves or jitters, no. It was quite the opposite. Freire (36-8 MMA, 0-1 UFC) said his UFC 314 loss to Yair Rodriguez was the result of being too calm.