Midnight Mania! Sidelined Shavkat Won’t Waste Energy, Only Wants Title Fight

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Let’s start the night off by taking look back over the three biggest stories of Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

1. Un-retired and not champion Jon Jones is happy to ‘be the hunter, not the hunted’ – ‘Feels nice’: Every Jon Jones quote is worse than the last. It has to be intentional. Nobody can be this irritating by accident, right?
2. Pic: UFC Nashville’s Junior Tafa is completely transformed ahead of Light Heavyweight debut: It’ll be very interesting to see if Tafa is a better defensive grappler at 205-pounds. He’s certainly a nasty puncher!
3. Mystified Max Holloway wants out of ‘ridiculous’ rankings ahead of UFC 318 — ‘What the hell is going on?’: The official UFC rankings leaving fighters in multiple divisions after they’ve left one is indeed a plague.

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— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) July 8, 2025